MPO’s cloud platform for order and logistics management allowed an agricultural spare parts distributor to streamline fulfillment, obtain full order visibility, and reduce shipping costs for customers.
The Challenge
Managing a highly complex supply chain network is no easy feat. When one of Europe’s largest distributors of agricultural spare parts decided to transition to a digital supply chain, they enlisted MPO to the task. At the time, the company ran 11 distribution centers (DCs) serving more than 40,000 customers in multiple countries, where quick and reliable deliveries were critical.
While experiencing high growth levels, with increasing order volumes and more than 150,000 order lines per day, the distributor was also integrating a new acquisition into their core business. They needed a smarter and more efficient way to gain order visibility, manage data exchanges between their 40-carrier network, control costs, and fulfill their mounting orders at high speed and with pinpoint accuracy.
The Solution
Leveraging MPO’s cloud platform for order and logistics management, the distributor was able to seamlessly connect their ERP and WMS systems. This allowed them to instantaneously receive orders on a single platform and thereby plan and execute orders with greater agility and precision.
MPO’s platform also helped streamline fulfillment. By analyzing factors such as routes, carriers, capacities, rates, and service level agreements, the platform could consistently optimize shipping costs and efficiently consolidate orders from their 11 DCs to a local hub for last-mile delivery.
Moreover, because the MPO platform calculates transport costs per item, per shipment, and per customer, it allowed the distributor to not only reduce internal costs, but to also keep shipping costs competitively low for their customers.
By standardizing carrier communications and data formats, MPO was also able to help the distributor better leverage their multi-carrier network and obtain full order visibility for their customer orders. The order and logistics management platform provided carrier-specific labeling that could essentially be generated in real time to meet the distributor’s high-speed requirements. Once affixed to the appropriate boxes, these labels would be scanned on pallets and trucks, allowing customer service representatives to easily track them.
Having such full visibility of boxed items, pallet items, and orders in transit proved immensely valuable for keeping up with customer demands and providing higher levels of customer service. To continuously keep costs in check, the MPO solution also processed and matched carrier invoices to the pre-calculated agreements. As a result, the distributor managed to significantly boost efficiencies and revenue growth.
To learn more:
email: bd@mpo.com
phone: 646-520-0841
web: www.mpo.com
Source: https://www.inboundlogistics.com
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