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Improve Your Transportation Management

Your 6-step guide to optimize Blue Yonder TMS processes.
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Improve Your Transportation Management
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Optimize Transportation Management in Blue Yonder TMS for Peak Efficiency

Process mining helps you pinpoint critical inefficiencies in your operations. It can uncover hidden delays, identify compliance issues, and reveal increased costs that impact your bottom line. By visualizing your entire logistics chain, you can track performance and streamline workflows to boost customer satisfaction.

Download our pre-configured data template and address common challenges to reach your efficiency goals. Follow our six-step improvement plan and consult the Data Template Guide to transform your operations.

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Why Optimize Transportation Management with Blue Yonder TMS?

Transportation Management is the backbone of any successful supply chain, directly impacting costs, delivery times, and ultimately, customer satisfaction. In today's dynamic global market, inefficiencies in your logistics operations, especially within sophisticated systems like Blue Yonder TMS, can lead to significant financial drain, missed deadlines, and a damaged reputation. Despite leveraging advanced multi-modal optimization capabilities, organizations often struggle to gain full transparency into the actual execution of their transportation processes. Hidden bottlenecks, non-compliant activities, and deviations from standard operating procedures can inflate operational costs and extend crucial delivery cycle times.

Understanding the end-to-end journey of every shipment, from the initial transportation request to final payment processing, is paramount. Without clear visibility into process execution, identifying root causes of delays, optimizing carrier performance, and ensuring regulatory compliance becomes a constant challenge. This often results in a reactive approach to problem-solving, rather than proactive process optimization.

How Process Mining Unlocks Efficiency in Blue Yonder TMS

Process mining offers a revolutionary approach to improving Transportation Management by transforming raw event data from your Blue Yonder TMS into a comprehensive, visual process map. Our solution provides an end-to-end view of your shipment process, encompassing all activities like "Transportation Request Received," "Shipment Planned," "Goods Picked Up," "Shipment In Transit," "Goods Delivered," and "Payment Processed." This detailed insight allows you to precisely track the flow of individual shipments, identifying exactly where delays occur, why reworks happen, and which process variations are common.

By analyzing real process execution data, you can uncover hidden bottlenecks that impact your Transportation Management cycle time, pinpoint non-compliant steps, and identify underperforming carriers. This data-driven perspective moves beyond assumptions, providing objective evidence of how your Blue Yonder TMS processes truly operate. It enables you to compare actual process flows against desired standards, quantify deviations, and prioritize improvement initiatives based on their potential impact on efficiency and cost savings.

Key Improvement Areas Identified Through Process Mining

Process mining for Transportation Management in Blue Yonder TMS provides a clear roadmap for targeted improvements. You can:

  • Optimize Carrier Performance: Gain insights into which carriers consistently meet delivery times and service level agreements, and identify those contributing to delays. Use this data to negotiate better terms or reallocate shipments effectively.
  • Reduce Transportation Costs: Pinpoint unnecessary steps, rework loops, and non-optimized routes that increase freight spend. Streamline your freight bill auditing and payment processing to capture early payment discounts and avoid late fees.
  • Accelerate Cycle Times: Discover exactly where shipments get stalled, from planning and booking to customs clearance and final delivery. Implement changes to significantly reduce the overall Transportation Management cycle time.
  • Enhance Compliance: Automatically detect instances where regulatory requirements or internal policies are not followed, allowing for immediate corrective action and robust audit trails.
  • Improve Operational Efficiency: Uncover manual workarounds, system usage inefficiencies, and opportunities for automation within your Blue Yonder TMS workflows, leading to more streamlined operations.

Expected Outcomes: Measurable Benefits for Your Logistics

Implementing process optimization with our solution for Transportation Management in Blue Yonder TMS delivers tangible, measurable benefits:

  • Significant Cost Reductions: By identifying and eliminating inefficiencies, you can reduce overall transportation expenditure by optimizing routes, carriers, and payment processes.
  • Faster Delivery Times: Streamlined processes and proactive bottleneck resolution lead to quicker transit times and more reliable deliveries, enhancing customer satisfaction.
  • Improved Customer Experience: Consistent, on-time deliveries build trust and loyalty, directly impacting your business's reputation and competitive advantage.
  • Enhanced Compliance and Risk Mitigation: Proactive identification of non-compliant activities reduces risks, penalties, and ensures adherence to industry regulations.
  • Data-Driven Decision Making: Move from reactive problem-solving to proactive, informed strategy development, leveraging empirical data for continuous process improvement.

Embark on Your Transportation Management Process Improvement Journey

Ready to transform your logistics operations and unlock the full potential of your Blue Yonder TMS investment? Our process mining solution provides the clarity and actionable insights you need to improve Transportation Management, reduce cycle time, and drive significant cost savings. Discover how you can easily identify and resolve bottlenecks, ensuring your supply chain operates at peak efficiency.

