In 2006, one of our pharmaceutical customers opened their Shanxi branch in the Xiaodian District of Taiyuan City. Situated in the A1 area of Pingtou Dacheng Economic Park, this new branch spanned nearly 20,000 square meters.

As a circulation and distribution hub, it provides comprehensive transportation of drugs, medical devices, health supplements and prepackaged foods and goods. To accomplish this, our customer relies on more than 150 vehicles as its distribution covers all districts and counties in Shanxi.

What were our customer’s requirements?

In addition to its own business, our customer is also in charge of providing transportation and storage for more than 10 other pharmaceutical companies and cosmetics enterprises outside of the province.

To manage each of these delicate and varying products, our customer required an integrated warehouse management solution that would improve coordination and efficiency of the various aspects of the warehouse. Another main feature of the solution is also an Overload Common Point (OCP) client, that would enable their customers to place orders, view the inventory and freight charges independently.

Additionally, our customer also required a system that would enable them to eliminate long waiting times of transports that arrived at the warehouse and also achieve zero errors during cargo loading. To further eliminate errors, our customer also required a system that would be able to print drug tests reports and invoices that would reduce on-site ticket distribution time for clerks.

How did we meet our customer’s order?

Before the implementation of Honeywell Logistics Solutions Transportation Management System (TMS), our customer relied solely on Microsoft Excel for line and dispatch management. This was inefficient and produced inaccurate data. With TMS, they achieved automatic line matching for orders to the customers.

On top of that, TMS also helped to generate task orders according to predetermined rules and would carry out tasks and orders based on a schedule. HLS TMS also recommended a more diverse dispatch plan, which provided more flexibility and reduced the workload of dispatchers. Documentation allocation time has also been reduced significantly, as the system has standardized documents and supports one-click printing.

To ensure that cold chain products are delivered on time and in good condition, we integrated G7 and other GPS systems alongside temperature and humidity hardware to work with HLS TMS. These data are then synchronized with the OCP, Honeywell Logistics Solutions Warehouse Management System and driver application.

To provide customers with a transparent and easier way to manage transportation costs, TMS also provides a real-time and intuitive calculation method that shows calculation results and generate bills according to the set rules. It even displays real-time waybill freight information and freight adjustment information.

What was the end result?

After the implementation of HLS WMS and HLS TMS, our customer experienced a 60% improvement in efficiency when it came to delivery and more than 90% improvement in terms of delivery accuracy and timeliness. Billings management has also seen an improvement as they are now able to support billings from multiple channels.