As digital technology continues to evolve, innovative technologies are being introduced, driving businesses to grow and transform. One sector that has experienced significant growth in recent years due to these advancements is the logistics and cargo industry. In fact, according to a study conducted by McKinsey, companies that actively digitize their supply chains can anticipate an average increase in earnings before interest and taxes of 3.2%, which is the most substantial increase from digitizing any aspect of their business, as well as a yearly revenue growth of 2.3%.
The logistics and supply chain industries are embracing digital mobility solutions to enhance the efficiency and safety of their transportation operations while reducing their environmental impact. This trend is driven by the increasing complexity of supply chains, competition among businesses, and rising customer expectations. As a result, these industries are exploring the latest technological advancements, including mobile solutions.
By utilizing digital mobility solutions, logistics and supply chain companies can improve their real-time data collection capabilities and streamline delivery times, gaining greater control over their operations. This, in turn, leads to increased productivity and efficiency in the supply chain process.
An Overview of Mobile-Based Supply Chain Management
Mobile-based supply chain management relies on the ability to capture and leverage real-time data from multiple sources, making it a critical component of mobile solutions. By utilizing mobile asset tracking solutions, businesses can stimulate demand, optimize inventory efficiency, and improve asset management, resulting in improved performance.
Mobile supply management systems are known for their speed, accuracy, and efficiency in tracking and sharing information about the movement of goods through the supply chain. By leveraging mobile technologies, these systems can significantly enhance productivity and improve overall supply chain performance.
What are the Benefits of Mobile Supply Chain Application Development?
Through the development of mobile applications for logistics and supply chain management, businesses can integrate mobile fleet solutions to track goods in real-time and receive support from the Internet of Things (IoT) to eliminate transitory touchpoints and streamline processes.
By optimizing the inventory management system, businesses can achieve faster delivery times and reach customers more efficiently. A greater number of suggested routes are being optimized, allowing goods to be moved faster, and customers to be located through GPS coordinates. This makes it easier for fleet operators to locate exact locations, and doorstep delivery solutions come into action on mobile devices. Taking advantage of app development to improve supply chain management can help reduce lead times, minimize errors, and optimize transportation channels to better manage inventory. Companies can benefit from improved visibility of the supply chain, lowering lead times, and mitigating errors.
Research mentioned on the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics (MIT CTL) shows that businesses can reduce process expenses in the supply chain by 50%, which can lead to a 20% increase in revenue for the business. These benefits are offered by mobility solutions, which are constantly evolving and expandable to meet changing needs as businesses grow.
In addition to creating optimal routes, data is continuously input into dynamic optimization sources that sit at the heart of the shipping agency’s Supply Chain Management system. This provides real-time feedback on driver and vehicle performance. Larger organizations are embracing enterprise mobility solutions like transportation lines, vendor management systems, and other networks to improve their business communication.
As a result, last-mile efficiency and productivity of all networks involved in the supply chain can be measured. By adding newer levels of sophistication, mobile logistics solutions can revolutionize vehicle communication and create a completely new paradigm.
Areas Where Supply Chain Digital Mobility Solutions Make a Difference
1. Real-time Demand Generation and Stimulation
Omnichannel businesses are gaining traction with the growth of e-commerce, requiring companies to figure out how to generate and address sudden surges in demand. To capture, analyze, and utilize data, companies can use rugged handsets such as CAY and other industrial tablets.
In addition to reducing errors, dynamic data will enable businesses to increase efficiency, stay competitive, and improve end-to-end services.
2. Handling Data in an Efficient Manner
CMOs and CXOs can benefit from auto-generated data and analytics derived from mobile apps for the supply chain. This is vital to gain a deeper understanding of the business’s overall performance. It allows companies to adjust and improve customer service wherever necessary by weeding out poor customer service incidents in the data.
Mobile phones are provided to employees, and due to their mobility, data about delivery, stock levels, purchase orders, and everything about the supply chain can be collected and accessed anywhere and anytime. Even the specialized handheld devices are used in warehouses to collect inventory data instantly, manage stock, perform deliveries, etc.
3. Maximize the Potential of Human Resources
To manage human resources involved in a critical process like the supply chain, one cannot write off the amount of labor cost involved. Whatever the case may be, labor plays a significant role, especially at crucial touchpoints where mismanagement is almost impossible to tolerate.
Training, communication, and reconfiguring the organizational structure as needed are some of the strategies used by companies to achieve this. The use of mobile technology can provide collaborative information across multiple departments and integrate multiple human resource departments.
While handheld devices mitigate the cost of ownership investments in technology, managing these resources can become a bit expensive. Doing so, however, also reduces worker fatigue, which increases productivity at work.
4. Communicating Better Across the Supply Chain
In the days when drivers were the only touchpoint, a loss of contact could turn delivery into chaos. However, with mobile solutions for doorstep delivery, the inventory management system keeps the entire team coordinated. Shippers can communicate directly with drivers, track their routes, and schedule deliveries, improving delivery standards when they have direct communication with drivers.
Advancements in the last part of the delivery process are influenced by solutions related to transportation, and by offering pickup and delivery on the same day, it enables the use of tools to optimize the fleet’s capacity throughout the day.
5. Redundant Data Can Be Eliminated.
Previously, tracing paper entries created difficulties for departmental heads, thus resulting in a higher data redundancy rate. There were so many discrepancies in the data that the entire supply chain system could not be relied upon to the point where only back-office systems were considered reliable. In the logistics industry, mobile app development and implementation result in data reflecting immediately. By eliminating human error, the process speeds up, and data accuracy is maximized.
6. The Optimization Of Data Traceability
It is becoming increasingly common for logistics service providers to build an app to improve their CRM by integrating it with their supply chain system. As a company, they strive to facilitate end-to-end tracking and trace services for their customers.
Additionally, this not only limits mobile usage to the shipment and e-commerce industries but also applies to the aviation industry, which employs it for tracking and logging aircraft runs.
7. Using Paperless Solutions Can Enhance Management Efficiency
In general, back-end to front-end connections do not consider document and file dependencies, which can cause delays in the shipping process due to the dependence on certain paper formats. In such situations, it is possible to develop fleet management solutions that allow all involved departments to respond quickly, reducing management stress and increasing unit efficiency.
Final Thoughts
Integrated transportation and logistics companies are utilizing state-of-the-art platform technologies spanning devices, embedded software, and digital layers to develop smart edge solutions for monitoring, controlling, and analyzing fleets.
At eInfochips, we bring our expertise in web and mobile app development services to provide digital product integration across multiple industries. Our portfolio includes developing applications for a wide variety of products such as smartphones, tablets, smart home appliances, wearables, and speakers.
By leveraging our expertise in transforming and improving the transport and logistics industry, we have been able to develop responsive applications that work on wide range of devices, including smartphones, tablets, web platforms, digital TVs, infotainment devices, and wearables.
Our goal is to provide unified mobile integration, enabling our customers to deliver delightful user experiences across a variety of devices, connectivity options, backends, cloud platforms, analytics, and web/mobile applications.
