Alpega Group:
Must-knows About Alpega TMS

What is Alpega TMS?

Alpega TMS is a cloud-based transport management service that caters to the needs of shippers, carriers and logistics service providers. It connects manufacturers to logistics service providers to digitize the supply chain and streamline transportation processes. Alpega TMA provides data-driven planning capabilities to help with warehouse slot bookings, automated tools to manage freight procurements with easy access to tenders, and spot requests and visibility to track cargo movement, as well as access to reports and analytics.

Main Alpega TMS Features

Alpega Strategic Transport Procurement

Alpega’s sourcing solutions help businesses identify the right carrier for each project and forge stronger relationships with transport suppliers. It has the capability of helping with transport data collection and analysis, selection of new carriers, ensuring compliance, transferring contracted rates and conducting effective RFI/RFPs.

Alpega Fully Integrated Transport Planning

Alpega is designed to help achieve long-term, strategic optimization, tactical route optimization and daily operational optimization. By using rule-based planning and enabling dynamic changes to costs, routes, delivery and pickup restrictions, etc. it helps businesses improve strategic, tactical and operational processes.

Alpega Real-Time Visibility Network

Alpega helps businesses track cargo movement from pickup to delivery points and get notifications of ETAs, delays and possible exceptions. This helps prevent delayed or failed deliveries, minimize demurrage and detention costs and control expenditure.

Alpega Freight Cost Management

Alpega automates processes involved with invoice handling, contract management, surcharge reconciliation, etc. This saves man hours and minimizes the risk of human error with currency exchanges, units of measurement, etc.

Alpega TMS Competitors

SAP TM

The SAP Transportation Management (SAP TM) application integrates logistics and fleet management processes throughout the domestic and international business network to make them more efficient and cost-effective. Via simulated situations, it helps businesses forecast their transportation requirements, synchronize order schedules, automate rate gathering and evaluation and streamline freight management while providing visibility over cargo movement.

Oracle Transportation Management

The Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) platform helps companies manage all activities related to cargo transportation irrespective of whether it is across road, rail, air or sea networks. OTM aids with domestic and international cargo movement across different stages of the supply chain. It can be easily integrated with other systems and applications to more complete supply chain management.

Kinaxis

Kinaxis helps businesses create a transparent supply chain network with the ability to take quick actions in response to changes in rates and routes or potential disruptions. This supply chain management software is capable of streamlining demand and supply requirement management, inventory management and operational planning. Their cloud-based command and control center helps businesses take control over the entire operation.

Alpega May Not Properly Manage Ocean Transportation

Alpega may be a popular TMS, but while it provides a bird’s eye view of the overall transportation system, it may not be specialized to cater to ocean transportation requirements. Hence, you may need to integrate the system with other solutions such as BuyCo’s Container Shipping Platform to cater to your container shipping needs. There are various container shipping platforms but not all are equally capable. When you’re comparing solution, some of the key features that must be included are:

Features Needed to Manage Your Ocean Transportation

Proper Collaboration Features

While there are many parties that would be connected to a TMS, you may not want them all to have access to the information shared on this platform. After all, much of it is sensitive in nature. You need a Container Shipping Platform like BuyCo that connects all your team members, customers, partners and freight forwarders on a central platform for better communication and collaboration, while controlling the access provided to all parties.

Efficient Container Scheduling and Booking

General TMS applications usually aren’t able to connect directly to ocean carrier systems. Hence, when it comes to searching schedules and booking vessels, visits to individual websites are required. This is slow and an inefficient use of resources. What you need is a central platform that combines information from multiple carriers for easier comparison. With a solution like BuyCo, you can not only compare carriers costs and routes, but you can also select vessels based on the ETA, your allocations, CO2 emissions, etc.

Accurate Container Tracking

Tracking cargo across oceans is not the same as tracking cargo across road or rail networks. Thus, a general TMS may not be able to track cargo movement between ports as precisely as required. A Container Shipping Platform like BuyCo can help bridge the gap and help businesses know container status in warehouses, track real-time container movement more accurately while also providing accurate ETD/ETAs and alerts to possible exceptions.

Robust Reporting over your Container Shipping

There are many shipping operations that may be conducted outside a TMS. Hence, reports provided by the TMS may be incomplete and skewed. They may also exclude data relevant to other KPIs required to optimize ocean operations. Hence, when you evaluate Container Shipping Platforms, you must ensure that a wider range of operations can be brought to the central platform and thus get access to reports for KPIs such as overall volumes, partner performances, allocation usage, CO2 emissions, etc.

Alpega Integration

Lastly, rather than have two separate platforms, you must ensure that the Container Shipping Platform you choose can be integrated with Alpega. In this way, your TMS can still remain a hub to manage all your shipments. The data entered on one platform must be accessible by the other and vice versa.

BuyCo: The Best Solution to Manage Container Shipping along with Alpega TM

The Alpega TMS goes a long way in streamlining supply chain processes. However, there is a limitation to what it can achieve. By integrating the Alpega platform with Container Shipping Platforms like BuyCo, you can streamline logistics flow and make the system more efficient and cost-effective.

Where Alpega helps with managing overall transportation requirements, BuyCo brings together 95% of all carriers, partners and forwarders to more efficiently manage your ocean transport. Centralizing access to this information maximizes transparency in the system, builds trust amongst partners and minimizes the risk of error.

Further, Buyco provides the tools required to automate and control all aspects of the operation. Organizations can automate steps for shipment planning, vessel scheduling, carrier booking etc. and get real-time, multi-sourced information to track cargo movement. This boosts productivity and keeps operations running on time.

Lastly, by connecting businesses to all logistics partners and centralizing all communication to a single platform, BuyCo ensures that processes are centralized and information required for operational analysis is always available. This makes reports more robust and empowers businesses to take data-driven decisions.

Integrating Alpega with BuyCo helps your team be more efficient with their time and resources.