Transportation processes in ETM are automated using Axelot TMS

2023: Axelot TMS Implementation

On October 16, 2023, Axelot announced that the transportation processes at ETM were automated using AXELOT TMS. AXELOT TMS allows ETM logistics to spend less time planning flights, despite the variability of logistics processes.

As reported, large volumes sales and complex supply chains ones require a particularly careful approach to the quality of flight planning, processing such volumes of information manually is extremely problematic. Therefore, the management of ETM decided to automate and optimize the management of transportation processes by time and cost. To do this, the company introduced AXELOT TMS simultaneously at two logistics centers in the Moscow and Kaluga regions, and then replicated the decision in the Kazan branch.

Cargo transportation is not limited to simple routes to cargo handling warehouses and to end customers within the delivery area. In some cases, goods are moved between the logistics centers themselves or you need to organize transportation directly from the supplier to the customer.

The parameters of the final delivery route at ETM, including the shipping warehouse and carrier, depend on a number of factors. In automatic planning, the system takes into account the time windows of departure and receipt of cargo upon request, the loading time for different types of vehicles and depending on the loading location, the maximum number of points in the flight for the types of vehicles, and the capacity of the warehouse. All this was taken into account as part of the project.

For example, you have automatically determined the shipping location depending on the delivery procedure. A special feature of logistics centers was the specially designated places in the warehouse for the consolidation of goods by delivery directions, in other words, the number of shipping warehouses. The system automatically determines them depending on the established delivery scheme on the request. At the same time, there are situations when a logist can make a managerial decision that the cargo will go directly to the client without overloads. In this case, the system checks the logist if he has set the required shipping warehouse number and does not allow the document to be posted without the completed mandatory details. For direct delivery to customers, the system has entered its shipping warehouses, which are entered in the reference book in the context of departments.

In the context of a large number of requests and areas of activity, the flexibility of TMS configuration allows system administrators at any time to reconfigure the principles of matching and checking shipping location numbers for a certain type of purchase requisitions. This greatly optimized the work of logicians - previously they entered all warehouse numbers for each request manually, but now the system automatically determines them based on the transportation scheme and sends them to WMS. If the warehouse does not have time for some reason to assemble the main machine, or at the moment there are too many orders in processing, the logician may decide to carry the cargo in another direction or way, while the system will offer to select the corresponding department from the list of warehouses

Within the framework of the project, the tasks of configuration and optimization were mainly solved using the standard functionality of the system. This allowed the company to:

• Use multimodal schemes when delivering to your own stores using static (for flights operated on a regular basis) and dynamic (routing orders of the last mile to actual demand) planning.
• Automatically determine the shipping location depending on the delivery procedure.
• Automatically add orders to static routes using different settings.
• Apply complex tariff rules for a hired fleet.

AXELOT TMS was integrated with the corporate information system, allowing employees to monitor the current status of documents on the external systems side. The integration was performed using the DATAREON ESB data service bus. As a result of the implementation of AXELOT TMS, the Transport Logistics Department received a tool for managing the full lifecycle of the delivery request. Manual and automatic planning is supplemented with a unique tool "Accounting for loading time depending on the vehicle type and warehouse resources." A "warehouse resource" is a shipping gate that operates on a certain schedule and is capable of receiving certain types of vehicles with a certain performance.

Automatic scheduling automates and optimizes the receipt of routing results. The process of passing points along the route is monitored in real time using a mobile client installed on drivers' smartphones. Replication of the implemented solution in the logistics center of the company, located in Kazan, made it possible to achieve similar results for the branch. With the help of AXELOT TMS, transportation for the delivery of products from several warehouses of the company was also automated here, the interaction of the dispatcher and drivers was optimized, and with the help of a mobile application, flight control and performance were brought to a single standard adopted in ETM.

For October 2023, ETM plans to further replicate TMS to the company's logistics centers in other regions of Russia.