In view of this desire, large international companies, as well as small businesses, pay great attention to the issue of logistics. In the broadest sense of the word, logistics is not only what happens to the goods after the buyer has placed the order and until the moment he receives it in his hands. This is also inventory, warehouse planning, keeping goods in proper condition, and so on.
Technological progress has its influence on the issue of logistics, and today various software agencies choose this industry as their main direction. At Twinslash, we also wanted to do our part to optimize supply chains and thus help the business. We have created a separate direction in our company, which is developing transportation management solutions. Our goal is to optimize the supply chain of our clients, streamline the flow and help them to minimize the number of all kinds of problems associated with this issue.
The issue of cargo transportation is much more complicated than it seems. The thing is that in the process of moving goods from warehouses into the hands of customers, it goes through many stages and human hands, and therefore any mistakes and delays in this process are critical. In order to minimize the possibility of such risks and automate most of the routine processes, our company offers its customers various solutions in the field of transportation management.
Our software will help you to optimize the transportation of goods, thereby reducing its cost. In addition, our experience with transport companies and delivery managers allows us to confidently deal with warehousing, distribution issues, and supply chain management software. Let's take a closer look at these questions.
Optimization of the process of transporting goods is one of the most frequent problems with which our clients come to us. Indeed, the blurry eye of the business owner is not always able to notice specific problems associated with transportation delays and cannot always find the right approach to logistics management. Moreover, the complexity of this issue is also due to the fact that often the owners of companies do not realize that their transport processes need to be optimized through logistics management software development. And only after a small audit from our experienced team and concrete examples of fleet management software, backed up by numbers, they understand that all this time they could deliver goods faster and better. Our engineers help companies to develop and implement fleet tracking systems in order to collect real data on the number of miles driven, the state of transport, the condition of roads and locations, and so on. In addition, we also pay great attention to creating applications that can take into account volatile variables in real-time in order to choose the most optimal route. An equally important issue is resource consumption, first of all, fuel, which, more often than not, can be optimized by implementing business management software that will assess the real cost of each mile and select the most optimal options for refueling. All these and other solutions constitute our direction of developing a logistics system for optimizing the transport of goods.
Optimization of the issue of warehousing and distribution, or simply put inventory management, helps to get rid of the situation when half of your warehouses are full, while the other half is empty. This situation leads to the fact that managers have to redistribute supplies in real-time, and this requires additional resources. Our engineers have extensive experience in developing warehouse management systems. In a broad sense, such a system helps to automate and control the process of goods arriving at the warehouse, their storage, and until they are sent. In more detail, such a system will have a volumetric 3D map of all warehouses for a clearer view of their fullness. In addition, this system will also be synchronized with the codes of the goods that arrive at the warehouses. At the moment when the employee accepts the goods and scans its barcode, the system receives a notification about the delivery of a specific product to a specific warehouse and finds a place for it. These and other functions allow the warehouse management system to become a reliable assistant in the matter of optimizing the warehousing and distribution of goods.
A person far from this industry can hardly imagine how many invoices need to be processed. It is also hard to imagine how many people will be involved in all these processes. The human factor in this matter will have a direct impact on your income.
Also, processing a large number of invoices is time-consuming. That is why the most correct solution would be to use specialized software that automates all these processes as much as possible. We are talking about a complex application that will take into account the cost of each product and its transportation, as well as the cost of its storage, up to the same details as the price for electricity in the warehouse. All these data in the aggregate will help firstly determine the real cost of the product and, possibly, reduce it for your customers, which will make your company even more attractive. Secondly, such a system, together with the general optimization of all processes, will help you clearly see where exactly you are losing the most money. Finally, automating invoicing will save you a lot of time.
One of the most important tasks of any transport company that is engaged in cargo transportation is quality interaction with its customers. In other words, order management should be carried out as quickly as possible and meet all the latest digital standards of our time. Many IT enterprises know that service management, which includes accepting an order, processing a client, breaking the entire task into small steps, and constant monitoring of the task is easiest to implement in modern complex service and project management systems, whether it be Atlassian products, like Jira or other similar instruments.
It is exactly the same logic that everything works in the trucking industry. All services of the company should be clearly defined and provided to clients in the most understandable form. Further, each individual request or order should be automatically included in the overall service management system. Acceptance of an order for the further provision of a service may include such processes as accepting payments, checking a customer for a scam, processing all the necessary documents, contacting manufacturers and carriers, allocating space in a warehouse, and so on. All this customer information and other details must be stored in a single system to ensure synchronization with all other company processes. Such a system will accept orders at the lead entry-stage and until confirmation of the customer's satisfaction is received. In such a system, all information will be stored, which will be combined with the system of account managers in order to monitor the delivery process, issue invoices, and keep in touch with customers.
Our engineers constantly analyze all existing tools on the market and conclude that the best solution would be to create a separate service management tool for each individual company, depending on its needs and the volume of services it provides.
If, after reading up to this point, you are still not convinced that the logistics software is necessary, then let's discuss the specific benefits that such software brings.
