UPS has introduced a cloud-based technology platform to enable customers to monitor and managetheir air and ocean freight shipments more efficiently.
The US company said the new system, UPS Order Watch, enhances its existing global ocean andair freight forwarding product, UPS Supplier Management, by allowing customers to collaborate moreefficiently with international suppliers and better manage their inbound supply chains.
Enhancements include added capabilities to enable greater accuracy and timeliness of overseasvendor bookings; improved processing and management of suppliers; automated exception management;near real-time shipment status and detailed line-level visibility of in-transit inventory; improvedinternal operational processes; and facilitation of purchase order (PO) consolidation and optimizedshipping plans.
UPS Order Watch is available to current customers now and will be available to new customersstarting in early 2013.
“Companies are beginning to look to the cloud for opportunities to improve supply chaincollaboration and reduce operational inefficiencies,” said Tom Boike, vice president of suppliermanagement at UPS. “Through scalable cloud-based supply chain management technologies such as UPSOrder Watch, companies are not only able to streamline management of vendors, but also manage allof their inbound shipments via a single platform. This can provide opportunities to consolidateocean freight shipments and improve container usage to realize cost savings, which is increasinglyimportant as COOs are looking for ways to mitigate ocean transportation costs following the oceancarrier rate increases in 2012.”
The improved UPS Order Watch vendor booking system will dispatch system-generated exceptionalerts to help ensure vendor adherence to customer requirements and provide an online system forapprovals, facilitating PO-specific communication between vendor and customer. The improvements tothe Supplier Management service will eliminate time-consuming email communication and also reducethe need for additional record keeping by the customer.
Enhanced monitoring of vendor bookings against purchase order details and ship windows canfurther increase customer control, enabling intervention in early or late shipments or improperorder quantities. Once an order is placed, PO-level shipment planning and execution capabilitiesenable visibility and control from order creation through shipment delivery, providing customerswith a virtual on-hand inventory view of incoming orders and merchandise.
UPS Order Watch also facilitates improvements to inbound supply chain visibility by enablinga “single version of the truth” due to the entire value chain community, from ocean carriers totrucking companies, being linked to the host network as opposed to the common method in place todayof electronic data interchange, or EDI, file exchanges.
