Control Tower is the buzz word these days. Everyone wants to
know what it is and how can they enable it for their organization. Let us
explore what is a control tower and how can it be enabled by using the Infosys
"Digital Logistics Control Tower" using Oracle Transportation Management (OTM).
What is a Logistics Control Tower?
It is a central hub which has the visibility of the entire
transportation network across factories, distribution centers, warehouses, hubs,
regions, countries and transport modes. It receives data from all systems to
give a consolidated view of the network.
With this visibility, the control tower can detect or
predict an anomaly so that appropriate actions can be taken.
It is not necessary that you have a control tower which
handles all legs of the supply chain and work on an end-to-end view. It could be
restricted to primary, secondary or even part of the movement. It is setup for
the networks which gives you the maximum benefit rather than create it as a
one-fit-all model.
How does it differ from a normal transportation
management model?
Biggest difference is that a control tower is not really a
tower or a physical location unlike the normal transportation model where the processes
are managed from a physical warehouse, distribution center etc. and physically
connected to the transport. Control tower on the contrary is not connected to
just 1 or some locations but has data connectivity with all locations.
In the usual model of transportation, you do track your
deliveries, you do the monitoring of your logistics and perform the actual
execution of the load by the virtue of the pickup and delivery.
But all your reporting and strategizing is at a local level.
The visibility and operations monitoring looks at local level to optimize and
does not look at other facilities.
Control tower on the other hand will plan, monitor, track and
take informed decisions based on the insights it gets from all data provided by
the various stakeholders including location specific transport teams, logistics
service providers, customers etc.
Since it gets the feed from local, regional & central
operations, it has the visibility to monitor and take decisions at a holistic
level. The strategizing which comes at a later point also looks at the most
optimum operations considering all facilities and not just 1 facility.
How do you know if you need a control tower?
If an organization wants a control tower, it does not mean
that they really need it. Some of the points which you should consider:
·
Does the transportation network cover a large
geography with large number of logistics centers, countries or even continents?
·
Is your transportation outsourced with multiple
carriers transporting the goods?
·
Do you have multiple systems from where you can
get the full view (TMS, WMS, OMS etc.)?
·
Are you dependent on the external parties to
provide the visibility?
·
Do you have issues in service compliance
monitoring with deliveries getting lost / damaged or delayed frequently?
If the answer to the above questions is yes, then control
tower might be one of the possible solutions you could look at.
Infosys Digital Logistics Control Tower
We at Infosys have explored all such problems faced by our
customers and came up with a Digital Logistics Control Tower using Oracle
Transportation Management (OTM Cloud and On-prem) and Oracle Analytics Cloud
(OAC). It receives data from IoT devices and connects to a chatbot for
automated conversation with the drivers and follow ups. All systems integrating
seamlessly to give a "One Control Tower" experience.
The "Infosys Digital Logistics Control Tower" contains both Analytical and Operational control tower components.
Figure 1: Infosys Digital Logistics Control Tower
Operational Tower:
The operational tower has 2 components: a) Shipment
Operations and b) Financial Operations
a)
Shipment Operations:
·
Helps the user on the day to day tracking
operations
·
Connects to IoT for vehicle status.
·
Provides the visibility of the truck and the
exact location on a map.
·
Highlights is a truck is stuck a location for a
long time.
·
Uses ML algorithms to predict the estimated time
of arrival based on current status and historical data. This is to determine
possible delays and to take decision on when to start the trucks or change
trucks enroute.
·
Enables users to connect take decisions based on
the insights provided by the systems.
·
Enables to contact stakeholders either via OTM
or via chatbot.
b)
Financial Operations:
·
Tracks the status of invoices whether
self-billing invoices or carrier generated invoices.
·
Provides details on aging of invoices based on
payment terms with carriers.
·
Provides mechanisms to follow up with the relevant
stakeholders.
Analytical Tower:
This gives the power to take strategic decisions based on
the KPIs which the control tower provides. Some of the key information provided
by the tower are:
·
Carrier performance in terms of on-time
delivery, additional charges, tender acceptance.
·
Turn-around time at locations to find out the key
areas of bottleneck.
·
The highest freight cost consuming lanes.
·
Cost per Km, Kgs and CBM to analyze and renegotiate
rate structures with the carriers.
Many more KPIs are available which can help take strategic decisions
and make the transportation network of the future.
The key benefits of the Logistics Control Tower as evident
from the above points are:
·
Increase in on-time delivery.
·
Streamlined process with tracking of each steps
and reduction in bottlenecks.
·
Increased utilization of assets with better
visibility of the trucks.
·
Better collaboration with carriers, customer,
vendors etc.
·
Ultimately reduction in freight cost based on
the operations and analytics combined.
How has it benefited Our Customers?
Many of our customer are using control towers for their
daily operations and KPI management. Few examples are below:
One of our customer has created multiple control towers at
strategic locations which helps in planning and tracking of orders globally.
The control tower has helped in streamlining the regular planning and
visibility activities which has increased the on-time performance and reduction
in delays.
Another of our customer has created a control tower for
global operations which looks at compliance from all stakeholders and financial
tracking. This has increased the visibility of the shipments and helped
informing destinations to take proactive actions. It has also reduced the
errors in payment and plugging the holes in the freight costs.
These are just few examples for your reference.
The Digital Logistics Control Tower can help the organization to focus on adding value by providing visibility to the blind spots and take the transportation processes to the next generation using the best the technology can provide. The decision to step up to the next level is yours.
Reviewed by: Mohan
Subramanian