The main advantage of creating logistics software is that all the tasks and processes described above can be combined into a single solution. Simply put, it is possible to develop one massive dashboard that will handle service management, inventory control, invoicing and payment, supply chain management, and full control over automated transportation processes.
Thus, all employees of your company, from drivers and warehouse receptionists to account managers and top management, will be able to use one system to find and control any information they need. In addition to the fact that the introduction of such software optimizes all existing processes and automates what can be automated, it will also create a single source of truth for all employees, which will significantly save time on the routine like daily meetings.
One of the most important advantages, which we want to emphasize separately, is the ability to develop a cloud-based solution. We at Twinslash are well aware that such a dashboard, which was discussed above, will have to process an incredible amount of information, most of which will change in real-time every second. Given this specificity, very powerful technology would be needed to store and continuously process such an array of data.
We agree that storage on physical servers is already an outgoing trend. This is especially true given the specifics of the processes described above. Therefore, we are ready to develop cloud based software, thanks to which our customers can completely forget about the cumbersome and complex work associated with maintaining the operability of large-scale servers. By transferring all processes to the cloud, our clients will be able to focus only on business tasks. Our specialists have experience in product development for AWS, Digital Ocean, and other cloud storage facilities.
Above, we have already said that the best solution is always the development of specific software for a specific company with its own tasks. We do not try to do faster and get payment from the client, we always strive to solve his problem and bring value. And for this, you need to create complex software that will be customized exclusively to the needs of a particular client, will be scalable in the event of a company's growth and will be fully manageable. Such software will allow the clients themselves, in case of unforeseen situations, to customize the tool to the new reality.
We hope that the processes described above were able to give you at least a rough idea of how sophisticated the software solution will be. In this regard, there is a serious risk of taking into account all the needs of the client, and at the same time creating something unimaginable, complex, and incomprehensible. We ourselves use management software to optimize our business processes, and therefore we understand how important it is that such tools are intuitive and not cluttered with too much information. During the development operations, we are in constant contact with our clients in order to take into account all their wishes regarding how the system should look like, what details should be taken into account for maximum efficiency, and what things should not be added. Just like our clients, we are interested in completing the development on time.
According to forecasts, the introduction of IoT solutions in the logistics industry will only increase. This is logical, given the widespread digitalization, including the described segment. If you want your business to introduce new software solutions before competitors, to be able to outrun them, contact our expert for a more detailed consultation.
Drive Sense is an online fleet management system with additional vehicle analysis capabilities that focus on driver’s wellness and analyze risky events a driver has been through during a week. Esurance provides insurance services — in particular, for car and motorcycle owners. They were one of the firsts who have started offering online insurance. Right now, Esurance uses Drive Sense to simplify the monitoring of vehicles that are covered under their policies and cut the time of insurance requests processing. The app tracks a vehicle's speed on the road, location, and traffic laws violations — and presents Esurance with data on a person’s driving behavior.
Technologies used for development: Ruby 1.9.3, Ruby on Rails 3.2.12, Erlang, HAML/SLIM, LESS, Bootstrap, jQuery, MongoDB, Postgre, Redis, Sidekiq, RabbitMQ, Amazon AWS (for cloud services and auto-scaling features).
Modus is a company that offers telematic solutions for security and traffic control — and we helped build these solutions for them. Two of them — Modus Go and Teen Driver — became Twinslash's customizable fleet management platforms for clients from the transportation industry. Another one, Family, is a D2C platform that helps people monitor and maintain the safety & proper driving behavior of their kids and grandparents via geo-tracking through wireless carriers.
Technologies used for development: Ruby 1.9.3, Ruby on Rails 3.2.12, Erlang, HAML/SLIM, LESS, Bootstrap, jQuery, MongoDB, Postgre, Redis, Sidekiq, RabbitMQ, Amazon AWS (for cloud services and auto-scaling).
Fleet management app tracks vehicles through location tracking devices. It spots the vehicle, analyzes its previous movements, detects possible traffic violations, evaluates the driving style — and eventually suggests better and safer route options. This information then gets redirected to the server for storing, processing, and evaluation.
Technologies used for development: Ruby on Rails, Erlang.
Locator is an online project that provides registered users with an opportunity to search for points of interest (POI) and add them to the map of Belarus. Locator uses Google Maps as its foundation for accurate mapping, and additional features are location-based — they depend on what attractions, historical buildings, parks, and other places one would want to visit in a certain area.
Technologies used for development: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Erlang, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Leaflet, Git, Nginx, Unicorn, RSpec, ActiveMQ, OSM.
Transinet is a transport and logistics system. For this network, we designed the software to manage, automate and optimize the transportation, purchasing, cargo tracking, and sales of transportation services. It helps reduce transportation costs, manage contracts and customer requests, and even find business partners within the industry of logistics and transportations.
Technologies used for development: Ruby, Ruby on Rails, Erlang, PostgreSQL, JavaScript, Leaflet, Git, Nginx, Unicorn, RSpec, ActiveMQ.