When shipments are delayed due to congested transportation routes, such as those bogged down by traffic or bad weather, it means that signals disrupting freight routes are not being reported to dispatch fast enough.
This results in increased transportation costs, loss of time, and potentially canceled orders or customer dissatisfaction. Through FluxAI Agents, optimize your carrier routes and stay better informed about potential delay signals.
Shipping Route Optimization
Today, we are introducing Lindy, a logistics and transportation optimization manager that integrates with an organization's transport and warehouse management systems (TMS and WMS) to track shipments in real-time, reporting delay signals as they emerge, and improving shipment visibility.
Lindy integrates with fleet GPS platforms to actively monitor shipments. If bad route conditions arise during a delivery, she alerts carriers and reroutes shipments based on the ingested signal data. Furthermore, Lindy optimizes routes against distances and time windows for shipments.
Additionally, Lindy reduces shipment costs by rate-shopping across approved dispatchers, selecting freight carriers that offer the best service and price mix for the distance and weight of the shipment—all the while maintaining an auditable record of route optimizations that respects legacy system protocols.
How Lindy Works
Request Receipt
Patricia receives admin request
Priority Assessment
Patricia prioritizes tasks
Calendar Management
Patricia schedules meetings
Document Preparation
Patricia creates documents
Communication
Patricia manages correspondence
Travel Coordination
Patricia arranges travel
Task Completion
Patricia confirms completion
Step 1: A shipping request is queued in an organization’s WMS, and Lindy processes the order receipt.
Step 2: Lindy plans an optimal route for the shipment by analyzing the shipping request constraints, such as travel distance and time window.
Step 3: Lindy begins the freight selection process and rates shops across approved carriers.
Step 4: Labels and shipping docs are automatically generated for the selected service level.
Step 5: Lindy reaches out to approved carriers to confirm shipment pick-up and transfer details, which are then tracked end-to-end from packaging to delivery.
Step 6: Any detected delay signals, shipment damages, or incorrect delivery addresses are automatically escalated to supply-chain managers with context for quick reconciliation.
Step 7: Lindy records proof of delivery with costs and delivery timelines for compliance reporting.
Application
Lindy doesn’t automate redundant manual tasks; she actively saves costs on shipments. Imagine the following: a national retailer processes 700 shipment orders per day with weekend spikes and frequent address issues.
Last retail season, manual carrier credit checks, unreceived order receipts, and uncommunicated delay signals resulted in retailer losses of tens of thousands of dollars due to delayed shipments or deliveries to incorrect addresses.
To mitigate these issues and avoid losses this year, Lindy consolidates order receipts from the retailer's WMS and route plans to sequence deliveries together from corresponding regions. As the routes are planned, Lindy carrier shops to fulfill routes with freight transportation that aligns with shipment needs regarding distance and time windows.
Negotiations yield automated shipment documentation, and Lindy generates label packaging to reflect agreed-upon carrier rates. Lindy also confirms pickup scheduling and tracking updates stream from fleet GPS data, so the workflow is aware of emerging delay signals for the entire time shipments are in transit.
Once Lindy confirms proof of delivery, she outputs a summary of cost per shipment by service, on-time percentage by lane/carrier, and the top exception causes with recommended fixes. What does any of this accomplish? Fewer delayed shipments, missed service-level agreements, and happier customers.
Conclusion
Scattered and unreported signals of weather and traffic changes on designated delivery routes cause shipment delays. Lindy consolidates delay signals and reports them to dispatchers as soon as they emerge, monitoring shipments in real-time, and coordinating route adjustments when delays are expected.
Lindy rate-shops for carriers against shipment constraints and optimizes routes based on travel distance and delivery windows. Resulting in fewer missed shipment deadlines, fewer deliveries to wrong addresses, and fewer delays.
Essentially, Lindy converts shipping from a reactive fire drill into data-driven route optimization. Hire Lindy today, or explore the other FluxAI Agents to learn how automation can boost your operations.