Prevent over- and undercapacity of your transport and save costs
As a logistics manager or engineer, you probably often hear that you need to cut down on transport costs. Of course, you have already made use of the quick wins and undertaken the most obvious improvement actions. In short, saving even more is easier said than done.
Your first response may have been to look again at the rates of logistics service providers. You may also have looked at optimising the load factor to minimise the number of transport units. That is low hanging fruit, after all! But when the maximum is reached here, what then?
Looking beyond tariffs and load factors
Did you know that knowing the volume, the number of shipping units and the weight that will be transported in time can save you a lot of money on transport costs? We found this out once again when we took a close look at the packaging management of one of our customers – a supplier of baggage handling systems. We discovered that creating predictability in their logistics flow was the key to saving on transport costs.
Our customers often arranged an extra lorry 'just to be on the safe side', so as not to run short of loading space. But that also regularly led to overcapacity and thus unnecessary costs.
Erik Drissen | Business Consultant at Faes
Our customer about the improvements:
“I planned my transport on the basis of order size and historical orders. During loading, my staff often found that more or less space was needed than expected. So 8 trucks were regularly booked to be on the safe side, but often only 7 turned out to be necessary. A waste of money!
When planning the transport, I prefer to know how many boxes, pallets or containers are needed to prepare the order. That way, I can reserve the right amount of loading space and the customer can also be informed in advance of the transport costs that will be charged. I can do that now and it saves a lot of stress and costs.”
The effects of overcapacity and undercapacity
Both under- and overcapacity have a negative impact on your efficiency and costs:
Overcapacity: you book too many trucks that have to be cancelled at the last minute. This generates unnecessary costs.
Undercapacity: you book too few trucks, as a result of which (urgent) transport has to be arranged last minute. This is not only more expensive, but it also causes stress and disrupts your process. Your employees spend extra (and valuable) time solving the problem.
Software that helps you prevent under- and overcapacity
At Faes we have developed a smart solution for this; StackAssist®. This is a SaaS system (Software as a Service) with which you can easily calculate the optimal stacking and loading method directly, which is then visually displayed on the screen. The advantage is that you also know immediately how much space a certain order takes up and therefore how many trucks are needed to get your shipments out the door.
Do you also want to stack and load smarter?
How can StackAssist help you stack and load your customer orders more efficiently? We’d love to tell you more. Leave your comment or question in the form below or contact us directly.
