COLLABORATION
Executive Overview
Collaboration is being discussed in almost every business publication today!
Many companies are discussing the topic internally and some
have had in-depth discussions amongst their preferred or necessary
business partners. While there are protocols, and transaction sets,
the ability to articulate a universal compelling reason that
would effectively create the collaborative industrial and commercial
culture is severely lacking.
In order for collaboration to succeed, there must be
a business culture, universal standards and willingness to make
certain information reasonably available to authorized partners.
Collaboration represents one of the foremost opportunities in business
today; it can drive down costs, improve operations and performance,
culminating in a significant contribution to the profit line. Of equal importance is that shared information
amongst the business partners positions those partners to participate
in the new knowledge base created by real-time understanding
of shared information. As
an example, it is reasonable to conclude that consignees would
have better insight regarding delivery carriers closest to their
location, and with shared tracking information and performance
monitoring the business partners would be empowered with the
ability to make more timely and accurate decisions regarding
carrier performance standards and selection.
Without collaboration, this issue may never be solved
or solved well after customer service deteriorated and freight
costs exceeded the service negotiated.
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Without a corporate collaborative culture in the business world, effective
and efficient collaboration remains on the horizon. A successful method of approach to address this
problem is to develop a basic definition of collaboration, which
is non-threatening, and broad enough to eliminate the potential
of limiting the scope of a viable description.
This method of approach significantly increases the chances
for realizing the abundant and robust opportunities that are
both apparent and developing.
Our previous white papers have spoken about some of the reasons why collaboration
is so important to the continual growth and development of world
wide commerce and industry.
This paper will begin to address:
proprietary
concerns and corporate security
transportation
and distribution management as the vehicle to drive the collaborative
effort
collaborative
penetration points, that are reasonably harmless, in the supply
and demand chains
available collaborative
technology and concepts
strange bedfellows
make excellent collaborators
Collaboration, when successfully achieved can be one of the most influential
components significantly contributing to growth, development,
performance and profitability of the business enterprise, with
the added advantage of developing a new knowledge base.
Definition
Collaboration by definition is, “to work together, especially in a joint
intellectual effort”
[1]
. Currently, the commercial and industrial environments
have clearly constrained the true collaborative effort, thus
the opportunities and advantages that will be forthcoming have
been delayed. This constraint, for the most part, is based
upon proprietary concerns, corporate security and the lack of
corporate collaborative culture.
The supply and demand chains and the master link, transportation and distribution
management, stand at the threshold of collaboration and should
be the driving force and the basis upon which this new frontier
will be crossed and developed.
Proprietary Concerns and Corporate Security
With the introduction of computerized business systems and for those of
us who can still remember EDP (electronic data processing),
astute businesses set out to computerize certain mundane clerical,
repetitive tasks. The process next evolved to the point that interdepartmental
tasks were linked, eventually growing to the point of establishing
total connectivity within an organization, and then incorporating
all of its locations. This
was no easy endeavor and one that was absolutely necessary in
our quest for establishing a highly secure, timely and accurate
collaboration capability amongst a myriad of business partners
with interdisciplinary relationships; best described by considering
the entire gamut of the industrial spectrum. This original model is still in use today.
Giving due consideration to proprietary concerns, perhaps one of the best
places to begin to understand and appreciate this issue is to
look at the original model, linking interdepartmental tasks. Cleary, the level of concern could be different,
but the concepts should remain constant. As an example, one question that could be raised,
“should the transportation system be shared with accounting,
finance, purchasing, and the reciprocals thereof.”?
A next logical question could be, “how much of the information
could be shared and at what times and under what conditions
along with what is the best model for the respective functional
distribution of the information. Answering these questions begins the controls
process, the very same process or model that could be employed
when considering the sharing of information amongst business
partners. Shared information, as described herein, with
an enabler equals collaboration.
Another consideration regarding the proprietary and security issues is
venue. That is, what
venue best allows for the efficient, effective and timely flow
of authorized information to appropriate designees at proper
times, without encumbering each partners operations and systems
and is secure enough to protect against unauthorized intrusion
or use? The ASP (application
service provider), operating on the Internet or societal systems
(closed loop) and intranets (specialized buying and selling
membership organizations) best addresses the venue issue.
Designating authorized users, eligible for certain information, limited
to specific periods of time for the respective transactions,
coupled with appropriate audit trails, at a minimum, could satisfy
security issues.
Contractual relationships that would include proprietary, confidential
and use terms amongst the authorized trading partners, including
all users therein, should reasonably address these concerns.
Transportation And Distribution Management As The Vehicle To Drive The
Collaborative Effort
The data elements contained in the transportation and distribution management
process and functions are prolific and could also be considered
interdisciplinary. Consider
the Bill of Lading, the Freight Bill and the Delivery Receipt;
on the face of these transportation documents and their electronic
equivalents. We have initial data in the Bill of Lading with
such data flowing to the successive documents or their electronic
equivalents with new data continually appended throughout the
process; beginning with pick-pack and continuing with freight
staging and concluding through delivery.
Recognizing that the Bill of Lading could be the culmination
of events at the shipping location, including the initial sales
or purchasing, it is reasonable to conclude that the appending
data to these documents or their electronic equivalents also
occurs. Therefore, the
referred to data elements are representative of various departments
such as; sales, finance, purchasing, manufacturing, operations,
human resources, transportation, shipping, distribution and
logistics. We call this
the, “transportation link”.
