Manufacturing Industry

The MPO platform enables manufacturers to optimize each and every incoming order based on requirements like service levels and delivery dates; teams can, for instance, combine and consolidate orders to not only save on costs but also make use of limited capacity.

 

As an end-to-end platform, MPO's Control Tower capabilities reveal previously hidden costs through a true cost-to-serve picture. The platform documents an order’s journey from start to finish in great detail, including every leg, mode, service order, and all tariffs, contracts, and prices encountered. For more information, read 3 Ways a Control Tower Can Help You Recover Revenues & Resilience

The supply chain cloud platform’s automated rate shopping also helps secure competitive market rates. Spanning diverse LTL, Truckload, and Parcel carriers, once orders are consolidated, teams can send it out and bid. The MPO platform enables mode shifting at every mode.

Moreover, with today’s mounting supply chain disruptions and capacity constraints, manufacturers must source inventory from multiple suppliers, sometimes even new suppliers, which introduces new lanes and new partners. Carrier rate shopping allows transportation departments to quickly connect to multiple carriers and rates via a real-time feed to secure the most cost-effective options to deliver on-time and in-full.

Yes! The MPO platform enables optimized order management of all order types, including purchase orders.

With so many raw materials coming in overseas, visibility over international inbound flows is especially critical. The MPO platform integrates with all international freight forwarders and ocean and air providers, so manufacturers gain visibility over granular purchase order details (whether an order shipped in full, who it shipped with, when it shipped, etc.). All documentation is captured at every level - including customs documentations, pre-arrivals, and release.

The platform’s flexibility allows manufacturers to quickly and easily change suppliers. Supplier communication is also made easy through a single-source, single-view platform. API integrations centralize data and collaboration – no more logging in and out of multiple portals and communication channels. The platform also provides intelligent recommendations, allowing teams to always make the best decisions about purchase order flows for any given circumstance, such as when an exception arises.

 

Here's an example of how GEODIS used the MPO platform to connect to over 1,000 suppliers and carriers, gain real-time visibility and exceptions management, and easily access import and export trade documents for international orders. By optimizing every purchase order against service levels, inventory, transportation, and costs, GEODIS majorly improved their customer's efficiency and saved them over $1M a year.

It’s important for manufacturers to be capable to promise. The MPO platform seamlessly integrates with any system, including ERPs, CRMs, WMSs, eCommerce systems like Shopify, and even proprietary ones. This enables global visibility into a manufacturer’s own facilities, as well as those of their suppliers and their suppliers’ suppliers. With real-time, multi-tier inventory visibility, businesses can check supply prior to accepting a purchase order (PO).

Manufacturers can also set minimum inventory levels based on anticipated order volumes and buying cycles of current clients and receive automated notifications when inventory is low. The MPO platform seamlessly connects with demand planning systems, and manufacturers can leverage built in Machine Learning capabilities to continuously improve inventory forecasting and replenishment over time.

Global economic issues, constraints, and supply shortages have challenged lean and just-in-time (JIT) inventory strategies. But having safety stock just to meet a potential spike in customer demand or in anticipation of potential supply chain failure is costly, and VMI isn’t an optimal solution. Manufacturers can leverage the MPO Control Tower to manage better manage inventory, but there is also a great new network inventory management solution enabling businesses to achieve and maintain high customer satisfaction without having an abundance of excess inventory sitting on their balance sheet.

For more in-depth information, you can read this article where we interviewed the AFS CEO on strategic inventory management and industry-first solution, or watch this Talking Logistics on-demand video episode about enabling assurance of supply.

Merely automating transport planning and execution processes can drastically improve efficiencies and your ability to optimize everything from order consolidations to carrier and multi-stop, multi-leg route selections. Unlike most Transportation Management Systems (TMS), the MPO ‘TMS Plus’ enables visibility, efficiency gains, cost control, and optimization beyond just transport.

The MPO platform connects an organization’s existing infrastructure (ERPs, CRMs, WMSs, etc.) for full supply chain visibility and control across inventory, orders, and transportation. In addition to traditional functions, like automated booking, tendering, order consolidation, and track and trace, TMS+ offers advanced order management, with AI-driven planning and a full cost-to-serve picture beyond logistics. As a multi-modal solution, it allows manufacturers to always deliver the best service at the best cost - across multiple legs, multiple modes, multiple regions, and multiple parties. Learn more about the MPO Transportation Management solution.

Analyst Nucleus Research has observed that companies using MPO can increase delivery speed by 10% and reduce overall supply chain costs by 5%.

For example, MPO enabled a logistics service provider to save their customer about $1.5 million a year. Through capabilities like dynamic, multi-leg carrier selection, in-transit stock visibility, order-splitting and consolidation, and dynamic invoice matching, their customer enjoyed approximately 5% cost savings across logistics, billing, and overall efficiency gains.

MPO partner Alkimius shared that, in their experience, a Control Tower and Supply Chain Visibility solution such as MPO's, saves on average 4-6% in manpower optimization, 3-7% from centralization and digitization, 5% from new transport opportunities, 3-5% in extra savings and efficiencies, and 1-3% from freight audit and payment capabilities.

While benefits will vary depending on such factors as company and supply chain size and digital maturity, broadly speaking, it's not uncommon for a mid-size company to see a 5% OTIF improvement, which could generate as much as 30 million additional revenue.