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GLS: DELIVER SMARTER WITH LEA REPLYTM VISIBILITY

The case for supply chain visibility, real-time insights, and attention to customer requirements enabling efficiency and profitability.

GLS, a leading worldwide company offering parcel, logistics and express services, has managed to improve its service levels and offering to their customers, while improving the efficiency of their network and optimizing costs. All this, thanks to LEA ReplyTM Visibility, the cross-platform cross-solution visibility solution that is part of LEA ReplyTM, the latest generation supply chain execution platform. Find out how.


THE CONTEXT

GLS Group’s success is the focus on quality. Every day GLS Group strives to provide its customers with a high quality of services, offering suitable shipping solutions for the particular needs of business customers, as well as high-quality B2C solutions.

To do this efficiently and profitably, it is crucial to react promptly to any inefficiency in the network, such as unexpected order volumes, unforeseen traffic or machinery malfunctions. It’s vital for the company to continuously monitor the saturation of their network, the status of machines and external factors impacting the deliveries in order to quickly rebalance operations. However, the monitoring team had to wait for the next day to have reports on the shipments and on what happened at the sites to take corrective actions and fix any issue, basically operating the control of the network in the dark.

In this context, Logistics Reply was involved by GLS Italy to provide a solution able to track in real-time a series of events acquired from the field and fragmented in multiple different legacy systems, in order to react to disruptions and empower strategic decision-making. The collaboration between GLS and Logistics Reply began in Jun 2020. By Dec 2020, the first set of dashboard was live, followed by the full deployment of the solution in Feb 2021.

THE SOLUTION

LEA ReplyTM Visibility, part of our LEA ReplyTM Supply Chain Execution Suite, is a dedicated system that collects and processes real-time data in different formats, from internal and external sources, and transforms them into actionable information to empower decision - making.

LEA ReplyTM Visibility offers real-time answers to fixed business questions: differently from a BI approach, the system compares historical and real-time data and provides suggestions on corrective actions on the fly. Event-streaming dashboards can be shaped alongside the customer according to their KPIs and business needs.

Thanks to our LEA ReplyTM Visibility solution, GLS was able to transform real-time data in real-time information with the aim to rebalance the network in the moment any inefficiency is detected. Through a customized dashboard, the company can see a real-time overview of saturation issues, legs suggestions, machine statistics and data on volume peaks and delays. The solution compares real-time and historical data, suggests corrective actions (e.g. showing low saturated lines or identify possible direct lines to establish) and offers statistics, with the possibility to execute drill-downs, to understand the inefficiencies in the network and improve it.

With LEA ReplyTM Visibility, GLS was able to improve their service levels and respect the promises made to their customers, while boosting the efficiency of their network and optimizing operating costs.

MAIN ACHIEVEMENTS

WITH LEA REPLY™ VISIBILITY




OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY


PROFITABILITY


CUSTOMIZATION

OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCY

  • Network Saturation Overview: through a dedicated dashboard, the GLS monitoring team can see the always-updated, real time, overview of the saturation of the lines of the network. This is the result of the visibility system registering every single incoming shipment, “listening” to all the data on possible routes, volume capacity of the lines and the number of parcels to deliver per day, and uniting them in one unique, constantly updated aggregate. Thus from an unique point, the operators can not only overview all 330 GLS network lines, but also filter them by geographical area, gain information on one specific line and eventually add trucks or organize a direct line if that one is too saturated. LEA Reply™ Visibility on average processes in real time more than 2 million events, coming from +700K shipments, per day.
  • Single Hub Monitoring: the operators can also monitor every single hub present in the network; in that case the dashboard shows the shipments planned for the specific day and time slots, expressed in number of parcels/volumes, and confronts them with the ones already processed; in this way it’s easy to control the progress on the tasks and daily workload. This dashboard also provides information on saturation problems and possible direct lines.
  • Automation Monitoring: through this dashboard, it’s possible to check on the status of the GLS machinery: the operators can see how many machines are on read mode, in stop or at fault, in any region. By applying a geographical filter, it’s easy to see how the single hub is performing, according to the read/not read parcels, and easily identify any broken machine. All the history of the single machines and details are also recorded, providing an additional level of detail.

PROFITABILITY

  • Prescriptions to optimize the network: through this dashboard, the system suggests different corrective actions, such as the creation of possible, still not existent direct routes to establish, by looking at the average volume trends of the past day and month of the already existing ones. In the same way, the system also suggests lines to add or remove, if the capacity does or doesn’t justify the present volumes. These prescriptions permit to smartly rebalance the network and allocate resources to less saturated lines, saving time and efforts.
  • Workload Forecast: for every hub this dashboard forecasts, in real-time, the workload of the day, calculated by the system looking at the incoming shipments destinated to that hub and the capacity of the hub to process them, according to resources. Looking at the forecasted workload, it’s easier to plan shifts and delivery efficiently: for example, GLS can decide if they need to dedicate more resources to that hub for the day or shift some deliveries to another time slot, when the hub is less busy and can better handle the incoming volumes.

CUSTOMIZATION

  • User- friendly customizable dashboards: LEA Reply™ Visibility web interface is adapted according to the information that the customer wants to see displayed; “at a glance” indicators, charts and alerts, were designed by our team to be user friendly and intuitive.
  • Attention to customer requirements: The close and friendly collaboration between GLS and Logistics Reply was characterized by a strong customer focus, with attention paid to truly understand GLS objectives and adapt the visibility system according to their specific requirements. Logistics Reply through this innovative project made a significant contribution to GLS’s ambitious growth and business development roadmap.

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    GLS

    GLS Group is a leading cross-border parcel service provider. The company provides reliable, high-quality and personal parcel services to customers in 41 countries, complemented by freight and express services. Thanks to the company’s expansive cross-border network and strong local market knowledge, customers can expect the same seamless, flexible and personal service across Europe and beyond. GLS also operates through wholly-owned subsidiaries in Canada and on the USA’s West Coast. The GLS network consists of 71 central and regional transhipment points and about 1,500 depots, which are supported by approximately 31,000 final-mile delivery vehicles and 4,000 long-distance trucks. GLS employs around 21,000 people. In 2020/21, GLS generated record revenues of 4.5 billion euros and delivered 840 million parcels, despite global challenges. www.gls-group.com

  • LOGISTICS REPLY

    Logistics Reply provides cutting-edge software solutions that help companies achieve an efficient and more connected digital supply chain where different systems, partners, humans and machines seamlessly interact embracing the use of next-generation technologies such as AI, robotics, wearables and IoT. Logistics Reply accompanies its customers in this transformation journey ensuring rapid time-to-value and long-term quality results thanks to over 20 years of experience and deep knowledge of technologies and supply chain processes. Logistics Reply is a Reply company. www.lea-reply.com

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