It is clear that the business partners are connected via the transportation
link, that is, activity/data at the shipping being appended
through receiving represents the beginning and ending of the
continuous flow of material, in which this corresponding and
prolific data is collateral. For those partners not otherwise physically
connected via the transportation link, the available data produced
is sufficient to incorporate those partners through other means. Collecting and appending the data in the transaction
stream satisfies the demand for the most current and continuously
refreshed data, the absolute basis for successful collaboration.
The data, process and functions described above form the basis of collaboration.
Transportation and distribution are both the device and
the vehicle that position the data to be converted to collaborative
information.
Collaborative Penetration Points, That Are Reasonably Harmless, In The
Supply And Demand Chains
At the outset, utilizing a well established practice, standard Bill of
Lading information would be delivered to available partners
through a neutral ASP. Distribution,
in either a push pull or delivered environment for appropriate
authorized partners would also be handled through the ASP.
As the freight moves along externally, the data would
be continuously appended/refreshed and converted to information.
The information is then made available, via the ASP,
to authorized users. Based upon user security levels, subordinated
to the effective agreements and terms of use, the information
is properly controlled.
Penetration points for data extraction are conceptually described as those
points in the process when data is appended and/or refreshed. As an example, the production of a concluded
Bill of Lading, the transmission of a load tender, the creation
of an ASN, carrier pickup and tracing and tracking. These are
only examples and differences will occur from company to company
and will also change as relationships and functions within the
process appear.
Defined penetration points for selective data extraction and subsequent
information availability coupled with real-time communication
within the respective business to business partnership, working
together, especially in a joint intellectual effort is the essence
of collaboration.
Available collaborative technology and concepts
Intranets could be a probable representation of electronic collaboration;
in other instances, some companies are suggesting that they
offer collaborative services; unfortunately, there is very little
if any basis of shared definitions and thus the parties become
mired down in scope creep (the evaluation process without a
beginning or an end). Others have a loose arrangement of products,
some in transportation, purchasing, finance and operations;
if connected, integrated and coupled with effective and efficient
communications when combined with security and proprietary programs
might be considered collaborative.
On the positive side, those companies offering a “simpler is better” method
of approach that address incremental transportation management
solutions in an ASP environment, are the best candidates for
the most comprehensive and meaningful collaborative solution.
Incremental transportation management solutions that include:
Routing guides |
Tracing and tracking |
Bill of Lading generation |
Pre-audit |
Freight pre-rating |
Reporting |
Payment |
Transportation sourcing |
Automated
freight bill management |
Shipment/logistics
information |
Transportation
collaborative portal |
Receiving |
and incorporate data collection in the transaction stream are best positioned
to satisfy the cultural and functional needs for efficient and
effective collaboration for worldwide business partners:
Strange Bedfellows Make Excellent Collaborators
There are, at least, two areas of interest within this topic: those who should collaborate and those that
need to collaborate.
Those who should collaborate
are best identified as the business partners that have a material
involvement and/or interest in the supply and demand chains.
Those who need
to collaborate are best identified as the business partners
that have a material involvement and/or interest in the transaction.
Within both of these descriptions, there are incidental and
occasional collaborations that need to be provisioned for. Defining
the beginning and the end of the supply and demand chains and
the transaction will establish the specific collaborators and
assign to each the information that will be available and under
what conditions.
Consider a simple transaction such as, the buying of a widget. Even in this simple transaction, participants
in the process may not necessarily be those who will collaborate,
but at the very least, they will be data contributors or information
gatherers. Therefore, a distinction between participants
and collaborators, corresponding to available information must
be determined early on in the buy/sell process.
Within this hypothetical transaction, the probable participants (physical
or electronic) are: sales,
accounting (credit), inventory control, replenishment, and accounting
(accounts receivable), warehousing, traffic, shipping, receiving,
purchasing, accounting (accounts payable) and customer service.
There is a high probability that there could be more
or less participants.
Depending upon the level of integration within a partner, other departments
or business areas that could be involved as participants are: forecasting and planning, manufacturing, distribution,
finance, treasury, collateral material and human resources.
Conclusion
Collaboration is still on the horizon.
Consistent with the current, collateral evolutionary
business process model, coupled with the establishment of a
worldwide commercial and industrial collaborative culture and
reasonably universal business mindset, the real benefits of
collaboration are waiting to be harvested.
Clearly, the business world is interested and I believe that business professionals
recognize the importance of collaboration. As each business partnership continues to socialize
this subject and invest in the process, and because collaboration
is viral in nature, it
is highly probable that collaboration will grow rapidly.
The most successful collaborators will be those that embrace collaboration
early on; they will grow with it efficiently. Those that are “forced” to collaborate will
be relegated to accepting that which others have developed for
their own benefit.
Continuation
Please consider this white paper as a beginning in this subject area, succeeding
white papers will address common issues and address them with
common solutions. We encourage our readers to direct any
specific questions or comments to
papers@transportgistics.com
.
Disclaimer
The
information presented above represents the opinion of the author
and not necessarily the opinion of TransportGistics, Inc. nor
is it presented as a legal position.
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from TransportGistics, Inc. or the individual authors (papers@transportgistics.com)