3 Ways to Reduce Supply Chain Waste in the Final Mile
Review Your Business Intelligence Tools Regularly
How visible is your final-mile? You should be able to look for supply chain waste and hone in on that last piece for areas of improvement.Aggregating and maintaining your data to create reports on final-mile metrics will provide the clearest picture on where you can improve in the final-mile.
Customer Experience
What are your e-commerce customers experiencing at delivery? Does the delivery driver arrive on time? Are all of the delivery requirements being completed?Each delivery is unique, and drivers often have more responsibility than taking a package to point A and leaving it there. Ensuring that your specific requirements are met is of the utmost importance to your customers’ experiences.Look at your business intelligence tool to see how frequently and which carriers have drivers that are arriving late. Alternatively, see which carriers are missing some of the requirements at pickup.
Lost Product
Nearly $35 billion is lost to supply chain theft every year. Theft can happen at any point in the supply chain, but once the product leaves your company warehouse, it especially vulnerable.By tracking disparities between the GPS location that a package was marked delivered and where it was supposed to be delivered, you can examine where inventory may be getting lost in the final-mile, and allow you to investigate further.If you’re not watching where your products are getting lost in the final-mile, you’re wasting money.
Hiring the Right Final Mile Carriers
For a majority of your online customers, the final-mile carrier you use may be the only face-to-face interaction they have with your brand.Finding efficient and customer-friendly final-mile carriers for your business is extremely important. You not only want to ensure that your packages arrive inexpensively but as promised and with a courteous attitude.When sitting at the top of the supply chain, managing your customer experience in the final-mile can be difficult. Ensuring that your technology is prepared to provide the visibility through metrics is vital to controlling that piece of your supply chain.If you’re hiring the wrong final-mile carriers, your customers will likely have a poor experience, reducing the likelihood of a repeat order, and costing you money.You may have already identified carriers that you want to replace, but are struggling to locate new carriers. Here are three resources to find final-mile carriers nationwide:
Make the Most of Technology
There is an old IT rule of thumb that says, “If something takes you more than 90 seconds, automate it!”Removing manual labor through automation and streamlining processes, can reduce the number of eyes you’re forced to use to manage your final-mile, saving you money.One of the biggest time wasters in supply chain technology management is bridging the gap between the different software platforms your company, your partners, and your carriers use every day. Typically, this requires dozens of IT providers, manually building code to connect each platform. Even after establishing the bridge is complete, it still must be monitored and maintained.In today’s world, there is no reason to continue to build these bridges by hand. Automating the process allows your employees to focus on other areas, saving you money and removing the potential for error.
Reduce Supply Chain Expense in the Final Mile
Garnering almost a third of your transportation budget, the final-mile may also have the most room for reducing waste. You can see a drastic reduction in your final-mile expense by taking a look at your business intelligence regularly, selecting the right final-mile carriers, and making the most of automating your technology.
eTrac is Here to Help
Your partners at eTrac can assist you to streamline your final-mile process and reduce your expenses. Our system includes a reporting tool, with a customizable dashboard and business insights; access to a database of over 1300 final-mile carriers located around the country; and the freedom of only managing a single integration point with all of your final-mile carriers.Ready to save money in the final mile? Contact us.