Articles

Logistics

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Can Exception Management be Automated?

Q: Managing exceptions in freight settlement is, by definition, a manual process even when a shipper has a transportation management system (TMS) and freight payment/audit solution in place. Why can’t exception management be automated? A: The truth is, it can be, and to a surprisingly high degree. Significant exceptions such as large discrepancies in rates […]

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Dan Sellers
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Shopping for a Transportation Management System: Factors to Consider

Is your organization seeking to replace its current Transportation Management System (TMS) or obtain a TMS for the first time? Besides the obvious factors, such as overall cost, functionality that meets your requirements, and the ability to integrate with your current system and trading partners, below are five points to consider when shopping for a […]

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Frank McGuigan
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Consumer Demand Helping Drive 3PL Industry Growth

In recent years, shippers have encountered new standards of velocity, market choice, and cost for their products. Consumers are demanding better variety and greater availability at the lowest possible cost. These demands put increasing pressure on retailers, who in turn, pass that burden on to their suppliers—further increasing complexity and intensifying pressure on supply chains. […]

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Gaining Visibility Through Data

Q: Data impacts the way many organizations make decisions. Can a freight audit and payment system provide added visibility? A: If shippers don’t have valid insight, they can’t make valid decisions. Data analysis and benchmarking can provide this visibility, allowing shippers to identify outliers in performance and cost. Yet most companies don’t have the technology […]

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We’ve Been Together for 35 Years 

This month marks my 35th anniversary of serving readers as editor of Inbound Logistics. That milestone gave me reason to look back while developing and editing the content for this annual logistics technology issue. Three decades ago, logistics technology primarily consisted of typewriters, pens and pencils, ledgers, paper maps, and hand-typed bills of lading and […]

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Leading Logistics Provider Closes More Business, Develops Stronger Customer Relationships

The Challenge With its growing international customer base, this global logistics and transportation service provider for the chemical and process industries recognized the need to automate its contract management and pricing process and to expand its global operations. However, the logistics team realized it would be very difficult to handle the increased number of contracts […]

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Brad Hollister
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TMS Launches New Era: Control Tower Visibility

It wasn’t long ago that top executives around the world had to be convinced why they needed accounting software to run their companies. Today it is unthinkable of any company operating without accounting software to manage their company’s finances. The importance of technology in shipping is starting to reach this same critical point for most […]

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Blockchain Set to Shake Up Shipping

International trade is a maze of regulations, and mostly manual, inefficient processes that lack transparency. This is all about to radically change with blockchain technology. Shipping today is riddled with documentation, regulations, and policies that require certificates of origin, letters of credit, bills of lading, vessel manifests, and customs declarations. Blockchain converts documents, such as […]

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