TMC Blog

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...

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...

Can you save money by making it easier for carriers to do business with you? It’s not a new topic, but as a community, have we reached a definitive answer?

It may not be the most politically correct analogy, but I once had a customer describe this philosophy as “the beauty pageant of freight.”  From his perspective, the more attractive his freight was to the carrier community, the more apt he was to gain capacity at a fair price, and thus achieve his financial objectives. Read More...

As we enter a New Year strewn with economic clouds, it is easy to overlook the bright spots in the outlook, so here is one that is right on our doorstep: a period of growth and innovation in the transportation management systems (TMS) market.

Leading Gartner analyst, Dwight Klappich, offered this upbeat assessment of the future for TMS in a recent interview with Supply Chain Digest[i].  Read More...