Gartner defines last-mile delivery (LMD) technology solutions as specialized, customer-centric transportation management solutions that focus on managing the delivery process by which a consumer and the products they order come together. These solutions provide capabilities for routing deliveries to consumer homes, with some solutions extending the delivery service capabilities offered to support options like store, curbside and locker box pickup as well as return options. LMD technology solutions provide a digitized experience to a shipper’s customer, allowing end consumers to route, book, track and communicate changes to their orders through a digital channel. LMD solutions can support different shipping models as they incorporate vehicle routing, visibility and optimization capabilities for asset-based shippers, those that own last-mile delivery and associated vehicles, and access to a carrier network for non-asset-based shippers.
Multicarrier parcel management solutions help companies select the most appropriate parcel carrier from among all contracted carriers. This selection is based on order characteristics (such as weight and dimensional properties), delivery rules (such as delivery time and delivery zone) and carrier performance, while considering the cost differentials of various carrier offerings. These tools also enable shippers and 3PLs to manage the creation of labels, create shipper manifests, provide status messages to customers or customer service representatives, and manage carrier rates.
Reviews for 'Supply Chain Management - Others'
Gartner defines transportation management systems (TMSs) as software that supports multimodal planning and execution of the physical transport of goods across the supply chain. It allows a shipper to manage varying levels of transportation complexity across multiple transport modes and geographic regions. TMS solutions are utilized by shippers of differing sizes, operational complexity, industries and geographic locations.
Gartner defines a vehicle routing and scheduling (VRS) solution as an application that creates vehicle routes and schedules, considering multiple constraints and service requirements while minimizing transportation fleet costs and mileage. VRS creates repeatable scheduled static routes and/or dynamic routes based on inputs (orders, deliveries and pickups), rules and constraints for meeting objectives. Transportation delivery fleets include both full truckload and last mile. VRS solutions are capable of running both scenario modeling analysis to support fleet sizing, delivery window optimization, long-term planning and tactical optimization for execution of deliveries.
Gartner defines a warehouse management system (WMS) as a software application that helps manage and intelligently execute the operations of a warehouse, distribution center (DC) or fulfillment center (FC). WMS operations natively exploit mobile devices along with bar codes and potentially RFID or other scanning/sensing technologies, to form the transactional foundation of warehouse management. This enables efficiencies of directed work activity (optimization) and the delivery of accurate information in near real time. Core WMS capabilities address, among others, the needs to receive, put away, store, count and pick, pack and ship goods. Gartner also includes additional integrated functionality offered by WMS providers beyond core WMS. These extended WMS capabilities can include more advanced capabilities such as managing labor or optimizing the locating of inventory within a facility.