The challenges of managing delivery confirmation to the customer

Consumers are increasingly demanding and aware of their rights and their importance at the time of purchase, competition increasingly fierce, bold marketing strategies, along with the increased availability of consultation and simultaneous comparison of prices at multiple sites over the internet, are some of the factors that is making the logistics activity increasingly strategic and decisive within organizations.

Increasingly, organizations need to develop products that meet consumer expectations, with prices that provide a satisfactory relationship when compared to the benefits offered and that this chosen product is available in the right quantity, at the place and time desired.

To successfully meet this demand, marketing professionals, product development, production and logistics work hard to meet market expectations.

However, there is a part of this process that is quite vulnerable, and if not well managed can put all the work to lose. I’m referring to the stage of physical delivery to the customer, which is the final part of the logistics process and usually presents numerous challenges such as the operation of picking, packing, routing, delivery and effective customer confirmation by customer.

Today, I would like to dedicate the last stage of this important process, which consists of the delivery confirmation, even being crucial and decisive for the whole process, because it is through the order cycle closes, it is still one of the steps that have the largest number of manual steps, as I tried to describe below:

(1) Delivery arrives every customer and after effecting physical delivery of the product, request the signature of the CTRC and lefty NF. Here we have the first challenge is to get in a legible signature and document responsible for receiving (can not forget that the lefty NF and CTRC are documents evidencing delivery);

(2) NF CTC stub and return to carrier (normally between 20 and 50 documents per vehicle);

(3) At the carrier, the sector of low delivery (some have another name), place (on your system) to each of the lower deliveries. At this stage we are treating 1,500 documents (50 vehicles each with 30 deliveries on average) and this activity, in most times is manual (input delivery date) which requires time and resources of the carrier. Normally this step is a bottleneck, and sometimes deliveries are not downloaded on the same day, which greatly compromises the closing cycle of the application and therefore the entire process visibility;

(4) The sector of low forward all documents to be organized, sometimes scanned and properly filed, since these documents need to be saved, because in case of disputes with customers they will be required for proof of delivery. Considering carrier with 10 branches, we are dealing with more than 10,000 documents per day (some branches perform more deliveries than others). This will generate a volume of more than 200,000 documents in the month, 2.64 billion in the year and over the five years (the statutory period handed the note to be saved), reach a volume of more than 13 million documents.

Even with the use of document scanning, which is already a big step forward, it is not difficult to imagine the level of organization needed for that, need to present the document that proves physical delivery (lefty NF), this request is answered quickly.

Every time I have had the opportunity to travel abroad, and I encountered a delivery that effect after delivery of the product, the customer had an outfit where he signs on the screen and certifies that the delivery was made, I thought of the 13 million documents were failing to be typed and filed, but mostly thought at the exact time of delivery, all systems of the links in the logistics chain (supplier, carrier …) were being updated.

Agility and visibility of information and, above all eliminating rework (typing) enabling productivity gains, cost savings and improved service levels are the results of this form of proof of delivery.

Well, when returning to our country, I kept thinking that one day we would have all this technology at our disposal, and I’ve been slowly realizing that, even if slowly, we are moving in this direction.

I recently attended a presentation of the solution of the GKO, called “Easy Confirms” which is a web portal that uses the service Manifesto Recipient SEFAZ where the recipient upon receiving the product physically is able to validate the data and sign DANFE digitally receipt thereof. With that all links in the supply chain will be able to view the information instantly and of course productivity gains.

From what I gather, the solution presented is focused processes for B2B (Business to Business), where the trade and delivery are made between companies, especially where the buyer (receiver) has a chance to, upon receipt, access the portal and confirm receipt.

Many legal and bureaucratic processes still need to be adjusted, but I think the use of portals as I had the opportunity to meet is already a big step toward what he saw in my travels abroad.

Source:http://www.incorporativa.com.br/

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