From communication hassles and potentially unsafe conditions to time loss: logistics site inefficiencies can take a number of forms. In the majority of cases, automation and self-service can help eliminate process steps and digitalise data flows.

Four reasons to optimize your logistics processes

Efficient flows of people, goods and information in and out of your site help you safeguard your margins and keep customer relationships strong. Even more, knowing who is on your site and what they are doing isn’t simply important for operations; it is also essential to ensuring safety and efficient evacuations in the case of an incident.

There are four main objectives when it comes to optimizing logistics flows on site:

reducing manual labour;
optimising communication;
maximising transparency;
ensuring self-service system maintenance by your on-site team.

Imagining an optimised on-site logistics flow

In a perfect world – or a world where you’ve implemented our Welcome Terminal Accelerator – a truck arrives on site, and the driver checks in at an automated kiosk. In his language, he identifies the goods he is picking up, identifies himself, the truck and the company he works for. He can even perform a safety test – in his native tongue – to ensure he’s aware of all of the rules on site.

At the same time, the site guard, the planner and the operator are automatically informed of the truck’s arrival. The planner can then immediately assign the perfect dock to this particular driver, while the operator ensures a proper loading order.

After the driver is invited on site, loading/unloading processes take place and then he can check out using a digital kiosk. He validates that he performed the requested activities, digitally signs his documents and receives the other forms that he needs to hit the road. He’s on his way!

The Welcome Terminal: three basic components

Flexso’s Welcome Terminal Accelerator was developed to achieve the ‘perfect’ on-site logistics flow. It is made up of three modular components:

the Welcome Terminal, a highly configurable, hardware-agnostic self-service web application for truck drivers and site visitors that is fully integrated with SAP and supports multiple languages;
the Support Applications, which offer tools to optimise the tasks of the operators at your site, such as pre-registration of visitors, remote gate opening and operator planning, as well as tools to simplify the process of onboarding new sites into your system;
Integrations and Connectors, which are links with other services, tools such as IoT sensors, docking sensors and drivers’ license scanners. Every action is automatically updated in your SAP ECC or S/4HANA ERP system.

How it works - Demo

Extra intelligence and partner portal

On top of these building blocks, we can add two additional services to further enhance your processes:

the integration of intelligent technology to enable automated dock assignment or the application of OCR image recognition technology to pre-fill information captured from truck drivers’ driving licenses, in order to accelerate check-ins;
a partner portal that enables logistics firms to offer transparency to their customers, by showing real time information such as timestamps for checking in and out. The portal also ensures access to third-party apps of partners.

Note: this package does not include any hardware. The accelerator was built from the ground up to be technology agnostic, making it simple for you to get the most out of the hardware investments you have already made. We can, however, offer expert hardware advice as well as strong cooperations with suplliers.

Customer success stories

Discover how Etex and ODTH First Class Logistics streamline their logistics processes with the Welcome Terminal Accelerator. Thanks to the solution, drivers can check in themselves in their native languages, take a safety questionnaire and check out – either via the hardware terminals, or through a mobile app with QR code.

Backed by the power of SAP

Not only are there significant usability and productivity benefits for logistics firms and their employees, our solution offers key IT and business benefits as well, including:

it’s module agnostic;
because it’s a web application, it accommodates almost any device;
it’s back-end compatible with ECC and S/4HANA on premise or in the cloud;
the apps are powered by SAP Fiori – a proven technology, built on SAP best practices and industry-leading design principles.

Extend your SAP environment with a flexible package that suits your needs

At Flexso, your needs – not technologies – are our number one priority. To move from concept to reality, we organise a workshop where we explore your requirements in detail, and then show how our building blocks can help achieve them.

The result? A solution that is tailored precisely to your needs and situation. Thanks to our templates and previous integration experiences, our time to deliver is very short. You get the made-to-fit solution you need in very little time.

Learn more about how Flexso's Welcome Terminal Accelerator ensures unprecedented efficiency at your logistics site. Ask your free demo.