UPS rolls out enhancements to its Flex Global View tool

UPS said this week it has rolled out new additions to its Flex Global View offering, an event management and visibility tool for air, ocean and surface freight shipments, plus warehouse inventory, purchase orders and customs entry details.

The announced upgrades for Flex Global View include:

• New ocean container dashboard –a visibility dashboard specifically for ocean containers. Information about containers can be sorted by carrier, port of loading and unloading, shipper, receiver, etc.;
• UPS transportation invoice – customers billed in the U.S. and Canada can now view an image of the UPS invoice associated with their air and ocean freight shipments; and
• Better dashboards and reports – enhanced and better organized for easier search and reporting requirements

The company added that more changes and enhancements will be made to Flex Global View over the course of 2017. UPS said Flex Global View users can access customized reports and query shipments using customer reference types, modes, trade lanes, purchase orders, waybills, bills of landing, and containers. Inventory status updates are also available so that supply chain managers can maintain optimal inventory levels while meeting fluctuations in customer demand.

“UPS is committed to continuous improvement to this important customer technology tool,” said Cindy Miller, president of UPS Freight Forwarding, in a statement. “No one likes supply chain surprises, which is why Flex Global View offers a level of visibility, reporting and alerts that keep customers informed and in better control of their supply chain.”

In a previous interview, Miller explained that many of the things shippers are looking for from the UPS Freight Forwarding team tie directly into technology, explaining that as customers’ supply chains become more complex, whether it is for WMS or following warehouse movements that then turn into transportation movements, or into the box and out of the box, and keeping an eye on goods in terms of what is going on when talking about speed complexity, the technology piece is a big one in regards of where shippers are pushing us to come up with new solutions and move forward.

“Our Flex Global View offering is helping to enhance our customers’ ability to really keep an eye on their freight, where delays are and how to get around them,” she said. “We are really pushing towards advancing technology, and we have a few things we are working on to make up for the pieces in the marketplace that are missing.”

In April 2016, UPS announced other upgrades to Flex Global View, including more descriptive alerts providing customers with shipment milestones about air, ocean and surface freight forwarding shipments, with custom entries visibility for more than 20 countries added.