Say goodbye to inefficient siloed planning

Optimize material call-offs with real-world transportation factors

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Transportation meets material planning software

Material planning and transportation planning are often separate processes. Material planners don’t know transportation capacities, and transportation planners can’t see their impact on inventory. This lack of visibility leads to ineffective plans and lots of last-minute changes.

Discover a new approach to material planning. By considering transportation constraints like capacities and costs earlier in your supply chain, you can optimize call-offs, make reliable plans – and reduce transportation costs by 10%.

Cutting-edge technology

Powerful optimization algorithms ensure reliable planning and on-time availability of goods and materials. The software considers real-world transportation factors such as available lanes, transportation costs, and equipment restrictions when generating material orders.

Maximize transportation efficiency

Group orders into efficient shipments to maximize transportation utilization and reduce transportation costs. Direct benefits include increased FTL utilization and fewer trucks on the road for a more sustainable supply chain.

Industries

Automotive

Manage even the most complex global networks and counteract volatility. You can optimize complex networks to create significant transportation cost savings, more efficient supply chain processes, and end-to-end transparency with 4flow’s software solutions.

Consumer goods and retail

Ensure reliable on-time delivery of high-quality goods, reduce complexity, and save transportation costs in one tool. You can tackle changing consumer demands and increased transportation and shipping costs with 4flow’s software solutions.

Discrete manufacturing

Build a resilient supply chain with reliable availability of components for on-time manufacturing. You can overcome supply chain volatility, from raw material shortages to shipping container delays, with 4flow’s software solutions.

Benefits & features

>15% CO2 reduction

Cost savings of up to 10%

End-to-end transparency and
confident decision making

Improve transportation utilization
by up to 20%

Eliminate silos and ensure
supply chain resilience

Automation and optimization
of supply chain planning

 

Unique solutions for your individual setup

Smart material planning enabled by 2 software solutions

Transportation Load Optimizer (TLO)

Embedded RapidResponse® application for transportation optimization

Enable Kinaxis customers to increase planning efficiency, achieve significant costs savings and reduce carbon emissions.

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4flow TORO

Plug-in solution for MRP optimization

Optimize material call-offs with real-world transportation factors and achieve early transportation costs savings.

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Customers

Want to discover how 4flow TORO can optimize your transportation network?


Read automotive case study  Read manufacturing case study

Discuss your specific use cases with us

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The powerful algorithms can also be applied to the following

Additional use cases

Optimize container transports

Optimize order call-offs for orders delivered by container – similar to the utilization of truck loads.

Optimized LTL shipping

Optimize your transport call-offs for LTL shipping if you frequently order small quantities.

Integrate regional shippers

Create optimal shipments with materials or finished goods to refill your regional central warehouses or distributors.

Advanced end customer service

Manage aftersales inventory replenishment at service or sales partners efficiently and easily.

FAQ

1. What are the differences between a TMS and a transportation planning system?

A TMS enhances day-to-day visibility, assists with compliance, provides documentation and supports the timely delivery of goods. On the other hand, a transportation planning system focuses on automatically optimizing material call-offs considering both inventory and transportation constraints, allowing planners to consider transportation factors and material constraints simultaneously.

Learn more about the two kinds of software in "The ultimate guide to transportation and load building optimization".

2. How can a transportation planning system enhance a TMS?

Considering transportation planning and optimization already in the material planning phase makes planning more flexible and efficient. Implementing a transportation planning system alongside a TMS enables smoother execution by ensuring actionable plans, maximizing utilization and minimizing inefficiencies like last-minute changes and back-and-forth communication.

Learn more about how these two kinds of software work together in "The ultimate guide to transportation and load building optimization".

3. How does a transportation planning system work? What kinds of factors are considered?

A transportation planning system automatically runs an additional optimization in the demand planning calculation. It prepones and/or postpones orders to consolidate demand and create fuller, more efficient loads. Transportation and inventory constraints are considered simultaneously, so planning results are feasible and cost-efficient, and material arrives on time.

Depending on the specific industry, processes and customer requirements, different transportation factors need to be considered in the optimization, e.g. incompatibilities, priority and transportation capacities.

4. How can I be sure that my optimization potential is significant for my use case?

Our 4flow experts can calculate your optimization potential for you free of charge based on a sample of your call-off data. Contact us to discover your optimization potential.

Access download area

  • Access our on-demand webinar recordings on most common use cases
  • Download industry-specific case studies showing how 4flow solutions supported customers from various industries

Access now

Further reading

Case study

Maximizing freight container utilization for a discrete manufacturer

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Case study

Transforming automotive inbound LTL networks for 17% cost savings

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Discover new projects, supply chain topics and news from 4flow
e-book

Improve transportation efficiency with a new approach to material planning

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Related topics

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Supply chain modeling software for strategic and tactical network design, planning and optimization – as a standalone solution or fully integrated into an ERP system.

End-to-end transportation management systems

Transportation planning and optimization including execution for a holistic, end-to-end process.