Transport Management Using Vehicle Routing Software Tools
What Are Primary Transport Movements?
Primary transport movements involve high volume movements between the distribution nodes of an organisation’s supply chain. Examples of this type of movement include:
- Inbound movements from suppliers to warehouses
- Movements between warehouses within an organisation’s internal network
- Bulk outbound shipments to customer warehouses.
Primary transport is often better value per unit carried than secondary transport. This is due to the large vehicles used, a high percentage load fill and few, often single, drops.
LogiMap and Primary Transport Management
LogiMap Visualisation offers clear visibility over your organisation’s primary transport network, allowing you to understand and assess movements within your logistics operation. Visualisations can be generated by a range of different criteria including carrier, country and lead time.
LogiMap Optimisation can then be used to determine the most effective primary transport routings, as part of the optimisation of your wider logistics network. For each potential primary transport leg, primary transport rates by carrier including quantity break pricing, service types and lead times are maintained.
LogiMap also has a simulation module that can help to dramatically reduce the number of vehicles required to operate the network. This is essential for networks where saving time is critical, such as express logistics.The simulation will integrate a full transport timetable with required volumes and cut offs for collection and delivery. This will highlight the following areas for improvement:
- Underutilised primary transport legs – candidates for primary vehicle removal
- Vehicles leaving too early and therefore being underutilised
- Vehicles leaving too late and therefore remaining idle whilst fully loaded
- Work not cleared at the end of daily operations – insufficient capacity.
Primary transport timings can also be used to optimise workload scheduling across an entire network. By focusing on the destinations and departure times of trunk vehicles from warehouses, you can determine the nature and timing of the pick, pack and load work in each warehouse. This will help you to improve manpower planning, ensuring total efficiency and value for money throughout your logistics operation.