Atlanta — March 12, 2003 — Logistics solutions specialist Logility this week rolled out the latest version of its transportation management system (TMS), with expanded event management, private freight exchange and performance management capabilities.
Logility said that Voyager Transportation Planning and Management is designed to let manufacturers, distributors, retailers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) manage the transportation component of their supply chains and achieve greater visibility across the supply chain.
Version 6.5 of the solution incorporates exception-driven workflows intended to fully automate the shipment planning, shipment management and freight accounting processes. As orders are received, they can be incorporated into the shipment planning process with the best carrier selected and the load tendered, shipped, tracked to point of delivery, audited and authorized for payment in accounts payable without manual intervention.
"Logistics executives are called upon to focus on cost management, supply chain process improvements and customer service," said Bill Pritz, vice president of Logility's transportation group. "In the past, many companies were limited to communicating by phone and fax. With Voyager Transportation Planning and Management version 6.5, you can eliminate phone and fax and completely automate the transportation business processes to allow logistics professionals to focus on improving customer service and resolving critical issues."
Voyager establishes process workflows for activities such as load tendering, track and trace and freight bill auditing. It then monitors transactions for all of these activities and generates exceptions when business rules are met, triggering alert notification to drive more rapid resolution activities, according to Logility.
This alert capability is intended to support the unattended operation of Voyager so that logistics professionals can focus on the exceptions. Users can subscribe to the exceptions relevant to their responsibility. For example, a customer service representative might subscribe to exceptions such as "Appointment Changed" or "Estimated Late Delivery." When an alert is received, the rep can drill down to review the detail and resolve the issue.
Web-based capabilities in the new version allow companies to synchronize operations with their trading partners and service providers so that carriers can accept or reject loads, bid on loads, schedule shipments, provide in-transit information, record actual delivery information, communicate equipment availability and check payment status over the Web. This functionality allows smaller carriers, armed only with a Web browser, to provide the same information as their larger competitors who use EDI.
A new Web-based track-and-trace feature is designed to provide customers and suppliers secure inquiries into the Voyager database to view both historical and current order/shipment status information. For example, customers can inquire on orders they expect to receive, while suppliers can check the status of their shipments. Additionally, customers can drill down to stock-keeping unit (SKU)-level detail of purchase orders, customer orders or shipments for manpower planning, production scheduling or delivery confirmation.
The new version also includes performance management tools to assist logistics professionals in analyzing and evaluating their operations. Voyager's modeling subsystem can help evaluate new distribution strategies, customer service policies, sourcing strategies, customer profitability and carrier pricing proposals. Key performance indicators (KPIs) can provide a daily or weekly pulse of the transportation operations, while the flexible reporting system can generate historical performance and activity reports.
Finally, the solution supports real-time integration with order management systems, warehouse management systems and shipping systems using XML messaging. For example, as an order is changed in the order management system, the updated information can be immediately reflected in Voyager.
Voyager Transportation Planning and Management Version 6.5 is available today for deployment on Windows NT/2000.
