Transportation Logistics

In Australia the difference between succeeding and failing may depend on how well you manage inventory levels by factoring in the transportation logistics.

As on-line purchasing continues to expand across industries the challenges of transportation and logistics become exposed. This is a far cry from the turn of the century (2000 - 2005) where people like myself stood in a number of forums predicting the growth in internet sales and the cost savings to purchases made on-line.

There was many a senior management meeting and board meeting where the vision was like fog to the those non-believers. If only I could speak to them again today! The only problem is the conversation would be a lot different. It would start with "why did you....."

But sad to say the Industry itself struggles with the adoption of new technologies. It is even considered a "lagger" with the adoption of technology.

I have spoken to a number of owner drivers who struggle enough with the mobile phone and sending sms's let alone anything else. The up there and with it one are using emails as well and social media.

Unfortunately for those of us from Australia who think "she'll be right mate" will wake up one day to find our new entrants from other global destinations have not only taken our contracts, customers or delivery runs, they also have the online infrastructure to support their operation.

How does this help them you may ask? Well the online infrastructure that we so strongly resist gives our competitors the advantage in operational efficiency, real-time response to customer queries and they know at anytime of the day where their fleet is and what jobs they can collect and deliver.  

The "she'll be right" fleet is spending a lot of time resisting GPS for fear that big brother is watching rather than look at the bigger picture...how it improves your efficiency, saves you money in fuel costs through better planning and scheduling and optimising the information you can access to grow your business.

It can also provide you with maintenance alerts for when your vehicle needs its next service, or needs to have the tyres replaced etc. Some of the more sophisticated systems also look at optimisation, routing and scheduling.

I bet you "laggers"out there (and you know who you are) didn't know that! Sorry to be so blunt but lets get real about our business and our industry. We have to be smarter now if we wish to survive in the new digital world. So lets get with it.