Canadian Blood Services Utilizes Descartes' Transportation Management Solution

SaaS solution combines purchased transportation management, private fleet routing and mobile functions to optimize shipments of blood products

Waterloo, OntarioJune 26, 2012—Software as a Service (SaaS) provider Descartes Systems Group announced that Canadian Blood Services, a national, not-for-profit, charitable organization that manages the blood supply in all Canadian provinces and territories except Quebec, has successfully implemented Descartes' cloud-based Transportation Management solution. The solution helps manage inventories in transit and the delivery of blood and blood products to hospitals, clinics, labs and other facilities.

“Our mission is to manage the blood and blood products supply in a manner that gains the trust, commitment and confidence of all Canadians by providing a safe, secure, cost-effective and accessible supply of quality blood and related products,” said Jean Landreville, Distribution Manager at Canadian Blood Services. “Descartes is helping us deliver on this mission with a comprehensive solution that provides robust logistics management and chain of custody tracking capabilities that are critical to our operations.”

Descartes' transportation management solution provides modular, end-to-end multi-modal functionality that spans the entire shipment lifecycle. Orders are taken directly from Canadian Blood Services' enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and are optimized based on business requirements, service criteria and cost. The solution determines whether the time sensitive shipment should be transported on Canadian Blood Services' private fleet or via a third-party carrier.

Shipments transported on Canadian Blood Services' private fleet are optimized to reduce fuel and operational costs while meeting defined service levels. To help ensure chain of custody compliance, the shipments are scanned on and off the vehicles and then shipment location and handling information is tracked, including electronic proof of delivery (POD) signature capture. For shipments transported via a third-party carrier, the shipment management process is enhanced with optimized carrier selection; integrated carrier-compliant parcel labeling; and performance management reporting.

“We are really proud to be working with Canadian Blood Services, and pleased that our solutions are helping to make a difference in Canada,” said Arthur Mesher, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Descartes Systems Group. “Our ability to rapidly deploy and cost-effectively combine purchased transportation and private fleet management with leading-edge mobile applications is a perfect fit for organizations like Canadian Blood Services.”

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