SOLUTION OFFERED BY COZENTUS
The client’s Bill of Lading document included details of the goods to be picked, their quantity, transport details from point A to B, coordinates of the consignor and consignee, reference number, type of packaging, etc. Understanding the significance of such a document for both parties to conduct the transportation and on time, Cozentus offered a solution that was fast, efficient and needed almost no manual intervention.
As a global 3PL company, our client deals with multiple formats for BOL that includes EDI (X12 and EDIFACT), XML and JSON. Whenever the BOL is raised to any carrier/shipper, the response needs to be validated and verified before approval. Further to that, in case of any issues or errors that needs to notify back to carrier/shipper, required action can be taken timely. For this whole process several teams need to manually validate and verify every BOL document until it gets approved, which is time consuming and error prone. In this process several notifications and communication take place that don’t have very good standard format and tracking.
To simplify the entire process, Cozentus focused on digitizing the entire method of comparison, matching, rectification, and providing a cost-benefit to its client. Integrating the different formats for all stakeholders could reduce errors and save the time of processing large chunks of documents. To achieve the desired assumptions, Cozentus leveraged its expertise in Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) and build BL Manager application to automate. Following steps were implemented to attain the expected results:
- As a first step in the process, the client (a 3PL) generated the ‘Bills of Lading’ to several of the carriers on behalf of their clients. These BOLs were generated from a legacy application installed at the client system. Further as a response the carriers also sent back their draft version of Bill of Lading to the 3PLS.
- Once these draft bills were received in the legacy application, Cozentus installed BL Manager application, start auto comparisons of the details of each bill sent by the logistic provider and its respective carriers automatically.
- There are generic rule defined for comparison for the required information as well as application has capability for customization rule as per carrier.
- As soon as the draft BOLs are received, automated comparison starts and compared reports were generated in case of discrepancy between the two bills. Next, the auto notification emails are sent to the concerning parties which is again customized. See below a sample application screen.
- Correctly matched information was marked as ‘OK’ and differences were highlighted with color for better visualization. Further the notified party need to act on this report to approve or reject the BOL. There are ways to accept the valid differences and reject the invalid ones with proper comments. After the correction, the comparison was carried out and approved by the logistic provider and their customers.
- Once the draft version by both parties (also known as the House bill) was approved and matched, a final version, (also known as the Master bill) was considered by both parties, and transportation was carried out. Master Bill was always considered after the carrier provided ‘actual’ shipment information. On receiving the confirmation from the 3PL customers, the shipment was carried out. The bills were mapped at the time of loading (that is, from the warehouse to carrier) or while unloading (that is, from the carrier to the warehouse), or even at the time of customs clearance. Cozentus solution was hosted on AWS Cloud environment with its backend application developed in PHP (using PHL Laravel Framework) while the frontend application was developed in Angular technology.
- The dashboard created by Cozentus provided additional benefits that enhanced business planning, tracking, timely action, and improved efficiency:
- Comparing the number of Bill of Lading documents received vis-àvis sent. Dashboard is designed for better visibility and reporting for higher management level. There are options available for customized report. This again helped the 3PL in quickly identifying the actionable areas and improving turnaround time.
- Another benefit provided with Documents page, File Logs, and Email History between the stakeholders (including the 3PL, their customers, and carriers). The history was recorded and tracked based on the shipment that could be fetched from date, sender, shipment no. etc. as required. Typically, it is for real-time monitoring and tracking for both parties)
- Master data module help admin to manage multiple details in a single page. User access, permission, Company management, County Management, Time zone Management, Rule Management, Carrier Management, System Logs, User Activity Logs, Codelist Management etc.