Transportation Management Logistics Optimization Supply Chain Efficiency Carrier Performance Shipping Delivery Freight Management Logistics Manager

Common Problems & Challenges

Identify which challenges are impacting you

Delays between receiving a transportation request and actually booking the shipment can lead to missed deadlines and dissatisfied customers. This inefficiency directly impacts the ability to meet delivery promises and can result in expedited shipping costs.ProcessMind analyzes the time spent between "Transportation Request Received" and "Shipment Booked" activities within Blue Yonder TMS, pinpointing bottlenecks and identifying specific users or configurations causing these delays across your Transportation Management process.

Inefficient carrier selection, not always choosing the most cost-effective or highest-performing option, can inflate transportation costs and impact service quality. This oversight prevents leveraging optimal rates and delivery reliability.ProcessMind examines the "Carrier Selected" activity and correlates it with attributes like "Carrier", "Mode of Transport", and historical performance data, revealing patterns where better alternatives could have been chosen within your Transportation Management system.

Recurring delays in goods pickup and final delivery directly affect customer satisfaction and can incur penalties or chargebacks. These disruptions indicate breakdowns in scheduling or execution within the logistics chain.ProcessMind compares "Pickup Scheduled" vs "Goods Picked Up" and "Delivery Scheduled" vs "Goods Delivered" activities, identifying root causes, such as specific carriers, locations, or types of shipments consistently experiencing delays in Blue Yonder TMS Transportation Management.

Gaps or significant delays in obtaining proof of delivery (POD) can hinder accurate invoicing, delay payment processing, and complicate dispute resolution. This creates cash flow issues and administrative overhead.ProcessMind tracks the lifecycle from "Goods Delivered" to "Proof of Delivery Received", highlighting cases where PODs are missing or excessively delayed. It identifies responsible parties or carriers consistently failing to provide timely documentation within your Transportation Management process.

High rates of discrepancies between freight bills and actual shipment events lead to time-consuming audits, payment delays, and potential overpayments. This directly impacts profitability and requires significant manual intervention.ProcessMind analyzes the "Freight Bill Audited" activity against the actual executed shipment journey and attributes, revealing where and why discrepancies commonly arise in your Blue Yonder TMS Transportation Management process, enabling proactive correction.

Delays during customs clearance can significantly extend transit times for international shipments, leading to increased holding costs and frustrated customers. These choke points disrupt the smooth flow of goods across borders.ProcessMind pinpoints excessive waiting times and deviations around the "Customs Cleared" activity. It helps identify specific origins, destinations, or modes of transport that consistently cause delays, optimizing your international Transportation Management in Blue Yonder TMS.

Frequent re-planning or adjustments to shipments after initial setup indicate underlying inefficiencies or errors in the initial planning phase. This consumes valuable resources and introduces potential for further delays and costs.ProcessMind uncovers instances where activities like "Shipment Planned" or "Shipment Booked" are repeatedly executed for the same shipment, revealing patterns of rework. This highlights areas for improvement in initial data accuracy or planning rules within Transportation Management.

A consistent drop in on-time delivery rates erodes customer trust, can lead to contract breaches, and damages brand reputation. Understanding the root causes of these failures is crucial for maintaining competitive advantage.ProcessMind calculates actual delivery times against the "Requested Delivery Date" attribute for each shipment, drilling down to identify specific carriers, routes, or types of shipments that are underperforming within your Transportation Management operations.

Shipments following non-optimal or unnecessarily lengthy routes result in increased fuel consumption, labor costs, and extended transit times. This erodes profit margins and operational efficiency.While not directly an activity, ProcessMind analyzes the sequence of locations visited and mode of transport for shipments against standard routes, identifying deviations and opportunities for better route optimization within Blue Yonder TMS Transportation Management.

Delays in processing payments to carriers can strain relationships, lead to late payment penalties, and potentially impact future service availability or rates. Prompt payment is essential for maintaining a reliable carrier network.ProcessMind measures the cycle time between "Freight Bill Audited" and "Payment Processed" activities, identifying bottlenecks in the payment workflow. It highlights specific steps or departments contributing to delays in your Transportation Management payment process.

Frequent, unscheduled modifications to planned shipments disrupt operations, require urgent reallocation of resources, and often incur additional costs. These changes indicate a lack of stability in the initial planning.ProcessMind detects re-occurrences or unscheduled insertions of activities related to planning or booking after the initial "Shipment Booked" status. This helps in understanding the triggers and impact of such changes across your Transportation Management in Blue Yonder TMS.

