| If you run a shipping business and are currently | | | | loading strategies, saving money on the shipping |
| searching for newer, better shipping solutions, then | | | | process usually depends on finding a carrier that |
| the term "freight-optimization" probably sounds | | | | offers loading strategies that best fit your freight |
| familiar. However, although freight optimization is | | | | needs, particularly in terms of offering warehouse |
| often discussed a singular solution to inefficient | | | | picking efficiencies by combining stock keeping units |
| shipping practices, it is best understood as but one | | | | (SKUs), which minimizes the number of storage bays |
| part of an effective transportation system. For | | | | a driver visits at each stop. However, as with load |
| example, achieving freight-optimization can be | | | | design, freight-optimization software can eliminate the |
| financially negligible if you don't also achieve shipping | | | | need for multiple loading strategies in relation to |
| route optimization. In this article, we discuss the four | | | | warehousing. |
| main benefits of freight optimization when achieved | | | | Pre-Building Orders |
| through freight optimization software, which allows | | | | Having freight orders pre-built for shipping is essential |
| shipping companies to cut their transportation | | | | to increasing the timeliness of the shipping process. |
| management costs by becoming their own logistics | | | | Freight optimization software allows shippers to |
| provider. | | | | achieve the best picking, building and pre-staging |
| Accurate and Quick Load Design | | | | strategies toward accommodating a carrier company |
| To a shipper that doesn't have its own logistics | | | | that offers the optimal shipping routes. Pre-building |
| department, it can seem as if every shipping route | | | | orders saves time, but it also saves money by linking |
| would have the nearly the same loading patterns. But | | | | a company's shipments with the best possible |
| this is rarely the case, as different warehouses have | | | | carriers. |
| storage bays with different capacities, different | | | | Reducing Product Breakage |
| freight preferences and different volumes of empty | | | | Preventing broken products is not a logistics concern. |
| bays for returned goods. Freight-optimization | | | | But it does fall within the freight optimization process. |
| software can take the guesswork out of | | | | Freight-optimization research shows that most freight |
| warehousing optimization, and can even eliminate the | | | | breakage occurs within the first ten minutes of the |
| need for warehousing by providing integrated shipping | | | | delivery process due to poor packing practices. |
| solutions (i.e. air, land, sea). | | | | Freight optimization software links shippers with |
| Multiple Loading Strategies | | | | carriers that offer the right mixing and stacking |
| Because different carrier companies have different | | | | strategies for a particular type of freight. |