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by jpallmerine
For many companies, working with a managed transportation partner offers many benefits. In a recent survey of supply chain executives, 73% agreed that 3PLs have contributed to improving service to the shippers’ customers and over 60% agreed that 3PLs have reduced their overall logistics costs. After all, having experienced logistics professionals with the latest technology to make sure ‘ship happens’ is a smart way to stay focused on your core business. And a shipper being freed from the many responsibilities of day-to-day logistics management while saving money is appealing to a lot of companies.
There is no question that life gets easier for shippers engaged with the right managed transportation partner. For the ones who are taking care of the freight (a.k.a., Loadsmart’s Managed Transportation team), it’s all in a day's work to get their customer’s shipments on the road and where they need to go. So if you are considering outsourcing your logistics to a managed transportation company, we’ve put together this blog to share with you the strategy, tasks, meetings, reporting, and teams that get it all done for you.
A Day in the Life
Shipping is always unpredictable and no two days are ever really the same for those involved with managed transportation. But that doesn’t mean having some structure to the day isn’t ideal.
Starting the day: In logistics, there are always things that happen (or don’t) that need attention. For example, maybe a load wasn’t ready when a warehouse promised late last night, or a shipment was delivered short. These things are often out of a shipper’s control, but Loadsmart’s team needs to find the solution ASAP.
For customers who require overnight monitoring, open issues will be handled when they arise - but for customers who don’t require overnight monitoring, at the top of the Loadsmart Managed Transportation team’s to-do list is to deal with open issues from the prior day or night. Then it’s on to the other daily priorities, which include:
- Working with the shipper to know what loads are becoming available and begin building a load plan. This can include determining the best mode to use (e.g., FTL, LTL, Intermodal) and the most optimized routing.
- Once the shipments are built, the loads are tendered to the proper carriers based on service requirements and cost.
- And when it’s required, appointments are scheduled for pick-up at the origin and delivery at the consignee.
There are important daily tasks for loads already on the road, too. Throughout the day Loadsmart’s Operations team is:
- Proactively identifying problem loads by tracking shipments and gaining visibility into potential delays through Loadsmart’s internal software.
- Addressing and communicating any potential issues to the customer immediately.
- Maintaining constant communication with carriers to ensure they accurately report load status and schedule appointments.
And once resolved, all the issues dealt with need to be tracked and analyzed to minimize the likelihood of a recurrence (regardless of who’s at fault).
Middle of the Day: Once the daily tasks are covered, the team’s attention can become more strategic. A big priority for the Loadsmart team is reviewing customer's expectations and tracking internal operational performance. This part of the day always includes working on customer-facing reports and gathering insights from Loadsmart’s internal teams.
For Loadsmart’s customers, this will include weekly, monthly, and quarterly program updates where cost, service, customized KPIs, and tech integration projects are reviewed.
The Loadsmart Managed Transportation squad is broken up into several critical teams such as operations, analytics and program management. The teams continuously interact to review performance data and to provide guidance to our customer-facing teams, allowing them to have efficient, yet meaningful conversations with their customers when discussing spend, performance, and new cost savings opportunities.
Collectively, it’s the responsibility of team members in all departments to monitor the performance of the Loadsmart network and be benchmarked on program metrics. The goal is to always stay one (or two) steps ahead of the customer and continuously lower costs and improve service.
End of the day. To stay ahead, the typical workday ends with a final double-check that the loads are covered, carriers are confirmed, appointments are made, and nothing unexpected has come up.
For Loadsmart’s managed transportation team members to be successful with these daily and more strategic tasks, it requires a lot of communication with internal operations and with their customers. And the discipline to do the daily stuff well and reliably while being flexible in dealing with inevitable problems that come with shipping.
Because we know it can be challenging to find the time, resources, and capacity to scale your operations, while meeting the needs of our ever-changing market, our daily tasks outlined above are designed to support our managed transportation customers by acting as an extension of their business - allowing us to manage the challenges of working in the transportation industry.
To learn more about how outsourcing your logistics operations to Loadsmart through our Managed Transportation Services works, watch this video, or read more about it here.
