In the transportation industry, supply chain and logistics services providers rarely run their business and their operations in exactly the same way. Variations may come from adapting to different customers' requirements, or be due to fundamentally different business models. Each business is unique, despite similarities. Any software you use should be able to cope with this uniqueness.
A transport management system that doesn’t respond and adapt to how you wish to do things is going to let you down sooner or later. It will involve you in additional costs, effort, and time. The surprising thing is there are many standardized TMS solutions on the market. So how do you avoid the hidden complications they may bring in the future?
AMCS Bulk Hauling, a cloud-based TMS, provides three core modules for dispatching, geotracking, and ticketing. You can customize each one of them to optimize its value and relevance to your unique business model, vertical, commodity type, and hardware requirements including the setup of personal computers.
This blog explains how the functionality of AMCS Bulk hauling corresponds to your requirements precisely, and can be customized to run the way you want the system to run.
the three pillars of an efficient system
dispatch module
One of our first steps in guiding customers through the efficiency improvements they can expect when adopting AMCS Bulk Hauling is a customer experience (CX) introductory meeting. This is where we meet with your dispatchers so they can show us step-by-step the processes they go through. From the insights your dispatchers give us, we then provide recommendations based on industry and operational nuances to outline how they can streamline their own dispatching methods.
- zone layout & workspace settings
In AMCS Bulk Hauling, you can optimize the dispatch module by reviewing and changing your lone layout. Note that the zone layout will be the same for every dispatcher on your team, so team alignment is critical. Customizations such as scaling to a zone layout are specific to each dispatcher’s personal board, but relocating a driver is instance-wide. Once you've adjusted a workspace to your team's liking, just save it, so everyone will have fast access to that view each time they log in.
- scaling
Some dispatchers like adding as much information as they can to a single screen. This is not necessarily the best approach, given that the data can be missed or left out. The scaling feature allows AMCS Bulk Hauling to accommodate any screen size by fine-tuning display settings, such as the number of rows and columns, number of jobs, column width, and font size.
- tabs or “boards”
AMCS Bulk Hauling will display your customers on dispatch boards that can fit your specific screen size and set-up in a variety of ways. Here are just a few examples of ways to break out your information:
- AM/PM drivers
- A/B drivers
- By location
- By truck/trailer types
You can also create infinite boards to click between. Either open a dispatch board in one window and click between them as you would a tab or, if you have multiple screens, you can view one board on each.
GeoTrack module
This module allows you to track shipments and optimize drop-off and pick-up routes using real-time GPS. The first thing we recommend you do when logging into GeoTrack is to change the default map setting to “Hybrid Map”. At times, there are sites that will not appear on Google Maps alone and require a hybrid map view in order to function properly. You’ll find many other additional features and advanced functionality within the GeoTrack Module:
- draw geofences around specific areas and target sites. This functionality also works on “unofficial roads”.
- input GPS coordinates for some of the top drop-off/pick-up site locations. The software will show the distance between two points and allow you to quickly view and monitor your drivers’ progress in relation to the sites.
- use zoom functionality appropriately. It can be difficult trying to zoom in and out of large distances on your map to view different sites or driver locations. That’s not an issue in AMCS Bulk Hauling. You just use the driver, asset, and site search tool, to quickly navigate between points on your routes.
- create several window views. This will help you to monitor drivers’ progress and asset utilization at the same time. Depending on what you want to show, you can highlight what assets are in use, by who, and where they are. Take this a step further by adding a second screen to your workspace. Using two screens allows you to have a dispatch window for job management and a GeoTrack window to allow for monitoring location information.
- use the 'find’ search feature to quickly locate a truck, GeoFence, transfer station, etc., rather than scrolling until you find what you are looking for.
ticketing module
To put an end to the hassle of managing old, paper records, we designed AMCS Bulk Hauling with automated ticketing functionality. This lets you handle all of your ticket data digitally in one place, in real-time, for greater accuracy and convenience.
In the ticketing module, you can change columns based on how your company tracks and utilizes tickets, enabling you to completely customize every ticket category and layout. Many of our customers will put quantities and other important details in columns at the beginning of the table so they can get as much information as quickly as possible.
Want to know more?
If you have a question about the functionality that AMCS Bulk Hauling offers, or if there’s anything else we can help you with, make sure to ask your dedicated Onboarding or Customer Experience representative. Many solutions to your questions may already be in place elsewhere in the software and we’ll be able to quickly and efficiently guide you through it.