Managing constantly moving inventory, orders, and shipments can get a little confusing at times. And, the last thing a company wants to do is lose track of a shipment order and leave customers hanging when they need a product or material the most.

This is why JD Edwards created a Transportation Management system that makes the maintenance and management of these processes much simpler.

Read on to learn more about JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Transportation Management and its key features and advantages.

What is a Transportation Management System?

A transportation management system (TMS) is a digital platform that allows businesses to manage transportation logistics, ensure shipment compliance, and plan, manage, and optimize both the incoming and outgoing movement of goods to and from an organization’s enterprise systems.

A TMS is often part of a company’s comprehensive Supply Chain Management (SCM) system, which often includes manufacturing, procurement, inventory, sales order, and product lifecycle management applications as well. It offers improved visibility into day-to-day supply chain operations, making it easier for companies to remain compliant with trade documentation, streamline transportation operations, and ensure efficient delivery to customers.

Transportation management systems are vital to the success and optimization of supply chain operations, helping companies make better planning decisions, adapt to changing trade environments, improve customer satisfaction, and reduce overall SCM costs.

Main Advantages of a TMS

A TMS offers a multitude of benefits for businesses, regardless of size, location, or industry. Here are a few of the main advantages of using a TMS in your organization:

  • Simplified and automated supply chain operations
  • Better data, analytics, and visibility for SCM process improvement
  • Reduced costs for suppliers and end consumers
  • Improved time management and fewer risks for error
  • More accurate documentation to meet compliance and billing requirements
  • Increased customer satisfaction with fewer delays and faster delivery times
  • Better insights to continually improve SCM processes

What is JD Edwards EnterpriseOne TMS?

The JD Edwards EnterpriseOne platform offers an all-inclusive TMS that simplifies the movement of goods and materials and helps companies reduce costs throughout their entire supply chain. The JD Edwards TMS sets itself apart from other transportation management systems by offering features like transportation preferences, document control, and automatic accounting instructions (AAI) to simplify outlined global implementation steps and make integration with other systems easier.

This way, it’s even easier to track the transport of goods, enhance the productivity of supply chain operations, and optimize overall business processes.

Here are a few of the main capabilities that differentiate the JDE TMS from other systems:

  1. Single solution: JDE provides a single system to keep all transportation and distribution information in one place.
  2. Automation: The JD Edwards TMS offers enhanced capabilities that allow companies to automate shipping and tracking processes for inbound and outbound orders.
  3. Customer service: JD Edwards uses pre-built integrations between TMS, sales order, and purchase order functions to reduce shipment times and increase customer satisfaction.

Key Features of JDE Transportation Management

JDE Transportation Management contains a variety of useful features that make planning, managing, tracking, and configuring your TMS seem like a piece of cake. Here are a few main features that JDE uses to enhance transportation management:

Shipment Planning

After placing an order in JDE Sales Order Management, a shipment (i.e., the foundation of the JDE TMS) is created. Once the shipments are created, the products, shipment weight, and shipment schedules need to be confirmed, and the TMS team needs to determine whether they will combine shipments to save time and reduce freight costs or place one order per shipment.

Load Building

This function provides an easier way to transport loads by consolidating shipments into loads. Loads can be built using bulk or packaged products, and load building significantly reduces payable and billable freight costs.

Shipment Routing

Routing involves the selection of a mode of transport and carrier for any given shipment. This feature gives common and private fleet carriers a better understanding of where the shipment is coming from and where it is going (and on what schedule).

Freight Updates

The freight update feature creates vouchers in the JDE Accounts Payable system, builds shipment charge records in the general ledger, and connects billable charges with freight invoices through custom records. This way, charges to multiple accounts within the JD Edwards system are kept up-to-date and aligned with order shipments.

Shipment Rating

Rating processes are conducted after the shipment has been routed, and they are responsible for providing the correct amount to charge for the movement of goods to their final destination. While rating is dependent on routing, the feature gives users the opportunity to view their orders through unit, lookup type, and prorated shipment rates.

Load and Delivery Confirmation

On one hand, load confirmation verifies item quantities placed on shipment orders. On the other, delivery confirmation verified the item quantities that were actually received by the correct customer. This way, system administrators and users can keep track of in-transit and depleted inventory to ensure the demand never outweighs the supply.

Shipment Tracking

This feature allows users to track shipments through carriers. JDE offers pre-built system capabilities that allow companies to use shipment tracking numbers to track inbound and outbound shipments to and through their destination.

Integration with Other Systems

As is the case with all JD Edwards EnterpriseOne systems, the Transportation Management solution has built-in integration capabilities that allow it to connect to many other JDE systems and applications. Here are a few ways the JDE TMS integrates with other system (as well as how the systems work together):

  • Sales Order Management: As sales orders are placed, shipments are created, orders are managed, and inventory is adjusted accordingly in the system. If an order is placed on hold, the Sales Order system will store the important order information to be used later.
  • Inventory Management: Integration with the JD Edwards Inventory Management system allows users to track item information (i.e., quantity, sales, and purchasing costs) throughout manufacturing and distribution business processes.
  • Procurement: Procurement works similarly to Sales Order integration, but instead of sales orders, it focuses on purchase orders. After purchase orders are created, the system will create shipments and make necessary adjustments as the shipment is processed and distributed.
  • Warehouse Management: The JD Edwards Warehouse Management system works with the TMS by providing warehouse setup features that make keeping track of inventory and shipments easier. Here are a few of the provided features: shipment picking, advanced reporting, and balancing multiple shipping and distribution locations.

Getting Started with JD Edwards

When it comes to implementing a new system or balancing integrations between JDE applications, the help of a functional consultant whose skills span the entire JD Edwards system could be the deciding factor for your success.

Fortunately, Surety Systems has a team of senior-level JD Edwards consultants that’s guaranteed to fit your needs.

Need an extra hand connecting your TMS with other JDE apps? Our consultants can help. Need advanced guidance to set up accurate transportation constants? They’ve got the experience needed to help with that too. Not sure where transport constants and load constants fit in your system? That’s where the knowledge of our expert JDE consultants comes in.

How Can We Help?

Wherever your JD Edwards needs lie, our consultants are sure to fit the bill.

And, to give you a better idea of what to expect when partnering with us, we’ve included a sample profile of one of our JDE Transportation Management consultants:

Surety Senior JD Edwards Transportation Management Consultant

  • 20 years of experience with JDE TMS
  • Worked as a Transportation Lead for the past 12+ years
  • Extremely familiar with Freight AAIs/setup
  • Heavy background in Freight, Rates, and Route Determination; Strong with Outbound Transportation
  • Comfortable with Internal JDE Transportation Setup
  • Excels with Interfacing Transportation to third-party vendors

Contact us today to learn more or get started.