The Team's Board Report - Mainfreight

46
CaroTrans
CaroTrans has released their new
export booking/bill of lading
processing system live as a parallel
test. At the time of writing almost
2,000 bookings had been made by
the team. This approach has
allowed us to receive feedback
from the team on any bugs or other
improvements needed without
hindering the day-to-day
operations. We expect to turn the
old booking/bill of lading system off
shortly.
We are also working on globalising
the CaroTrack system by allowing
for multiple countries and
currencies to be used. This has led
to a complete rethink of how the
charges tabs will be laid out as
there are several more data fields
needed. We hope you approve of
the new layouts. All changes for
currency will only be made in the
new CaroTrack. The first change is
already available in our Chilean
operations where they can now
process miscellaneous invoices in
different currencies. The import
system is being rewritten to run on
a web browser and is expected to
go live before the end of this year.
It will also allow for multiple
currencies.
Contributions from the IT Team
Business Solutions – Rob Cotter
Who/what are the Business
Solutions team?
The Business Solutions team is
located in Australia but has a global
view on requirements for our
international teams. We work
closely with team members in all
Mainfreight countries as well as our
own IT team. We specialise in EDI
links with our customers, tailoring
business solutions that create
efficiencies for our customers and
ourselves. We also look at our
internal processes and work with
the business to find better ways of
doing things.
Some current things we are
working on/implementing are;
Data Integrity KPI’s
Ever jumped on to Mainchain and
found that information is not there?
Ever run a report and found that
not all required fields have been
completed? Our data integrity
reports have been designed to
ensure all critical fields are
completed by our teams. This
information then flows through to
Mainchain to our reports, which
means our customers get a clear
picture on their cargo movements.
These KPI’s went live in Asia,
Australia and New Zealand late last
year. As these countries are on the
same NZ-based database it means
each KPI is interactive with other
countries and branches. KPI’s that
rely on other branches and
countries doing the right thing as
well as your own branch has never
been tried before. Implementing
these KPI’s across the business
has been a rewarding exercise with
a real team approach making it a
success. Thank you to all of those
involved.
On-Account links with
Cargowise.
As we continue to grow our supply
chain offerings it also means that
we are raising more invoices from
our Transport teams to the
International branches. We are at
testing stage with Owens Australia
invoices coming through to
CargoWise and being approved
without our teams doing this
manually as they currently do.
There are few checks and balances
in the system so we don’t approve
without a matching expected cost.
The best part of this development
is that we will be able to also use it
with external service providers. All
programming has been done in
conjunction with MF USA and they
are keen to get started as well.
Transport NZ and MFI NZ are also
on the agenda.
Supply Chain Gaps
Working with IT and the Transport
and Logistics businesses we are
identifying the supply chain gaps
from a client perspective. Examples
are POD’s available for International
customers on Mainchain when the
shipment is booked by International
with the Transport teams. Another
example is ensuring all delivered
dates and pick up dates flow
through for clients to see. Some of
these work now but we are looking
at tightening our processes so they
work every time and in all
instances.
Mainchain Extensions –
Gary Harrington and Rob Cotter
We have made some significant
functionality additions to our
customer portal (Mainchain) for
International over the last few
months.
Product Searches
Our International clients can now
log into Mainchain and track not
only their consignments but their
individual products – this search
looks at the Order and Customs
Declarations for the logged in client
and returns results where the
product is present.
The response will show the client,
for the product they are searching,
what Orders are currently booked
and whether or not they have been
shipped. Drilling into the Order will
give all details about the Shipment
and the Order. When reviewing the
International Brokerage Tab, clients
can see details relating to what
Customs Declarations we have
processed for a specific product
and then can drill down into the
actual declaration lines.
And if a customer uses Mainfreight
for warehousing – they can drill into
any of their products and see what
is currently in stock in one of our
warehouses.
Invoices and Statements
Customers can now access their
invoices and statements on-line.
This means if they are missing
documents they can get them
directly from Mainchain or view and
download an up to date statement
in the Enterprise format.
If you require any further
information on any of this
functionality please contact your
local IT Team.