Logistics Optimization - From the First Mile to the Last

Today’s logistics teams face enormous challenges. Fluctuating demand, coupled with an omni-channel selling environment, has driven higher volumes of smaller orders — as well as a great deal of day-to-day uncertainty. The “Amazon effect” continues to increase customer expectations for fast, low-cost delivery. Labor shortages are only getting worse. Fuel prices and other operating costs are increasing. As the single biggest cost center in most supply chains, logistics is under constant scrutiny.

Transportation Management

But consider this: These challenges also create a unique opportunity for logistics teams to rise above the chaos and emerge as supply chain heroes. From the first mile to the last, logistics teams at manufacturers, retailers and logistics service providers such as 3PLs, 4PLs, or wholesalers play a central role in strengthening customer relationships, driving repeat business and maximizing margins. Few supply chain teams are as close to the end customer, creating a huge opportunity for competitive differentiation in a crowded landscape.

How can logistics teams master the daunting challenges they face — and optimize more or even every aspect of operations for both cost and service, from the first to the last mile? Advanced technology represents the only practical answer.

The complexity of moving hundreds of thousands of products, often halfway around the world, while making intelligent trade-offs at every step, simply exceeds the power of human cognition. Logistics teams need to leverage the power of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), automation, data science, optimization engines and other advanced technologies to see, understand and manage all that complexity in real time, as conditions inevitably change.

Emerge as a Supply Chain Hero

That’s where Blue Yonder comes in. Blue Yonder offers the only technology suite that delivers on the promise of first-to-last-mile optimization, incorporating transportation management, warehouse management, warehouse execution, yard management and order management — along with the power of the Luminate Platform.

Backed by 30 years of experience and thousands of customer engagements, Blue Yonder understands the complexity logistics teams are facing — and we provide proven, purpose-built solutions that directly address those challenges. Blue Yonder has been positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrants for both warehouse management systems and transportation management systems for 12 consecutive years. We’re investing over $1 billion in research and development over the next three years to ensure that our solutions continue to represent the leading edge in AI, ML and other areas.

Only Blue Yonder provides the end-to-end interoperability that links data, people and processes in real time, for a fully connected logistics network that’s designed to maximize both service and cost outcomes from your first mile to your last.

Master Your Most Pressing Logistics Challenges

Our proof lies in the hundreds of logistics teams who are mastering their incredibly complex challenges today, supported by Blue Yonder software. We help logistics teams optimize their cost and service performance, from end to end, by:

Optimizing the first-to-last-mile logistics network. It’s hard for logistics teams to gain a big-picture view when they’re challenged to meet daily deadlines and service targets. From building a carrier network to strategically locating warehouses and micro-fulfillment centers, Blue Yonder helps make data-driven choices about your network model that naturally lead to improved cost and service results.
Enabling end-to-end orchestration. With advanced technology solutions that span transportation management, warehouse management and execution, yard management and order management, Blue Yonder is uniquely positioned to support interoperability among all logistics systems — leading to outstanding end-to-end visibility, synchronization and responsiveness. Native Blue Yonder solutions connect seamlessly to third-party systems and databases via robust integration and application programming interfaces (APIs). Blue Yonder’s microservices-based approach enables you to customize our first-to-last-mile capabilities for your own needs.
Maximizing resource utilization. Given the current, and worsening, shortage of both warehouse employees and drivers, logistics teams need to make the most of every asset. Blue Yonder helps increase both employee productivity and satisfaction, for higher customer service and improved retention. But that’s just the beginning. Blue Yonder also helps maximize the productivity of equipment, trucks, docks, yards and other physical assets, helping logistics teams maximize their return on all capital investments.
Increasing efficiency, speed and accuracy via automation. Implementing robotics in the warehouse, and automating physical work, is a critical way to increase human efficiency, accuracy, cost effectiveness and delivery speed. Blue Yonder excels at this. Blue Yonder is also on the cutting edge of developing wearables, camera-based recognition tools and touchless transaction systems that make physical tasks across the logistics network easier and more productive. An often-overlooked form of automation is autonomous decision making — which represents another core Blue Yonder capability. Our optimization engines, enabled by AI and ML, are built to solve many problems autonomously, with no intervention, based on AI/ML, business rules and constraints.
Identifying and resolving disruptions. Whether they arise in the form of blocked shipping lanes, product shortages or missed supplier deadlines, supply chain disruptions are a fact of life. Blue Yonder enables logistics teams to recognize disruptions in advance and capture opportunities proactively with AI- and ML-based prescriptive decision-making.
Optimizing daily execution. From the first to last mile, logistics is characterized by many discrete daily processes that collectively drive overall cost and service outcomes. Blue Yonder delivers solutions that optimize all these daily processes for speed, efficiency and cost — including assigning and prioritizing warehouse tasks, building optimal loads, defining the best routes, and choosing not only the right transportation mode, but also the right carrier.

Picture a Better Tomorrow

Remember a few years ago, when no one was really familiar with the word “logistics”? While the COVID pandemic, the Suez Canal blockage, product shortages and other disruptions have created big challenges, they have also helped logistics teams take center stage, both in the executive suite and in the consumer marketplace. The world’s logistics teams have a rare opportunity to shine in that spotlight, taking cost and service performance to a new level. But they need the right tools to picture, and achieve, a better tomorrow.

Every supply chain software provider promises to help improve customer performance and save money, but few can prove they’ve actually done it. Blue Yonder has been there, done that — from the first mile to the last. From retailers and manufacturers to logistics service providers, hundreds of logistics teams run on Blue Yonder software every day.

View the resource below to see how Blue Yonder can optimize your first-to-last-mile results, or by contacting us.