Introduction to TLP

The diverse nature of the activities of logistics companies poses many challenges. Resources need to be balanced to ensure good outcomes. Extensive investment in equipment items of various types must be managed to ensure a positive return is being realised on those assets. The various types of jobs, which can range from a simple cartage job to a multi-faceted contract involving the use of many items of equipment and other resources such as company staff, suppliers and inventory, must be managed to ensure deadlines are met and profit realised. And of course the logistics company may be responsible for client’s inventory and have a need to manage this, and also to ensure related storage and activity functions realise a positive return for the company.

The TLP Software suite has been designed with recognition of this diversity and a goal of presenting Logistics Companies with the ability to manage all aspects of their operations in one integrated system, while allowing the company to utilise specialised accounting applications for the things they are suitable for.

The central component of the TLP System is the Transport Management Module which enables the management of the core role of the company. This document provides a description of the base TLP Transport Management module.

Introduction to Transport Management

Transport companies are quite varied in nature and while the core aspect of delivering an item of freight from point A to point B is common, the complexity and variety of the processes and the multiple freight types demand that any Transport Management system must be very flexible and functional if it is to truly provide a solution to the industry.

Through its unique architecture, which provides an extremely high level of flexibility, and the high level of functionality provided TLP is able to meet the demands of the entire industry. This allows us to offer solutions to companies of the following types;

• Bulk Freight
• Livestock Freight
• Line Haul Carriers
• Metro Distribution
• Container Cartage
• Rural Contractors
• Civil Engineering Contractors

Providing solutions for such companies may involve the use of other integrated modules. For example Contractors will require Contract Management in addition to the Transport Management.

This document describes the base features of the Transport Management module and aims to provide you with an insight into how TLP can be applied within your company.

Sales Management

For any company, and Transport Companies are no different, the start of the business process is securing new business and retaining existing business. This aspect is not ignored by TLP which is provided with a Sales Management facility which is focussed on the Logistics Industry.

Prospects

This module allows you to set up a central repository for all prospects, be they existing customers (who should also be prospects for business growth) or new business prospects.

A prospect record allows you to specify responsibility for the account, record basic account management rules, contact details and provides access to any documents pertaining to the prospect.

Opportunities

All sales activity is managed through the use of Opportunities. An opportunity could be a simple request for a quote or a detailed tender for a major piece of new work. For all sales opportunities the ability to manage the process is provided by TLP.

An opportunity consists of header level information such as details of the work, forecasted values and timing, responsibility and contact details. It also allows you to record details of all activities you have made that relate to this opportunity and links you to any quote calculated by TLP.

A screen shot of an opportunity is shown below. As well as static data it provides you with access to the quote and shows you activity history.

Transport Quote

The user can drill down into the quote to either create or edit the quote or simply view it. The quote is based upon a transport job and therefore can be prepared quite easily using standard rates, customer specific rates or manual amounts.

When drilling down to the quote we can see it is for a full load of 25 tonnes going from Takaka to Nelson. The system has rated this at the price of $25.00 per tonne.

Activities

TLP allows you to record details of all activities you have carried out relating to the opportunity. An activity could be a phone call, preparing a proposal, a meeting etc. In the example shown on the previous page there was two activities recorded. The user can drill into these to view full details such as that shown below.

The activity above was a presentation given on 16^th July. The details of the presentation are recorded in the box to the left. The details of the next action are recorded to the right and we note this has been allocated to Trevor to carry out.

General System Facilities

This module provides you with an integrated facility that allows you to manage your sales team or activities. This includes managing customer cyclical calling programs, new business sales activities, marketing campaigns and of course provides you with the ability to report on sales person forecasts and performance.

Its usage has been extended by some users and is capable of being used as a Customer Support tool and also has specific quoting facilities for fertiliser application work. The flexibility of TLP allows specific functionality to be incorporated as required to meet company requirements.

Job Entry

The start of the transport management process is with the entry of the initial job details. The key to reducing revenue leakage is to have these details entered as soon as possible in the processing cycle and TLP focusses on this. Job details can be entered at the following points.

• By the transport company’s office staff
• By the transport company’s clients
• Automatically by EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) files
• By the drivers using tablets (due for release early 2016)

We have focussed on providing a job entry facility that does as much as possible for the user, while looking as simple as possible. We will describe this by firstly showing how a job can be entered and secondly by showing what the system has done for you automatically.

Job Entry Screens

TLP is provided with two basic job entry screen formats, a standard one shown here and one that is specific to containers. Generally TLP users will fashion a job entry screen that suits them based upon one of these types. The example here is using the standard screen format.

