How to track goods in real-time

ChemicalCo. is a global chemicals company. It delivers finished goods to industrial customers via road, rail, maritime transport and their combination. In order to achieve high levels of customer satisfaction, ChemicalCo. sought to improve the visibility of in-transit goods and gain objective information about point-of-delivery for its shipments. SCG’s on-demand workforce helped ChemicalCo. in two areas:

1. Identify possible approaches to solve the tracking problem
2. Rank solution providers by analysing their capabilities and fit with ChemicalCo. needs

ChemicalCo.’s outbound logistics is managed by a third party transportation management system (3PL-TMS) provider. However, the TMS lacked the capability of providing real-time visibility of in-transit goods. This resulted in ChemicalCo. learning about the delay, in some cases, days later or when a customer would call ChemicalCo.’s customer service enquiring about the delivery delay.

ChemicalCo. utilized SCG’s on-demand workforce to accelerate solutining on this visibility issue. SCG’s on-demand workforce undertook a time-bound sprint to enable progress on the challenge for faster decision making.

SCG conducted a three-phase project:

Phase 1: Understand and prioritize stakeholders’ key requirements

Downstream supply chain involved multiple internal stakeholders, therefore the first step was to list each stakeholder’s requirements for a solution. Through in-depth interviews and workshops key criteria for the solution were identified.

Phase 2: Identify solution approaches and list vendors

Two approaches were identified for tracking:

• Milestone-based solutions – Near real-time solution where location information throughout the route is shared in timely intervals.
• Real-time solutions – True real time solution where freight movement is tracked automatically from beginning to end of the route. The real-time approach was selected for further deep-dive.

Phase 3: Solution fit analysis

Nine real-time solutions providers were pre-selected based on ChemicalCo’s requirements. Upon further deep-dive, three platforms were selected for critical analysis and benchmarked as per the following criteria: real time depth, carrier coverage, predictive capability, solution portfolio and business model.