Improve Inbound & Outbound Warehouse Operations in Transportation

Posted on: August 23, 2021 | By: Jarrod Kraemer | Microsoft Dynamics AX/365, Microsoft Dynamics Manufacturing

Managing transportation logistics is both complex and costly if you do not have an efficient supply chain management system. Bringing materials to your company and delivering the finished products to consumers are two separate facets of logistics: inbound and outbound logistics. Inbound logistics covers the receiving of goods and raw materials from suppliers to businesses, and outbound logistics encompasses the delivery of goods and products to the end customer. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management lets you manage warehouse processes in manufacturing, distribution, and retail industries. It has a wide range of features to support the warehouse facility at an optimal level, at any time. Tools like D365 allow businesses to automate their manufacturing and inventory tracking process, improve customer satisfaction, and increase profit.

Small Parcel Shipping

Streamline efficiency within your warehouse with D365’s added functionality: small parcel shipping. The small parcel shipping (SPS) feature enables Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to interact directly with shipping carriers by providing a framework for communication through carrier APIs. This functionality is useful when you’re shipping individual sales orders via commercial shipping carriers instead of using container shipping or less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping. The SPS feature interacts with your shipping carrier through a dedicated rate engine. Your organization must develop this rate engine in collaboration with your carrier or carrier hub service. The rate engine enables Supply Chain Management to submit details about a packed container to your carrier, and then receive a shipping label, shipping rate, and tracking number back from that carrier. SPS works in conjunction with either manual warehouse management packing, wave containerization, or retail store pack-and-ship to send details about a packed container to a shipping carrier and receive a rate and tracking number. The system sends container information to the associated service, which then returns a rate, tracking number, and label information. Tools like SPS help you streamline efficiency within your warehouse and find the most cost-efficient, easy-to-use management system.

Warehouse Management Mobile Application

Dynamics 365 SCM can help you manage inventory storage and stock levels between multiple warehouses and integrate logistics features. Warehouse management is a key feature of D365 SCM and helps you not only maintain an organized warehouse, but also helps keep track of merchandise, accurately pulls items for customer orders, orders products for all locations in bulk, and includes logistics features that help you track order fulfillment time. The warehouse mobile device app includes a fresh, contemporary design that is intuitive, easy to use, and supported by robust enhancements to core warehouse management logic that streamline processing. This feature empowers organizations to improve overall warehouse operating efficiency. The new design is based on extensive usability studies, which identified both strengths and pain points experienced when executing end-to-end warehouse processes using a mobile application. The findings guided the new design for the application as well as underlying enhancements in the core warehouse management logic that supports it. The new solution provides the following benefits and capabilities:

  • Improved worker efficiency
  • Improved ergonomics
  • Fast ramp-up of new workers
  • Alignment with Fluent Design System guidelines for visual style and interaction.
  • Expanded support for B-grade accessibility standards with a focus on situational disabilities, as defined by the WCAG guidelines.

Landed Costs

Reduce the costs of storage and avoid losing money by forecasting to minimize risk and identify the most cost-efficient method for ordering new products. Dynamics 365 SCM includes basic economic order quantity calculations and weighs the costs of storing your products versus the cost of ordering your products. This automatic process minimizes your warehousing fees and saves money by selling maximum products through forecasting. Forecasting in D365 involves tracking the number of units you have sold and estimating the number of units you will sell in the future. The landed cost module enables you to define and track each segment of the goods-in-transit journey, beginning at the supplier’s warehouse and continuing to the shipping dock, through the freight forwarder, to a landing dock and freight company, and eventually to the destination warehouse. With this visibility, arrivals are predictable, and warehouse planning and efficiency are improved. The Landed cost module helps businesses streamline inbound shipping operations by giving users complete financial and logistical control over imported freight, from the manufacturer to the warehouse. For imported goods, landed costs can account for 40 percent or more of the total cost of each imported item. Therefore, the challenge is to provide accurate estimates for landed costs. Businesses can use Landed cost to complete the following tasks:

  • Estimate landed costs at the time of voyage creation.
  • Apportion landed costs to multiple items and purchase orders or transfer orders in a single voyage.
  • Support the transfer of goods between physical locations by recognizing landed costs.
  • Recognize accruals for goods in transit.

Next Steps

If you are interested in learning more about how to improve inbound and outbound warehouse operations in D365 as well as maximizing the use of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management contact us here to find out how we can help you grow your business. You can also email us at info@loganconsulting.com or call (312) 345-8817.