The entry looks much as one would expect for a transport job. Details of the client and type of job, collection and delivery points (note collection notes and phone details displayed automatically) and the items to be carried. This is all that need be entered and this can in fact be reduced, in terms of entry requirement, by the use of templates. Templates are copies of jobs with all recurring details entered so that the operator only need enter the variances (eg: different number of items etc). They can be placed on the operators menu and greatly assist the speed of the process.

Automatic Functions

Upon saving the job a number of functions are carried out by the system automatically, ensuring the entry is accurate and consistent. These are shown below.

Apply Contractual Rules

TLP allows you to record contractual rules or company targets relating to pickup and delivery commitments. These are used to populate the job with pickup and delivery estimates which can be used in operations screens and also as the basis for DIFOT (Delivery in full on time) reporting.

In this example the job was entered early enough in the day so TLP has determined that it will be collected by 3pm and will be delivered by midday the next day. It has also recorded the slot time demands of the pickup and delivery points.

The actual dates and times can be populated manually or, more popularly, from the Mobility system.

 Apply Best Practice for Operations

TLP will automatically create the actions (called legs in some legacy systems) that are required to carry out this job. Actions will be freight movements but can be much more. For example they could be non-related activities such as container devanning, trailer cleaning and so on. They could also be administrative items such as securing licences for heavy loads. Once created all actions can be managed. Freight movements are managed through operations (allocations) whereas other processes will generally be applied to non-freight activities. All activities can be charged as part of the rating function.

The example above shows only one activity is required for our direct job. You will note the Allocated tick box to the right is blank which indicates this action has not yet been allocated.

Apply Standard Measurements

Standard measures are recorded automatically when the job is saved. Firstly rateable weight is calculated on both a 3 to 1 and 2 to 1 ration.

The distance and hours are also recorded based upon a table of standards that is stored within TLP. These are applied to every freight movement within the job and summed up to create the figures for the job.

Rate the Job

The job is automatically rated every time it is saved. This means you can continue to make changes to the job yet the price stored will always be accurate. Rating automatically in this manner provides the following benefits to the user.

• No need to have time consuming rating processes, in effect batch processing.
• No need to rely on staff to accurately apply a rate card.
• Revenue figures are available immediately so that they can be used for operational decisions. For example to ensure loads do not depart unless they are profitable.

In our example above the job has been priced at $50 per tonne and a fuel adjustment of 7% applied.

Automatic Job Allocation

This feature is due for release in February 2016.

This facility is a major step forward for Transport Management Systems and is focussed on;

• Reducing operations (despatch) costs
• Ensuring company rules are consistently applied
• Reducing the time taken to carry out the allocation process

Upon save of a job any unallocated freight movement is allocated to the most appropriate manifest (or run sheet). The decision on most appropriate is based upon collection and delivery points, date, time of departure, capacity and an internally determined ranking system. For example you could have a company driver and a sub-contractor both carrying out a run from Auckland to Napier but you rank the company driver higher. Therefore all work will be allocated to him until the manifest unless the job cannot fit, due to capacity restraints. It will then be allocated to the sub-contractor.

Manifests

As the job is the base document that manages the request for transport the manifest is the base document that manages the execution of the transport. All work is manifested, this also being called a run sheet.

A manifest consists of movements, each of which can be managed independently if you wish. This structure allows you to manage very complex freight trips, maximising loading on each movement (basically a segment of the trip) and to cost them accurately.

The screen above shows how a complex trip can be managed using the TLP manifest facility. There are five freight movements that are described as follows;

1. Daniel drove TR001 with trailers 3 and 4 from Albany to Wellington
2. The unit crossed Cook Strait on the Sea Link Ferry
3. Daniel drove the unit through to Blenheim
4. Trailer 3 was taken off. Daniel then drove TR001 with trailer 4 on to Christchurch.
5. Todd with TR002 hooked up trailer 3 and drove it to Nelson.

You will notice that the pallet count on the last two movements totals 44, more than was on the unit as a whole. This happened because Blenheim operations noticed they had capacity on a truck going to Nelson so allocated 4 pallets to this movement.

Revenue has been allocated to each movement and these have been costed independently. Both figures are summed to provide manifest totals. So we have the ability to maximise productivity of each segment of the journey and are able to properly account for every aspect.

Operations

Specific operations screens are provided to facilitate the allocation of jobs to manifests. These screens present jobs on one window and manifests in the other. Use of the search screens (filters) allows you to alter the set of jobs you are viewing.

In our example below we have unallocated general jobs (only one) to the left and available manifests (only one) to the right.

Selecting Items to Allocate

Allocation involves first selecting the job or jobs you wish to allocate. You may wish to select all jobs on the screen which involves clicking on the top tick box. Alternatively you can select specific jobs or if you wish specific items.

In the example above we have selected the pallet only. Presumably the cartons will be allocated to another manifest.

