Logistics and its systems - from TMS to MCN and AX4
The problem: one example among many
Does this situation sound familiar to you? I have several production lines in my factory that are critically important for supply, or are simply too expensive for me to afford to stop. My analyst, Wilson, tells me there's a risk of a shutdown due to a lack of materials. We check the ERP system, and there's a Purchase Order generated and accepted by the supplier 15 days ago, with an expected arrival date of today. It should work perfectly and not shut down my factory. But the risk is very high; I need to know if the shipment is on the road, so I ask Wilson to check his emails with the supplier (he does regular follow-ups with suppliers) to see the last update. After a few minutes, he tells me: "Three days ago it was in the final stages before packaging!" That doesn't help me. We decide to call the supplier, and after three attempts and a 30-minute wait, we discover there was indeed a delay, and the shipment is leaving today and will arrive tomorrow. Now I have to reschedule the factory with other products to try and avoid a shutdown. And hope that the transport goes smoothly.
This story is a small sample of the daily reality of most industries that, working in a way that is disconnected from their supply chain, lose agility and precision in decision-making, generating impacts on service level and efficiency, which harm costs and revenues, in addition to generating immense stress in operations, wasting a lot of time to obtain basic information.
MCN, TMS and the Control Tower with AX4
This type of problem gave rise to the concept of Multi-enterprise Collaboration Networks (MCNs). According to Gartner, MCNs are solutions that support a community of business partners of any level and type who need to coordinate and execute business processes that span multiple company company 's extended supply chain within the overall business ecosystem in which they operate. The main features of MCN solutions include three layers: network representation and management, application functions, and integration, analytics, and intelligence.
The AX4 logistics management software from the Siemens Digital Logistics (SDL) portfolio is a Multi-Centered Business (MCB), enabling collaboration between industry, suppliers, and carriers through workflows designed to automate and optimize logistics processes among different stakeholders. For example, you can define via the system what actions are necessary after your supplier invoices cargo, what notifications will occur and to whom, as well as define a flow of actions for exceptional cases, such as loss or damage during transport. Users are connected to the platform on their desktops, but also on their mobile applications, to facilitate updates on shipments by carriers.
Beyond these inter- company , AX4 is a transportation management software, also meeting the requirements of a traditional TMS (Transportation Management System) which, according to Gartner, is a category of systems designed to manage increasing levels of transportation complexity across various modes of transport and geographic regions . The Siemens solution performs inbound and outbound transportation management functions, manages freight tables, purchasing flow, and even collaborative dock scheduling. But, as the icing on the cake, AX4 is also integrated with Opcenter APS, allowing any update to a transport forecast to be automatically reflected in the availability of materials in a factory schedule created by PPC . Here you can find a comparative article between AX4 software and TMS software.
In summary, it enables a company 's Logistics Control Tower and, by presenting the traditional execution of a TMS with the collaboration in the supply chain of an MCN on a 100% cloud platform, AX4 becomes an extremely differentiated logistics technology.
But what results can we expect?
When we talk about AX4, we're referring to a solution with over 20 years of experience, a user base of over 600,000, and more than 50,000 daily managed transport operations. company that adopt a platform of this caliber experience significant impacts on their status quo in various aspects, such as:
A more resilient supply chain : Through the visibility and collaboration provided, which allow the flow of workflow and information between the different stakeholders in the production chain to occur in an agile, unified and therefore reliable manner.
Cost reduction: if the information is available in advance (remember our story from the beginning), we avoid misuse of our assets, late payment penalties, extra truck fees in the yard because shipments are poorly organized, freight costs inconsistent with contracts, and so on;
Risk Mitigation : In today's global environment, with trends so acute they've earned a nickname, the so-called VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity), being prepared for the diverse situations your production chain may face (wars, strikes, climate disasters, accidents, among others) means mitigating risks that can unexpectedly generate stratospheric costs. After the problem occurs, the remedy can be very expensive and bitter. Therefore, your operation's ability to react quickly and assertively through what technology can provide is crucial.
Digital Transformation: more than just jargon, it's a change in how your operation works, eliminating highly manual activities and transforming mechanical work into analytical work. Furthermore, this movement causes a structural change in the relationship between company , from paving the way for better partnerships to reducing the costs of various interfaces between different systems based on the simplification of a unified, commonly used system. Finally, AX4 enables the company to rely on real (and voluminous!) data to improve its management, because let's face it, analyst Wilson's inbox or his spreadsheet doesn't transform the way we work with data.
It's clear that not all of these impacts are ends in themselves; some are means. However, these means to reach our goals will very soon be imperative for anyone who wants to remain competitive. Simply put, anyone who doesn't understand and develop their operations effectively through the proper use of data, or who doesn't adapt to the new sustainability regulations, will be out of the game. And since we know that nothing happens overnight in industry, it's best to start thinking about this as soon as possible.
Do you need technical guidance on how to implement this logistics technology in your industry? Talk to NEO and one of our specialized consultants will contact you to show you the way.