How can manufacturers ensure accurate and on-time vehicle placement through digitalization?

The right vehicle at the right time is set to dictate the quality of delivery and customer satisfaction dynamics.

Logistics and supply chain management in the Indian industrial sphere is significantly driven by consumer demands and manufacturers striving to cater to these demands. Businesses in all industries aim for optimal delivery of goods as the key to increasing customer retention. This can only be ensured through accurate, on-time, and transparent vehicle allocation processes.

Indent allocation operations in business logistics contribute to the cost head. These operations refer to raising a request for vehicle placement to a contracted transporter in compliance with an existing contract. However, manual logistics operations continue to hinder the strategic growth of various Indian businesses, and these manual processes lead to subsequent roadblocks affecting budget and productivity.

• Inefficient capturing of indent activities performed by multiple stakeholders operating in several business units and plants
• Time-consuming load allocation processes hampering on-time vehicle placement
• Lack of effective coordination with transporters in real-time
• Lack of centralized documentation hindering process compliance and workflow
• Time-consuming indent re-allocation procedures lead to an increased cost head and delays in delivery.

Therefore, these prevalent challenges have nudged manufacturers in various industries to recognize digital solutions as the ultimate eliminator of prevalent roadblocks in logistics management. Digitalization of indent allocation operations can expedite the involved processes to ensure on-time vehicle placement, accurate vehicle allocation, real-time coordination with transporters, and improved team members’ productivity and budget compliance.

SuperProcure’s Indent allocation solution- Transforming the enterprise-wide logistics

SuperProcure’s digitalized vehicle allocation solution offers performance-driven results by tackling two major problems faced by Indian manufacturers due to manual load allocation.

Problem 1- Inefficient load allocation activities affecting compliance with business policies

Problem 2- Time-consuming and complex processes to find an alternative in case of indent rejection or vehicle placement failure by a transporter.

The SP Indent allocation solution aims at optimizing the vehicle allocation operations in all businesses in two primary ways:

• It allows logistics stakeholders to raise vehicle requisitions against contracted transporters in compliance with the business policies.
• The system automates the vehicle re-allocation process per the business policies in case of indent rejection by a transporter. The load requirement is reposted in the spot market via SP Freight sourcing-Spot for risk purchasing.

It has helped several industry leaders in achieving optimal benefits:

• Up to 95% reduction in vehicle placement time
• 100% vehicle placement

SP Indent Allocation- Equipping logistics operators with advanced features

E-Indenting – Contract Master

Logistics stakeholders are often overburdened by the manual storage of contract details scattered across excel sheets. Referring to them individually during load allocation is time-consuming and increases the chances of error. These chaotic processes can result in significant monetary losses for businesses.

The contract master feature provides the logistics stakeholders with easy access to all transporter data on a centralized digital platform. This helps refer to important contract data to check their validation period, evaluate price fluctuations, and analyze transporters’ historical performance.

E-Indenting – Automated Load Allocation

Logistics team members are often troubled by the innumerable dynamics and extensive evaluation involved in load allocation processes.

However, when these dynamics and contract rules are strategically defined through automation, the system digitally allocates the load to the suitable transporter at budget-compliant prices and the accurate time. This automated load allocation feature ensures smooth and on-time vehicle allocation processes with up to 85% reduction in vehicle placement time and up to 25% reduction in order dispatch time.

E-Indenting – Automated Re-allocation

What if a contracted transporter fails to place the vehicle at the last moment? Does this lead to delays in delivery and an increased detention cost?

With manual indent allocation processes, it is challenging to find on-demand vehicles if a transporter refuses to place the vehicle, leading to shipment delays. The logistics team can resolve this issue in two inefficient ways:

• Refer to several excel sheets for available transporters
• Source vehicles from the spot market

Both these manual processes involve several follow-up calls and other time-consuming activities. SP indent allocation solution automates the load re-allocation processes ensuring faster vehicle re-allocation.

• The load requirement is auto-assigned to another transporter or reposted in the spot market for risk purchasing.
• The system auto-computes penalty and debit reports on no-shows against the initial transporter as per the pre-defined company policies. This ensures an improved planned vs. placement percentage.

E-Indenting – Real-time Collaboration

Inefficient collaboration with transporters affects the logistics workflow and exposes the operations to errors. It isn’t easy to get updates and confirmations from transporters in real-time, thus affecting transparency and vehicle placement time.

With manual indent allocation processes, lack of real-time coordination remains a primary challenge among stakeholders. The absence of a digital collaboration platform leads to several follow-up calls and updates throughout the process. This built-in e-indenting feature ensures up to a 90% reduction in manual follow-up calls by offering:

• Both web and mobile applications allow the stakeholders to reach out to all registered transporters and drivers anytime-anywhere. Transporters can digitally receive vehicle allocation requests, confirm availability, allocate suitable vehicles, and provide drivers’ details in real-time.
• Auto-reminders for pending vehicle confirmations or placements ensure faster vehicle confirmations and on-time vehicle placements.

E-Indenting – 100% Audit Ready

Due to inefficient audit cycles and unexplained deviations from process stages, businesses face significant challenges.

Manual indenting operations lead to audit gaps due to the need for real-time capturing of data and activities performed by multiple stakeholders. This data is often prone to errors that might result in severe losses.

SP Indent allocation solution captures all involved processes in-real time. It ensures 100% audit and improved compliance by capturing every deviation from contract terms and process compliance in real-time.

E-Indenting – Transporter Performance Analysis

Manual indent allocation processes often fail to accurately analyze the transporters’ performance metrics as most of the allocation activities are unrecorded, and there are minimal records for reference. This leads to faulty and inefficient decision-making.

The SP Indent solution offers real-time insights into the load allocation activities performed by transporters for easy monitoring and comparison. This helps manufacturers in strategic and informed decision-making by providing clear visibility into vehicle placement time, the reason for failure, deviations from contract policies, previous vehicle placement performance, and budget adherence.

E-Indenting – One window for Multiple Units 

When operating multiple business units, manufacturers are often unable to capture the activities performed by every team member working in silos. Justifying deviations and discrepancies is a significant concern.

This digital indent allocation feature allows manufacturers to link all business units and plants, ensuring smooth and transparent collaboration among logistics stakeholders. It will enable manufacturers to monitor all business units on a centralized digital window by offering clear insights into vehicle allocation activities, deviations from contract terms, budget compliance, best-performing transporters, and deviations in unit-wide performance.

E-Indenting – Customized User Rights Management

The SP Indent allocation solution allows businesses to manage the user rights granted to every stakeholder in multiple units and plants. The admin can customize and allocate these rights to individual stakeholders according to their department, location, process stage, assigned responsibility, and authority.

No more chaotic and unorganized vehicle allocation operations as SuperProcure’s digital Indent allocation solution is on its way to revolutionizing the logistics sphere!