It is no secret that one of the key differentiators in the logistics sector is a correctly formulated information technology (IT) strategy.
Supply chain management involves the planning and management of all operations involved in sourcing and procurement, conversion, and all logistics management activities.
This involves coordination and collaboration with channel partners, which can be suppliers, intermediaries, third party service providers, and, perhaps most importantly, customers.
As supply chain management integrates supply and demand management within and across companies, IT creates an essential infrastructure that helps to optimise processes, while also enriching key relationships.
Providing visibility
Schenker’s Asia Pacific chief information officer, Dr Richard Tan, emphasised the role that IT plays in the strategy at the Germany-based logistics giant which provides support to industry and trade in land operations, in worldwide air and ocean freight, and in associated logistics services. Globally, Schenker has some 55,000 employees at 1,500 locations.
“Information technology is an integral part of our organisation,” he said. “IT is also one of the key differentiators in our business. Our customers expect the physical storage and movement of goods. What distinguishes us from the crowd is the value-added services we enable through IT. Examples are: providing of real time goods visibility in the warehouse and during transit, storage of digital documents in a central location, and the electronic billing of customers to reduce physical paperwork.”
Driving development
Part of Dr Tan’s responsibility is to drive the development and implementation of Schenker Asia Pacific’s IT strategy and to provide technology leadership to the regional business management team, across the areas of technology investment, process improvement and IT people development.
In an increasingly cautious economic climate, using IT to control expenditure has again sharply come under the CIO spotlight.
Schenker faces increasing competition and uses IT to manage costs within the organisation. Dr Tan said he has driven the automation of internal processes to improve the quality and timeliness of information. “IT has helped to optimise existing business processes, which has led to an increase in productivity. These technology-driven initiatives will translate into a lower cost of doing business and greater operational efficiency.”
Schenker is currently refreshing its IT infrastructure and platforms to provide further efficiencies for internal and external customers. “Three deliverables of these improvements will be to ensure IT helped to enhance customer connectivity, to provide greater efficiency and to deliver customer intimacy,” the CIO said.
“It is important to have a skilled IT workforce, comprising professionals who are not just technocrats, but business minded analysts, who can understand business needs and translate them into technical solutions.”
Cutting edge of SWORD
Schenker maintains that advanced IT is at the core of every service offered by the company. Examples of this include existing projects such as RFID, Schenker Mobility (Telematics) and e-customs.
One of these is called SWORD (Schenker’s Worldwide Online Realtime Data Network), which links a wide range of IT platforms with a whole spectrum of specific applications for completely different types of freight and logistics projects. This system is the basis for cross-border communication from for many of their worldwide activities.
Dr Tan said, “SWORD is Schenker’s enterprise service bus responsible for routing, transferring and distributing information throughout the Global DB Schenker Network. SWORD is also the platform for information exchange between customers, suppliers and Schenker.”
SWORD’s main function is to bridge incompatible data-exchange standards on a day-to-day basis. Dr Tan explained: “Based on the business processes and the complex integration scenarios between companies, different B2B (business-to-business) standards, technologies and integration set-ups have to be incorporated into SWORD.”
Schenker is a part of DB Logistics, the transportation and logistics division of Deutsche Bahn AG. Global players like DB Schenker have to support all customer integration scenarios and have to link them to the DB Schenker internal application world. “This is especially so as DB Schenker is dealing with different kinds of industries, which show completely different approaches to integration and automation.” he said.
This forces DB Schenker to stay flexible and to continuously invest in the education of our B2B consultancy, project management, technology and development staff. SWORD does this bridging, or to say it in different words, the global, multi-enterprise integration service.
TANGO Global
Among current IT projects in the Schenker IT portfolio, Dr Tan is particularly excited by TANGO, which is the name of the project to replace most existing air cargo and sea freight systems with one central solution in the next few years.
TANGO’s goal is to streamline global air cargo and sea freight processes by preparing outgoing mail and to store all outgoing documents in a revision-proof way. Its software component includes a flexible output and document management (OD&M) system.
“The scope of TANGO is to deliver global support of the planning and documentation processes of the Air and Ocean Freight from one single source; a centralised database,” said Dr Tan. “Its top line objectives are to streamline the processes in the operational departments, improve visibility of the progress of the transactions along the transport chain and provide for early detection and reaction on exceptions.”
Looking ahead
As well as using IT to help weather the economic downturn through increasing productivity and operational efficiency, Dr Tan said, “We aim to make Schenker a virtual Global IT organisation, delivering e2e Supply Chain solutions through product and service excellence, while continuing to be the technology advisor to DB Schenker’s business colleagues and provide strategic guidance.”
In the near future, Dr Tan said his role would be to seek out and develop new IT talent, manage a cost-effective process oriented organisation and to continue to promote teamwork through virtual channels. In the end, Dr Tan said, it is all about the experience of intimacy for the customer. This is done by using technology to clarify the relationship between the business and the people it serves.