A lack of clear, real-time visibility into the entire shipment journey prevents proactive problem-solving and accurate customer communication. This leads to reactive crisis management and reduced operational control.ProcessMind constructs a comprehensive, visual map of every shipment's actual path, from "Transportation Request Received" to "Payment Processed", revealing all executed steps and variations. This provides unparalleled visibility into your Transportation Management process in Blue Yonder TMS.

Typical Goals

Define what success looks like

Reducing the time it takes to book a shipment is critical for improving overall logistics efficiency and meeting customer delivery expectations. Faster booking cycles in Transportation Management directly contribute to quicker fulfillment and enhanced responsiveness to market demands, impacting customer satisfaction and operational costs.ProcessMind helps by identifying delays and deviations in the 'Shipment Booked' activity within Blue Yonder TMS, pinpointing root causes like inefficient data entry or approval bottlenecks. By analyzing process variations, you can implement targeted improvements, potentially cutting booking times by 20-30%.

Optimizing carrier selection ensures that the right carrier is chosen for each shipment, balancing cost, transit time, and reliability. This is vital for cost management and service quality in Transportation Management, directly impacting profitability and customer satisfaction.ProcessMind analyzes the 'Carrier Selected' activity in Blue Yonder TMS, comparing chosen carriers against predefined criteria and actual performance data. It reveals instances of suboptimal choices, enabling you to refine selection algorithms and improve carrier performance by 15-25%.

Improving on-time pickup and delivery rates is paramount for customer satisfaction and supply chain reliability. Consistent adherence to schedules in Transportation Management strengthens customer relationships, reduces penalties, and optimizes downstream processes.Using ProcessMind, you can monitor the 'Goods Picked Up' and 'Goods Delivered' activities in Blue Yonder TMS, identifying recurring delay patterns and their root causes. This allows for proactive intervention and process adjustments, targeting an increase in on-time performance by 10-20%.

Efficiently capturing proof of delivery is essential for accurate invoicing, timely payment processing, and dispute resolution. Delays or missing documents in Transportation Management can lead to cash flow issues and customer service challenges.ProcessMind tracks the 'Proof of Delivery Received' activity, highlighting gaps and delays in the process flow within Blue Yonder TMS. By analyzing these discrepancies, you can optimize document collection procedures, reducing processing time by 25-35%.

Minimizing freight bill discrepancies leads to significant cost savings and improved financial accuracy. Errors in billing can result in overpayments, increased administrative overhead, and strained carrier relationships within Transportation Management.ProcessMind analyzes the 'Freight Bill Audited' activity and related payment processes in Blue Yonder TMS, identifying the frequency and nature of discrepancies. This allows for targeted interventions, such as automating validation rules, aiming for a 15-25% reduction in billing errors.

Accelerating customs clearance is crucial for international shipments, reducing transit times, storage costs, and avoiding potential fines. Streamlining this step in global Transportation Management enhances operational fluidity and customer service.ProcessMind maps the 'Customs Cleared' activity, revealing bottlenecks and non-compliant paths in Blue Yonder TMS. By identifying inefficient steps or missing documentation, organizations can optimize procedures, potentially reducing clearance times by 10-20%.

Reducing manual rework in shipment planning improves efficiency, lowers operational costs, and minimizes human error. Automation and standardization of planning activities in Transportation Management are key to scalable and reliable operations.ProcessMind identifies repeated or redundant activities following 'Shipment Planned' in Blue Yonder TMS, exposing where manual intervention frequently occurs. By analyzing these patterns, you can automate repetitive tasks, cutting rework rates by 30-50%.

Achieving a high and consistent rate of on-time deliveries is a core competitive advantage, directly impacting customer satisfaction and brand reputation. Reliable delivery performance in Transportation Management builds trust and fosters repeat business.ProcessMind provides continuous monitoring of the 'Goods Delivered' activity, benchmarking actual delivery times against requested dates from Blue Yonder TMS. It uncovers systemic issues affecting consistency, helping improve overall on-time delivery performance by 5-10%.

Optimizing shipment routing directly impacts transportation costs, fuel consumption, and environmental footprint. Ensuring that the most cost-efficient routes are consistently utilized in Transportation Management is vital for profitability.ProcessMind analyzes the actual paths taken by shipments against planned routes after 'Shipment Planned' and during 'Shipment In Transit' within Blue Yonder TMS. It highlights deviations and inefficient routes, enabling adjustments that can reduce transportation costs by 5-15%.

Faster carrier payment processing improves financial health for both the organization and its carriers, fostering stronger relationships and potentially unlocking early payment discounts. Timely payments are a cornerstone of efficient financial operations in Transportation Management.ProcessMind tracks the entire 'Payment Processed' cycle, identifying delays after 'Freight Bill Audited' in Blue Yonder TMS. By pinpointing bottlenecks, you can streamline approval workflows and integration points, reducing payment cycle times by 20-30%.

