In today’s Logistics business time and performance are key to success. Now more than ever analytics, metrics and key performance indicators are critical components in planning and execution protocols. Today’s logistics market is more demanding than it’s ever been. Businesses across the supply chain are now expected to easily adjust to shipment patterns, predict customers’ buying behaviors, provide on-time deliveries through the most efficient routes possible, and reduce the risks of cargo inventory errors and miscalculations. Predictive analysis allows for advanced planning for future demand based upon historical data. This movement towards anticipatory logistics is already widely accepted among industry decision-makers: A study by the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals revealed that 93% of shippers and 98% of third-party logistics firms feel like data-driven decision-making is crucial to supply chain activities, and 71% of them believe that big data improves quality and performance. 

As we struggle to combat Covid-19 and other mutant strains of the virus, through this year and beyond, logistics planners may want to keep their eye on some key factors affecting the supply chain. You may find some of these topics affecting your logistics planning in the coming years.

Christmas, is the Christian festival celebrating the birth of Jesus. The English term Christmas (“mass on Christ’s day”) is of fairly recent origin. The earlier term Yule may have derived from the Germanic jōl or the Anglo-Saxon geōl, which referred to the feast of the winter solstice. The corresponding terms in other languages—Navidad in Spanish, Natale in Italian, Noël in French—all probably denote nativity. The German word Weihnachten denotes “hallowed night.” Since the early 20th century, Christmas has also been a secular family holiday, observed by Christians and non-Christians alike, devoid of Christian elements, and marked by an increasingly elaborate exchange of gifts. In this secular Christmas celebration, a mythical figure named Santa Claus plays the pivotal role. Christmas is celebrated on Friday, December 25, 2020.

As the challenging year of 2020 draws to a close it may be useful to review some of your freight payment protocols. A good place to start is a year-end freight bill review. Things are a little quieter this time of year and there is plenty of recent data to review. Typically, this is a no cost exercise provided by your 3PL so there is every reason to have the review done. If for no other reason than knowing your fright payment protocols are working.

What is a Freight Invoice Audit?

Rising freight costs is an emerging area of concern as seen in recent years. The cost of freight has been rising due to the increase in oil prices and all freight cost is highly dependent on the cost of transportation which relates directly to fuel prices and market demand. With high fluctuations of fuel costs, low visibility of the future freight costs and high complexity of the freight quotes, freight cost verification are vulnerable to human and process errors and this requires proper auditing to ensure that the organization does not overpay for services it did not incur.  As a concept, freight invoice auditing is not overly complicated to understand but is a playground for mistakes and inefficiencies due to the volume of transactions. The potential financial leak is significant. The idea is to make sure you only pay the shipping charges you should, and nothing more. In most cases, software does the hard work. However, in some cases more focused auditing may be necessary to identify overcharges or inefficiencies.  An organization is daunted with the task of calculating the freight rates manually and this task can be challenging when the customer has hundreds of shipments shipped each month. Most organizations do not have the manpower to calculate all the freight invoices issued to them and, at best, they perform random sampling to check if the sample invoice is billed correctly.  It is simply a sound business practice to do an annual freight bill audit.

No one would argue that there is little to be thankful for in 2020. Let’s consider it a bit further. The COVID-19 pandemic has been stressful and isolating for many people. Gatherings during the upcoming holidays can be an opportunity to reconnect with family and friends. But this holiday season, consider how your plans can be modified to reduce the spread of COVID-19 to keep your friends, families, and communities healthy and safe. Looking ahead, let’s examine the Biden economic recovery plan highlights.

There is little doubt that technology has transformed the Logistics business in the last several years. Will we ever get to fast enough or efficient enough? It's not likely. Under pressure exerted by demand for instant gratification, new tech-first logistics providers are beginning to pervade the fulfillment environment. Without the autonomous hardware that promises to supersede traditional road transportation, they are instead leveraging digital tools to improve the performance of manually executed deliveries and reduce lead times from days to hours, with 24 being today’s bargain-basement service level. These companies, through the use of customer-integrated business platforms, mobile technology, and crowd-sourcing, are finding ways to pick orders within minutes of receiving them, dispatch deliveries on-demand, and bring buyer’s purchases to them in time-frames of two hours or even less.  How are logistics professional going to keep this pace?  Here are some technology trends that may be worth a look as we enter 2021 and beyond.

Robotics

Given the energy and investment in robotics in our space, suggesting that there will be a robotics trend in 2021 is pretty obvious. After all the pilots and promises, what seems to be happening is that robot solution providers, and the end user community, are realizing that there is no one size fits all robotic applications. Quite the opposite is true. The customization is proving so complicated due to the advanced operations of the robots that the programming and engineering has become problematically complicated. Robotic applications are a very customized solution depending upon the product line, distribution protocols and warehouse volume parameters. The challenge, in addition to the design, will be the management system that can bring the components in synchronicity with the rest of the automation. The difficulty seems to be that there is no standardization among the robotic providers. Each have their own standards, communication protocols and capabilities. Someone will have to figure all of that out as robots proliferate. The next generation robots will not just be tasked with simply, repetitive and mundane projects as were the first generation. The robots of today will be much more complicated providing a wide range of services. As you increase the tasks you increase both the software and hardware configurations necessary to support the project. These ambitious goal will certainly be a challenge to the engineers and programmers.

Edge Computing

Donald Trump’s promise to bring back millions of manufacturing jobs was an important element in his surprising electoral victory. Trump was able to win enough blue-collar and normally Democratic voters in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin to cement his Electoral College majority. Bringing back manufacturing to the United States must appeal to nearly everyone. But is it possible? For the last 30 plus years China and similar labor friendly countries have welcomed international manufacturing with open arms. So much so that the dependence upon outsourced manufacturing in the U.S has become both a leverage point manufacturing negotiation as well as a potential Pandora's box of nightmarish dependency.

Labor Day pays tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers and is traditionally observed on the first Monday in September. It was created by the labor movement in the late 19th century and became a federal holiday in 1894.

As retailers struggle with re-opening strategies it’s clear the new normal will be something we have never experienced.  Consumers in many areas of the world have tightened their wallets and eliminated discretionary spending because of lost jobs, lower wages, and uncertainty about how long the COVID-19 pandemic will last.

Much like personal relationships, the relationship between an organization and its third-party logistics provider requires effort from both parties to stay productive, healthy, and strong. A 3PL cannot expect to provide services without catering them specifically to their client’s needs, and an organization cannot expect to run their logistics operation hands-free. It takes communication and constant collaboration to run a smooth, successful supply chain and promote positive growth for the client’s business as a whole.  It will take a long-term commitment from both parties to create a successful partnership.