Case Studies

3PL Company Focused on Export Forwarding Chooses 3PL Dynamics and ArcherPoint to Tackle Complex Process Challenges

This company started nearly 40 years ago as a freight services company and has grown to include a wide range of services and capabilities in over 20 countries, including export forwarding via ocean and air.

The Challenge

This company is a conglomerate of companies with a logistics branch. As the business expanded, Excel spreadsheets and homegrown software became insufficient for managing operations, including critical areas like managing both ocean and air exports efficiently.

An initiative to unify all the companies within the conglomerate on a single ERP system failed, resulting in significant financial losses.

The Solution

The company's forwarding division operates independently from its financial system, with operational data integrated into a centralized financial database. ArcherPoint advocated for a decentralized architecture instead of a monolithic ERP system, recommending 3PL Dynamics, built on Microsoft Dynamics Business Central. This setup would allow
the company to scale operations while having a consolidated Financial system (Receivables, payables, treasury), and do it successfully.

The company adopted this decentralized architecture, opting to use the proposed solution for financial consolidation and freight forwarding operations but allowing the companies under its umbrella to choose operational systems based on their specific needs. This approach helps large conglomerates like this company maintain operational flexibility across diverse business units while consolidating financial data. It also provides consistency in processes across the company's air and ocean divisions, simplifying employee training and onboarding.

Two other advantages of 3PL Dynamics are flexibility and scalability. 3PL companies are increasingly moving toward offering a full range of logistics services to remain competitive. Some forwarding solutions lack strong warehousing capabilities, while others excel in warehousing but lack robust forwarding management systems.

3PL Dynamics stands out by offering a comprehensive solution that integrates warehousing, forwarding, and transportation management. This flexibility enables logistics companies to provide multiple services without needing separate systems, supporting their vertical and horizontal expansion. 3PL Dynamics' scalability makes it an excellent fit for both small and large logistics companies.

With the decision made to set up 3PL Dynamics in a decentralized architecture, it was time to address the specific issues with the new solution.

Freight forwarding is a "race against the clock" involving multiple parties and time-sensitive operations. Forwarders must coordinate trucks, containers, shipments, and customs while ensuring timely documentation to avoid costly delays. The complication: the majority of the process is handled through emails. Forwarders must manage large volumes of emails quickly, as most of the steps in the process have hard deadlines that, if missed, can throw off the entire delivery chain.

One of the key features of this solution tackles this issue. 3PL Dynamics automates processes, including the steps involved in the email process. A highly configurable and flexible solution that makes it faster and easier to address specific requirements, 3PL Dynamics uses pre-existing functions from an extensive library of automated processes. With 3PL Dynamics, no custom coding is required.

This company uses more than 70 pre-configured email templates for touchpoints like booking confirmations, sales quotes, tracking updates, and proof of delivery. The system tracks the shipment process with specific steps (e.g., preparing documentation, tracking shipments), and automated triggers ensure tasks are completed at the right time and in the right order and that no step is skipped.

Estimated and actual dates are also recorded to track progress, ensuring compliance with deadlines such as those set by US Customs. This automation has significantly reduced email processing time and streamlined operations, greatly reducing the risk of missed deadlines and errors.

One of the biggest benefits of email automation is that it takes less time to train employees. There is no college degree or official training program for people who work for forwarding companies. New employees must be trained on the job, but companies can't afford mistakes. Errors in forwarding can be costly, including fines and potential loss of licenses, which makes the automated validations critical.

Because 3PL Dynamics allows for the creation of checklists and automated validations to guide users through processes, training time and the likelihood of errors are reduced, especially for new employees. The system also ensures compliance with regulations by including mandatory checks, such as verifying known shipper IDs for air exports. By providing built-in steps, dependencies, and options, 3PL Dynamics ensures regulatory compliance while making it faster to get new employees up and running.

Another improvement the company experienced is in the area of reporting. 3PL Dynamics makes it easy to automate reports generated for customs (e.g., bill of lading, dock receipts), simplifying complex paperwork requirements.

What's Next

As this company continues to modernize processes, they will be working closely with ArcherPoint to decentralize their architecture so they have the flexibility to choose the best software for every need. This means a large number of integrations, infused with AI and tools like chatbots.