Cruise Control: Solutions

Customer Project

Starting Point

Together with one of the largest and long term customers of Fr. Meyer´s Sohn, an international paper producer, a project was kicked off with the aim to improve and streamline logistics processes along the value chain of our customer.

Our customer is active in a volume market, which is characterized by tight margins. Value can only be added through innovative logistics solutions and the related increase of efficiency within these processes. In order to continue and strengthen the partnership the need was there to develop IT based solutions, which lead to an optimization of the overall process. Specifically against the background that efficient operational processes, as well as low costs are already an essential part of our collaboration with the customer.

Customer´s expectation

In that context our customer´s targets were rather challenging. The expectation was that a pure Tracking & Tracing solution determines no innovation. The customer was therefore demanding a proactive shipment monitoring which highlights deviations immediately after arising in order to allow counter measurements to be conducted prior to an incident. Supplementary our customer expected us to grant access to our tracking & tracing tool for their own business partners - namely the buyers of their goods - with the ultimate target to reduce communicational effort related to customer service.

Additionally we needed to implement a state of the art reporting solution, covering the main performance related KPIs and thus, allowing a profound evaluation of the logistics related service provision.

Not to forget the customers demand for an optimization of the claim management process through a close monitoring of the physical loading process.

Our solution

Our solution comprises of the implementation of the full set of Cruise Control modules and goes even beyond.
https://www.fms-logistics.com/en/news/article/cruise-control-solutions/

The Tracking & Tracing module is in the centre of the solution and allows proactive monitoring of shipments through the integrated deviation-management. Important milestones of the transport as well as deviations from the schedule are notified to the customer through automated alert emails which make sure all involved participants are aware of the most recent shipment status, enabling them to conduct respective counter measurements way before an incident occurs. The implementation of our collaboration functionalities caused significant process improvements. First and foremost by the document exchange functionalities which drastically reduces email traffic and ensures documents are in the right place at the right time.

Based on our customer´s expectations we implemented an enhancement to the platform which enables further participants than FMS and our customers to enter Cruise Control in order to obtain important shipment related information. In this case we created an access for our customer´s customer - the Buyer of the goods - with the ultimate target in mind to increase visibility and transparency for all involved parties and reduce customer service related communicational effort for both our customer and its customers. The fact that our customer granted access for its biggest customers underlines the trust in our tools.

Next to this, a mechanism was developed which enables our customer to monitor the physical loading process at the warehouses, which determines a critical interface within the transport chain. This was made possible that the photos and videos taken by our warehouses during the loading process were included on the platform and are visible for the customer by opening the implemented video player which is located in the detail section of each customer´s shipment.

Our tools cover and support our customer´s complete logistics operations allowing our customer to focus on the core business while we take care of the logistics part - this is the way we add value to our customers!