Need for Integrated Logistics

Integrated Logistics Management, a new phenomenon in today’s Supply Chain system and is becoming popular day by day. Integrated Logistics a process of planning, coordinating and arranging the operational activities so as to optimise the productivity to ensure success.

Integrated logistics is the one stop solution to the shipping and logistic requirements of the company. The fast and secured transportation is the key requirement of any business. The transportation of raw material as well as the finished products is the important part of the development of all businesses. The proper planning and arrangement of integrated logistics is therefore required to have the interrupted supply chain management. The integrated logistics ensure that you get the fully arranged logistics services like shipping, warehousing, trucking and stevedoring.  

The warehousing need is the most basic need of any company as it is required for the storage of raw material as well as finished products. The proper inventory management is the key factor in producing the right quality finished product and the proper warehouse facility is therefore the most important requirement of any company. The warehouse space purchase and maintenance asks for a big investment budget but tie-up with integrated logistics service provider will protect you from all these hassles. The companies can outsource the warehouse space from integrated logistics service provider to store their inventories safely at low investment cost.

The shipping and trucking are also major issues affecting the timely and safe logistics. Various factors like weather conditions, government regulations and road conditions may decide the time and cost associated with the transportation. You can check for the tension free logistic solutions from the integrated logistics service providers so as to minimize the delays and costs. These people are professionals and have rich experience of handling turnkey solutions. They ship your cargo as per the government regulations and hence make sure that there are no major delays associated with delivery time. These agencies liaison with the government agencies and the local municipalities to make the shipping process easier and quicker. The specialized equipments are also for movement of overweight and oversize cargo. The extra-long shipments are also handled effectively with the help of such specialized equipments. The loading and unloading of these oversized cargo is also taken care of successfully. The customer can also seek urgent delivery of the material with the help of these logistic companies.

The integrated logistics systems can also be incorporated in the company itself where there is lot of movement on daily basis. This will call for an appointment of bigger staff with logistics experience. The company will also need to invest in specialized equipments and transportation systems. The investment required for all these would be huge and the human resource requirement would also be considerably high. The outsourcing of this service is therefore advisable for cost effective and efficient logistics. There are many companies that offer this service as per your budget. These companies have their websites and online tracking system that can be utilized to track your shipment from time to time. Many of these companies also offer online quotes to make the job easier. The cost depends on the type of shipment as well as the source and destination of the shipment.

With businesses today looking for better connectivity and collaboration in real-time, the concept of integrated and smarter logistics have shaped up in the recent times.

Making the processes efficient and ‘smarter’ is possible only by enabling real-time collaboration between people, processes, data, and devices. From creating job orders to booking and exporting to the warehouse to delivering the shipment to the customer, coordination amongst various stakeholders will help build an efficient and hassle-free operation, improving the effectiveness of the operations. In order to streamline and make the processes efficient, companies have to redefine a digital strategy tailored to its own value drivers and to make its transformation a success. Instead of adding digital outside of existing structures, companies today are redefining the way their work with internal processes is connected in order to create much more value from digitization.

In recent years, the heightened intensity of retail competition has drastically changed the way retail companies operate their distribution systems. Also, every company is facing the pressure and are planning to digitally change the way they interact with customers. These changes include the application of integrated logistics, a concept to the analysis and design of supply chains and extensive use of information technology to gain a competitive edge.

Here are the three reasons how you can adapt an integrated logistics solution:

• Take a phased approach: It’s a phased approach comprising multiple projects that need to be prioritized according to your most pressing business needs. The stages involved include: identifying your transformation strategy, designing your new infrastructure and deploying the solution. This phase is based on a number of strategic imperatives, such as organizational strength, leadership, and execution, convergence, simplification and performance measurement.
• Establishing collaboration through connectivity: A neutral layer and a centralized system to bring visibility and better collaboration amongst the enterprises. Benefits include reduced and more viable costs, increased reliability, the ability to change suppliers as business needs a challenge.
• Know your processes and align them with your strategies: Get a detailed view of a process flow, data and then design a process flow, accordingly.