Warehouse management systems (WMS) have an important role to play in the operations of manufacturers, wholesale distributors, and many other companies that sell and distribute a large range of products. Many WMS solutions have a transportation module, but it only provides the basic functions one needs to manage your company’s logistics concerns.
On the other hand, a dedicated transportation management solution (TMS) from Dynamics 365 brings a number of benefits that exceed the scope of a WMS solution. It is the right choice for companies where transportation management is a mission-critical function. How can such a solution benefit your company?
Benefits of a Transportation Management Solution (TMS) in Dynamics 365
Focus and Specialization. A dedicated transportation management solution focuses on just one area of your business and does that job very well. It is designed to optimize your logistics operations. It offers a greater depth of TMS features, such as carrier selection, route optimization, freight tracking, and real-time supply chain visibility, all neatly integrated with your Dynamics 365 environment. A WMS, on the other hand, is more focused on optimizing your warehouse.
Scalability and Flexibility. Occasional shipping needs may be covered by a WMS module, but companies with growing operations would do well to consider adding a TMS to their Dynamics 365 solution in order to handle multiple carriers and complex transportation networks. A dedicated TMS is also flexible, adapting to changing business needs, industry regulations, and market trends.
Deeper Integration with the Transportation Ecosystem. Communicating with carriers is far from the only function of a TMS. Being able to integrate with other key systems in the supply chain sphere is critical to managing your logistics needs. TMS integrates with Dynamics 365, AI tools, carrier platforms, electronic data interchange (EDI) solutions, and freight marketplaces, among others. These integrations provide a smooth exchange of data and automate many logistics processes. Such connections are often much deeper and feature-complete than what is available in the WMS space.
Granular Transportation Visibility. When you want to know exactly where a shipment is, when it will arrive, balance vendor lead times, see how carriers are performing, or determine which is the most economical provider for your next shipment, and have that data available to your Dynamics 365 data analysis tools, a dedicated solution provides you all you need. With accurate reports and status updates, you can identify bottlenecks in your supply chain. It will also help you optimize your logistics processes, provide trustworthy data to make data-driven decisions, and assist customer service representatives to deliver more personalized experiences.
Next Steps
While a WMS can help you cover some basic functionality, many companies benefit from implementing a dedicated TMS solution. It really depends on your specific needs and requirements. In fact, some have implemented both solutions, integrating them to share data and reaping the best benefits of each solution.
Would you like to know how a TMS can vastly improve your logistics operations in Dynamics 365? How will you know if a TMS is right for your business? for assistance, and start taking control of your supply chain.
By Next Generation Logistics |
