April 12th 2022

4PL Logistics Solution Provider Transforms Documentation & Invoicing System

About the Client

A 4PL supply chain solutions provider, administering a cohesive spectrum of logistics solutions for its clients. Has a strong presence across India under two distinct business segments – Domestic and EXIM.

The Challenge

Right from picking the cargo to delivering, invoicing, driver authentication, exhaustive transit documentation, etc., the entire process was being handled manually. This laborious process had led to the generation of a voluminous and disorganized paper trail

• Voluminous and disorganized data resulted in delays and penalties for the shipment and the drivers, leading to an increase in costs and loss of time and productivity.
• No centralized system to store and quickly access customer, vehicle & driver documents
• An archaic invoicing system with multiple standalone and difficult to track and integrate data storage platforms
• Delayed and non-payments resulting in difficulty maintaining cash flow for the day-to-day running of the business
• No unified platform to keep a record of the invoices and accessible at the click of a button.
• No access to historical data for the client and customer to draw a comparative or for reference
• Difficulty in Integrating the monitoring system
• Lack of real-time location co-ordination
• Limitations in integrating with third-party applications like GPS, etc.
• Difficulty in updating the status of shipments by capturing visibility from disparate systems

Business Need

To improve business insights and operational excellence, and also stay proactive in the current pandemic, our client required a scalable, agile, and security-rich cloud-based solution that would automatically update relevant information to streamline shipment & invoicing, integrate multiple vendors, and draw real-time insights.

• Organize varied documents (customer, vehicle, vendor & driver) at a centralized place to ensure smooth transaction of the shipment from the point of origin to the destination
• Streamline invoicing process working with their existing infrastructure
• Integrate the live monitoring system by creating a unified window for all connected vehicles plying for the client

aiTouch Solution

Understanding the client’s business need, team aiTouch built a high-performing, scalable cloud-based application to effectively address all challenges faced by the client. We provided services for the end-to-end design, development, implementation, and support of the platform. Hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS), here are some of the solutions that we delivered to our client through the platform:

• Created real-time visibility into the shipment’s pickup and delivery process to improve performance
• Single window to view data to enhancing resource planning and operations
• Seamless access to all data – current and historical
• One-stop application for all business stakeholders
• Built a ‘Booking Module’ in the application to enable the customer to create a booking online directly
• All records of the transaction, right from creating the booking to pickup and delivery of the consignment, are available on a single platform online and in real-time
• Hassle-free onboarding of transport vendors
• Complete automation of manual step-by-step invoice reconciliation processes to make invoicing transparent and convenient. Also, dramatically reduce processing time and reduce the backlog
• Created a ‘Payment Module’ in the historical data to quickly tells the customer what a particular shipment is costing them and also for quick reference at the time of payment
• Provided a unified platform for hybrid integrations with cloud, external partners, and on-premise applications
• Upgraded and enhanced the existing fleet tracking system for the client-owned vehicles
• Using open APIs, created a dashboard that would reflect the real-time status of any booking that had a live tracking, irrespective of the vendor
• Best practices delivered in information and data handling by harnessing aiTouch’s deep expertise in IT

Technologies Used

Back end – Node JS

Front end – Angular Material which aligned with the client’s framework

Cloud platform – AWS

Documents & other information storage and uploading – AWS service S3 bucket

System authentication – AWS Incognito

DB structure – PostgreSQL and MongoDB

Business Outcome

Even though it’s still early in the day, aiTouch’s future-proof, best-in-class and reliable cloud-based digital solution is already delivering on the client brief.

• Enables the client to streamline and track the shipment to make the business more organized
• Enhances shipment processing leading to overall improvements in system performance and reliability
• Better data management through efficient data storage and faster data retrieval
• Significant improvement in invoice processing performance
• 24×7 track and trace assistance for connected vehicles
• Real-time multi-vendor collaboration