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•White Paper: TMS Solution

Until recently, the TMS solution was targeted to baseline transportation execution capabilities. The TMS completed the order fulfillment cycle by providing the machinery to arrange and execute delivery of goods to customers, or in the case of an inbound sourcing path, to move goods from the supplier's facility to the company's. Key baseline capabilities included the import of orders into the transportation system from a host ERP or Order Management System (OMS), grouping of orders into shipments, assignment of carriers, tendering to the carriers, confirmation, in-transit visibility and possibly resolving freight settlement all in one system. Much of the value of the system lay in providing a complete environment in which transportation planners could, in a single place, manage the complete delivery process of goods shipment. This remains a very important central capability of the TMS.

Transportation Management Systems can do more than simply provide baseline delivery management, however. Transportation Management Systems can now bring significant return on investment through the efficiencies of automating the transportation department and allowing better visibility to the entire set of order fulfillment activities in play at any moment, as well as more effectively managing interaction activities with carriers. Transportation processes, and almost as importantly, the integration of transportation activities into the broader supply chain overall flow are ripe with the opportunity for further organizational efficiency impact and cost reductions. Additionally, new capabilities can enable processes that could not have existed without advanced system automation, such as collaborative supplier inbound delivery management.

Over the last five years, TMS capabilities have evolved significantly. During this period, RedPrairie has assumed a leadership position in bringing increased value to the process of transportation management by developing capabilities that bring higher levels of cost productivity and enable better organizational efficiencies through the introduction of realtime, continuously optimizing transportation components. The RedPrairie system architecture and philosophy is built on the premises that:

1. The velocity of supply chain fulfillment will only increase going forward
2. Transportation must fit seamlessly into the entire supply chain flow
3. Transportation optimization must be addressed at the specific task level, but also in coordination with other "to be" optimized supply tasks. For example, optimization through a consolidation facility needs to be optimized both for transportation delivery cost reduction and for the crossdocking flow within the consolidation facility (coordinated by a warehouse management system).
4. Users should be focused on the exception situations not to the normal flow which should be highly automated

With the above goals in mind, RedPrairie's TMS footprint is much more comprehensive than those from competitors, including many capabilities not typically found in other transportation management systems.

Click Here To Download:
•White Paper: TMS Solution