This structure enables TLP to provide complete item tracking for you if you wish as you could allocate down to individual carton level if you wish. You will notice that revenue has been allocated to the various items based upon company rules that have been set. This revenue allocation is also allocated to the movements the items are allocated too, once again based upon company rules.

Selecting Where to Allocate

When selecting where you wish to allocate the items you also have a number of options. For example you could select a number of manifests and allocate in one operation. For example you could select a pickup manifest and a line haul manifest and allocate the items to both.

Alternatively you could select an individual movement within a manifest. For example if we had a job going to Tauranga we could select the first movement only. We will however select the entire manifest as our item is going to the Waikato. A click of the Allocate button completes the process.

Operations Visibility

Operations such as this can become quite complex with different items being allocated to different movements or entire manifests. Visibility of these processes is therefore very important to the user.

The screen above shows the drill down view of the job. It shows the two items and what movements they have been allocated to. The first item line is the 5 pallets which have been allocated to manifest number 208 which has two movements between Auckland and Hamilton. Both have a status of Booked so we know the truck has not yet departed.

The second item line is for the 7 cartons. As they have not yet been allocated there are no movements details recorded.

We can also drill down into the manifest and view what has been allocated to the individual movements. The screen above shows that on the movement to Tauranga we have allocated 5 pallets which is part of job 554. If we drilled down to the second movement we would see this was the same.

Reporting

TLP is a system that utilises two databases, one being a specific reporting database that uses the SQL Server database. TLP uses MS Reporting Services for the production of standard reports. System users have the option of continuing to use our services for reports, to utilise MS Reporting Services to produce their own reports or to use another tool set such as Crystal Reports or Cognos.

The report set we provide is fairly small as in our experience system users generally have specific reports written which reflect the way they are using the system.

The reporting system enables drill down within a report. This is shown with the example above which provides a one line summary of manifests as determined by the filters. So this could be a list for a truck, for a route, for a service type or date range.

The user can chose to drill into the report. In this example he is looking at the detail of manifest 207 which shows each of the five movements involved, profitability and productivity figures.

Background Functions

The strength of TLP is built on very strong core functions such as Rate Cards, Action Cards and so on. When designing these aspects we introduced features not previously seen in a TMS in this country that would provide the following;

• Use a rules based approach rather than an old pointer based approach.
• Minimise maintenance time.
• Use full address matching as a method of eliminating false data (eg: where a zone is set up as a customer so that you can record something from a customer to a point elsewhere)
• Provide more power than was provided by legacy systems.

This section seeks to illustrate how this is achieved in various system areas. It specifically provides additional explanation of customer rate cards. Details of other aspects can be shown during a system demonstration.

Ranking System

The methodology used by various background functions such as rate cards and action cards is to rank the cards using a points system. When using these functions TLP will firstly select the valid sub set of cards and then attempt to apply them in order commencing with the highest ranked card. If the card cannot be applied TLP will try the next one until it finds a card that can be applied. This is illustrated in the screen shot below which is for Rate Cards.

The job we were processing earlier in this document was for a client with code ADDU. It was a general job going from Auckland to the Waikato. TLP will work through the list in the order shown above. The first card will not be applied as the Customer is incorrect. The second card will not be applied as our job was not going from the Sanderson Quarry to the Waterview Tunnel Project. Eventually the system was able to apply card 74 which was used to price the job.

Job Matching

The cards use a job matching system while working through the card list. This is a powerful facility that enables you to use any job field to help select a card. The example below illustrates this.

In this example there are effective and expiry dates which are checked after which the job match is used. This example is of a very highly ranked card as it is very well defined being for a specific client, a specific service, work carried out by a defined depot between two specific addresses.

At the other end of the scale you could have a lowly ranked card as a catch all. For example you could have a card with no job match fields populated which prices at $100 per tonne. So if no other rate card could be applied you would charge the client $100 per tonne no matter what it was or where it was going. An extreme example perhaps but could be done.

Rates

TLP avoids the limitations often imposed by legacy systems of only rating on one aspect of a job. Often this is products which leads to an inventory pricing approach to rating which is not what we would call satisfactory.

Those limitations are avoided by allowing a rate card to price based on all prime aspects of a job being;

1. The items carried
2. The activities (actions) undertaken
3. Job characteristics

The example below which is from a container job illustrates this.

The first aspect that is priced is the items where an FCL charge will be calculated. This is shown on the following screen.

The item charges in this example are rates for both 20 foot and 40 foot containers.

The next aspect priced is the various actions undertaken. In this example there is a non-freight action of container devanning shown below. The other action is freight related being for delivery of LCL freight once the container has been de-vanned.

The final two breaks are job based being the charges for various booking fees and finally the application of any adjustments, in this example a fuel adjustment.

There is many layers of sophistication and power within the rating system and this overview has just given an introduction to what is possible. A system demonstration will probably be required to show the capabilities properly.