Logtech Essentials: From Procurement to Payment
Special Report
Prioritizing performance
“ Are we making the right decisions when we’ re setting those target times based off of performance?”
For Buckingham, that is a matter of incentive structure, and his assertion is that the newer, technology-focused approaches to the appointment scheduling problem are best aimed at brokers,“ who, frankly, care a little bit more.”
But Tony Botos, vice president of operations at Capstone Logistics and a former shipper, said at the conference that shippers have a huge incentive to invest in scheduling technology. He said a shipper he previously worked for“ saw over a million dollars in labor savings” by being able to reduce the number of customer service representatives responsible for coordinating carrier arrivals at receiving facilities.
“ And it’ s not too capital intensive,” Botos said.“ You can quickly establish this type of software in your environment and get the systems to talk to the TMS. The [ return on investment ] on this is less than six months in most cases.”
One way he navigated those competing priorities was to focus on appointment performance.
“ That’ s maybe adjusting that appointment from 60 minutes to 65 minutes to 67 minutes,” Botos said.
Deema Adama, CEO of scheduling software company Bigger Picture, said a platform should be able to gauge not just how an appointment is scheduled but also the effectiveness of those appointments.
“ Are we making the right decisions when we’ re setting those target times based off of performance that we’ re learning from these interactions?” Adama said at Inland25.“ And the warehouse can judge how they are allocating labor based off of the trends of capacity coming in and out of their warehouse.”
One other element that vendors are focused on is allowing shippers to prioritize appointment-setting based on the demands of individual shipments. For instance, if an appointment is available at 9 a. m., it’ s likely that a shipper or broker will grab a time slot regardless of how important it is for that load to use that appointment.
“ There may be an inbound load of Styrofoam material that isn’ t going to actually halt production for something that you’ re doing,” Curee said.“ Meanwhile, that buffalo seasoning actually has to be here at 9 a. m. because the buffalo seasoning is going to stop the line.
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And the receiver doesn’ t have an appointment until 3 p. m. Well, we would have taken 9 a. m. if we would have had access to it, but appointment scheduling is nothing more than a glorified‘ first-come, first-served.’”
email: eric. johnson @ spglobal. com
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