Reducing the volume of unplanned shipment changes minimizes disruptions, avoids additional costs, and improves operational predictability. Fewer changes mean a more stable and efficient Transportation Management process for all stakeholders.ProcessMind identifies frequent changes to 'Shipment Planned' or 'Pickup Scheduled' activities in Blue Yonder TMS, revealing their origins and impact. Analyzing these patterns helps in understanding root causes, aiming to decrease unplanned changes by 15-25%.

The 6-Step Improvement Path for Transportation Management

1

Download the Template
2

Export Your TMS Data
3

Upload Your Dataset
4

Analyze Your Process
5

Implement Improvements
6

Monitor Your Process
1

Download the Template

What to do

Obtain the pre-configured Excel template designed for Transportation Management process data. This template ensures your data is structured correctly for analysis.

View Data Template Guide Download Template
Why it matters

A standardized data structure is crucial for accurate and efficient analysis, preventing common data import issues and speeding up your journey.

Expected outcome

A clear, ready-to-use template for organizing your Blue Yonder TMS transportation data.

WHAT YOU WILL GET

Unlock Efficiency in Your Blue Yonder TMS Logistics

ProcessMind visualizes your entire transportation management journey, revealing critical insights and opportunities for optimization. Gain a clear understanding of your logistics to drive significant improvements.
  • Visualize actual Blue Yonder TMS flows
  • Pinpoint carrier performance issues
  • Identify process bottlenecks and delays
  • Streamline your entire logistics chain
Discover your actual process flow
Discover your actual process flow
Identify bottlenecks and delays
Identify bottlenecks and delays
Analyze process variants
Analyze process variants
Design your optimized process
Design your optimized process

TYPICAL OUTCOMES

Measurable Improvements in Transportation Management

These outcomes represent the tangible benefits organizations can realize by optimizing their Transportation Management processes using process mining with Blue Yonder TMS, driven by insights from each shipment's journey.

0 % faster
Faster Shipment Booking

Acceleration in initial process

Accelerate the initial stages of shipment planning and booking, leading to quicker order fulfillment and improved customer service. This directly impacts how fast a request turns into a booked shipment.
0 %
Reduced Freight Bill Rework

Decrease in billing discrepancies

Minimize instances where freight bills require re-auditing or adjustments due to errors. This directly translates to cost savings and faster payment processing for carriers.
0 %
Boost On-Time Delivery

Increase in successful deliveries

Enhance customer satisfaction and supply chain reliability by consistently meeting requested delivery dates. This reduces penalties and improves business reputation.
0 days
Expedited Carrier Payments

Reduced payment processing time

Accelerate the time from proof of delivery to final carrier payment, strengthening vendor relationships and ensuring smooth, continuous operations. This improves cash flow management for carriers.
0 %
Fewer Shipment Reworks

Decrease in unplanned changes

Reduce the number of times shipment plans are revised or rebooked after initial confirmation. This cuts down on manual effort, avoids re-planning costs, and improves operational stability.

Results vary based on process complexity, data quality, and specific business goals. These figures illustrate typical improvements observed across various implementations.

FAQs

Frequently asked questions

Process mining visualizes the actual flow of your shipments, identifying bottlenecks like delays in booking or customs clearance. This helps you uncover root causes of inefficiencies and improve critical processes within your Blue Yonder TMS environment.

You primarily need event logs detailing activities, timestamps, and a case identifier, which is typically the shipment ID in TMS. This data allows the reconstruction of the complete journey for each shipment.

Initial data extraction and model setup can take a few weeks, depending on data availability and system access. Within 4-8 weeks, you can typically gain first insights into process deviations and key performance indicators.

You can expect to accelerate shipment booking, optimize carrier selection, and boost on-time pickup and delivery performance. It also helps reduce freight bill discrepancies and manual rework, leading to significant cost savings.

Yes, process mining precisely maps out every step of your process, including customs clearance. It can highlight where delays occur, their frequency, and their impact on overall delivery times, enabling targeted improvements.

Extracting data from Blue Yonder TMS is manageable if you have access to the system's underlying database or reporting tools. Often, standard export functions or direct database queries can provide the necessary event logs.

Not necessarily. While data expertise is beneficial, many modern process mining tools offer user-friendly interfaces. Training can enable business analysts or process experts to use the tools effectively.

By comparing the actual shipment process and events with planned routes and charges, process mining exposes deviations that lead to discrepancies. This allows for proactive adjustments and dispute resolution, minimizing financial losses.

Unlock Peak Efficiency in Transportation Management Today

Pinpoint inefficiencies, track performance, and reduce cycle time by 30%.

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