Distribution & 3PL Logistics Solutions

Logistics Software Solutions for 3PL's and LSP's

Leading distributors and third-party logistics companies around the world rely on Descartes’ market leading supply chain solutions and innovations to enable them to compete at the highest levels to succeed and grow.

Our routing and scheduling solutions can assist you with increased productivity, decreased costs, and improved customer experience whether you are a distribution or 3PL company operating a network of fixed routes or routes that are optimised daily.

We are aware that distribution firms and third-party logistics (3PLs) are struggling financially, therefore it is crucial to make sure the appropriate products are delivered at the right time to the right location. It is not an easy undertaking to combine it with the need to maintain high levels of customer service while also balancing the demands on labour and transportation costs in order to draw in and keep clients.

Our solutions give you the tools you need to go past manual procedures and other disparate systems. assisting in the better management of your inventories, assets, staff, and necessary business papers.

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Solutions for Distribution and Third Party Logistics:

• Fixed routes

  Fixed routes can degrade over time as traffic flows change and minor alterations are made to schedules, using our software to check and improve on static routes will ensure you are keeping the costs down in your fixed route network. The management of routes and deliveries can be completely automated, or planners can manually alter routes for specific deliveries. Either way the systems optimises deliveries based on a combination of time, cost and many other factors.

• Dynamic Routes

  The manual calculations required to produce dynamic multi drop routes for distribution channels is a lengthy and complex process. Our solution automates this into minutes, freeing planners’ time to deal with any problems or exceptions. Our algorithms and AI systems factor in the latest traffic conditions and restrictions, time of day, type of vehicle, priority deliveries, time of delivery and many other factors to produce the most cost efficient routes based on the available resources available for deliveries. This is a continuous optimisation process, recalculating each time an order is added to the system. This constant recalculation helps prevent you from over committing to deliveries and enables you to see, well in advance, when extra resources or hired in vehicles may be required, not the night before as inferior batch processing systems might otherwise do.

• System integration

  Our solution will easily integrate with your other existing business solutions with established links to all the major ERP, SOP, WMS and vehicle telematics systems plus a number of the other less well known systems, meaning that our solution can be quickly employed, while any issues will be resolved by our experienced implementation team.

  It can also take advantage of drivers’ hours data from Descartes SmartCompliance.

• Additional solutions for distribution companies

  The breadth and depth of our cloud based, software as a service (SaaS), solutions that we provide through our Logistics Technology Platform are unparalleled in the market. We can help you run best-in-class distribution operations with solutions that span:

  • Routing & Scheduling
  • Compliance management for road transport operations
  • Transportation management systems
  • Regulatory and Customs compliance, including the operation of an External Temporary Storage Facility (ETSF)
  • Supply chain visibility for managing inventory flow
  • Trading partner connectivity and messaging
  • Electronic systems for Proof of Delivery
  • Vehicle telematics and GPS tracking
  • Customer Apps to inform them of ETA’s and delivery vehicle location
  • WMS systems for ecommerce sellers to aid picking, packing and shipping
• Cloud based Software as a Service

  Descartes Automated Route and scheduling optimisation is a SaaS cloud-based solution, enabling the operation of the software from any location with an internet connection. This is useful for route planners who for various reasons might be required to work is different office locations or from home.

Contact a 3PL and distribution expert today.