Trade Manager

Mode neutral event driven workflow transportation management system.

Forwarding cargo requires the orchestration across a number of transportation and logistics vendors to perform a complex sequence of events from origin to destination. Successful supply chains are well organized to balance cost and operational expectations. Trade Manager is Trade Tech’s multi-layered solution that facilitates and harmonizes global supply chains by synchronizing and managing operational events across all modes of transport along the supply chain—in collaborative manner—to inform and collaborate with all supply-chain participants. 

Event and Exception Management –
For a specific shipment, Trade Manager creates an operational event sequence based on templates that model the transport of the shipment. Some event sequences are more complex than others. Simple port-to-port transport will have the fewest number of operational events, while multi-port relay shipments, or shipments with inland movements, will be more complex. Trade Manager recognizes the transport required and sets up the operational event sequence based on transport requirements for the specific shipment. Each operational event sequence specifies, for each event, the event location, the responsible party, the vendor, vendor reference number, scheduled date, and actual date. Thus, the operational event sequence specifies the planned chain of custody for each shipment, keeps track of the responsible party and allows the responsible party to manage the event by keeping track of the actual date relative to the scheduled date. If an event is not completed on time, the responsible party may expedite the shipment so that it does not fall behind the scheduled dates in order to meet customer expectations and, therefore, satisfy your customers. Trade Manager, via EDI, as well as through direct entry by vendors, receives direct feeds and input from consolidators, carriers, truckers, warehousemen and other logistics vendors along the supply chain to assist in managing all the events along the operational event sequence. Trade Manager monitors each shipment for the last completed operational event and then measures the next event against the current date and time. If the scheduled date and time of the event has passed, without the actual date and time being updated, Trade Manager will issue an alert to warn the responsible party that further action must be taken to bring the shipment back to the expected schedule. These events are not solely operational, they also include documentation related events, notifications as well as other actions related to the movements of goods. 

Collaborative Workflow –
Trade Manager operational event sequences cover all events from origin to destination for each shipment. This creates collaboration between the responsible parties for each of the events in the sequence resulting in an up-to-date work list for each operations user that allows them to quickly monitor and manage each shipment through the supply chain. Data are never required to be re-keyed but are simply augmented as users hand off the shipments to subsequent operations users along the event sequence all the way to shipment destination. 

Shipment Visibility –
Each container is tracked individually to ensure shipment visibility down to the purchase order (PO) or stock-keeping unit (SKU). Specific shipments are “loaded” individually to the container with the ability to load an unlimited number of POs and SKUs to a single container. SKUs can be accounted for individually or decremented from uploaded POs from beneficial-cargo-owner customers. Thus, POs and SKUs can be monitored as part of a shipment thus allowing for in-transit inventory visibility and management by your customers. 

Allocation and Forecast Management –
Allocation can be set between the carrier and the NVO and between the NVO and the Customer. This allows the NVO to set and monitor expectations with the carrier by comparing what the carrier said they would provide with what is booked or shipped. Allocations can be set up on a Trade Lane, Origin Port, Carrier, Vessel Service for a set of weeks and monitored on a daily or weekly basis. Allocation Management works best when it is used and compared with future bookings. Allocations can also incorporate Customer Forecasts so that Forecasts / Allocations / Bookings are all detailed on a single row. Adding Allocations to a Sell Rate is another way to set up a Customer Allocation. This gives much more detail at the Allocation Level specifying an exact origin / destination.  

e-Bookings –
Trade Tech is already set up directly with ocean carriers to automate the eBooking process for both the NVOCC as well as with the NVOCC’s clients and their trading partners. eBookings save time and money, but more importantly it enables speed to market. Importers can book a rate-based allocation when it is presented to them, and that booking can be sent directly to the carrier. This targets moments when the origin office communicates that they can secure extra space at a “new special price”, but time is of the essence to take advantage of that opportunity.   

Cargo-Security Filing –
Trade Manager encompasses the various Cargo-Security Filing initiatives that are in place as part of its operations processes. Filing is automatic. No additional screens or data-entry are required.

Documentation –
Trade Manager includes full documentation capabilities. Along with standard transportation documents, Trade Manager includes a wide array of management reports including reports by volume, carrier, business unit performance, transportation expenditures, per unit costing, etc.