Around 20 employees of TVS Supply Chain Solutions Ltd have their eyes glued to the huge screen before them at the control tower or the smart centre, as it is called, in Chennai. This nerve centre provides customers with automated, proactive and seamless end-to-end shipment tracing and tracking capabilities in real time.
For instance, if a vehicle from Kolkata to Siliguri breaks down enroute, the control tower gets an alert via GPS devices installed in the vehicle. Action is immediately taken to replace the vehicle. The company has information on all roads in the country to ensure that vehicles travel seamlessly from one end to another, said K Sukumar, CEO, India, TVS Supply Chain Solutions Ltd.
Seamless delivery
“Our technology-driven solution addresses issues related to logistics planning, shipment execution, carrier assignment, trace-movement visibility, carrier selection and route planning. The control tower team monitors trip and delivery performance for efficient interventions. The platform automatically creates multi-level escalations for operational alerts, he said. Clients will have clear visibility on their shipments from dock-to-delivery, he added.
Sukumar said that every storage and delivery location is geo-fenced and client-specific networks are created in the platform. This becomes the basis for network planning and delivery management.
Machine learning is used to create optimal scenarios that maximise and minimise key operational variables, he said. Data science and analytics are used to help analyse performance, identify areas of improvement and to stay on the track of continuous improvement, he added.
Key indicators
TVS SCS control tower model focuses on tracking lead and lag indicators. For example, in transportation operations, schedule, resource, asset, truck fill ratio (TFR), window time and transit norms are the key indicators. Lead indicators are continuously monitored and an early warning system ensures intervention on the right time to avoid supply chain failures. Predicting disruptions helps to tie together silo elements within the workflow.
Similarly, a set of lag indicators such as documentation on time, GPS discrepancies etc., are used to do day-to-day operations benchmarking, he said. Sukumar said that four key areas where the control tower is being used in transportation operations are – visibility and traceability; loading simulation; route optimisation and service delivery.