TMC Blog

Shippers often buy freight transportation on the spot market as a last resort when they have exhausted all of their route guide options or capacity is in short supply. Does that mean that these movements can’t be tracked and managed in much the same way that more regular shipments are managed?  The answer is no – particularly if you are using a comprehensive transportation management system (TMS). Read More...

In our last post we looked at the cultural barriers that prevent shippers from using advanced transportation management systems (TMS) to reengineer their supply chains, and capture impressive cost savings (Developing a Managed TMS® Culture). This week we consider how you can become a more effective user of high-power TMS technology.

First, let’s take a step back to appreciate what you already have under the hood. Implementing a TMS solution such as Managed TMS® is not a trivial exercise (for more on this see Capturing the Hidden Value of TMS Solutions). And one of the big payoffs is that this carefully planned process equips your organization to perform sophisticated network analyses. Read More...

Last week we looked at some of the flaws in performance benchmarks that transportation professionals need to watch out for when applying these important management tools. In this week’s post we explore how benchmarks can lead to misunderstandings about the performance of freight networks and, ultimately, to wrong management decisions.

As an indicator of how your network stacks up against those of your competitors, benchmarks play a key role in setting performance expectations. This is fine as long as the data is sound and interpreted correctly. Unfortunately, this is not always the case and can be a flaw leading to undesired outcomes. Read More...

It is one of the most widely used freight network management tools, yet benchmarking is often misinterpreted and/or misapplied.

Understanding the application of benchmarking can help managers to avoid these pitfalls, and evaluate the performance of their supply chains more effectively.

In this post we take a look at some of the issues managers need to be aware of when assessing and using benchmarking tools. Next week we’ll delve more deeply into how these analyses can be misconstrued. Read More...

Less-than-truckload (LTL) transportation is generally perceived as complex compared to its truckload cousin. But the mode is not overly complicated provided users have all the relevant data at their fingertips. Moreover, when shippers master LTL they often discover untapped potential for substantial cost savings. In this first post in a series on LTL, we set the scene with a look at how these shipments are priced.Read More...