Industry insight

1. Strict lead time requirement

In the widely used JIT automotive and manufacturing industries, very low inventory of the entire chain often mean any disruptions in transport could have serious consequences such as out-of-stock of downstream and even line stoppage. Almost every logistics manager had an awful night’s sleep because of the missed delivery windows. While root causes  often arise not in transport itself  it helps to have clear accountability set for logistics providers. Therefore, an effective tracking, management and proactive alerts are welcomed by responsible logistics manages.

2. Complex freight billing

Unlike most consumer goods industries that use standard packaging and simple freight billing, there are many unique part containers & returnable packaging in the automotive and manufacturing industries. Because of different requirements，stacking patterns  and space occupation, different products in the same shipment can be billed differently. There are different modes of transportation i.e. multi-point delivery, simultaneous vehicle and LTL, milk run etc. If you use excel for freight billing, it requires a lot of labor, and cost accuracy depends largely on the employee’s due diligence and responsibility. Mistakes are costly to reverse.

3. High Shipping Cost

The intensification of production and the decentralization of sales are the cornerstones of modern contractual transport, which is particularly evident in the automotive and manufacturing industries. Large capacity, long distance, aging and high operating requirements, together lead to a higher shipping costs.

4. Relatively stable partners

Because of sensitive business nature, unique expertise needed, the automotive and manufacturing industries tend to have very stable carriers. When launching bidding both carrier selection criteria and quality of information shared with them is very important – all of this can be improved by using oTMS.