If you have been on the internet over the past week you would not have been able to miss the news and conversations about the AI that was released in December. Over the past week I have explained this several times with family and friends and now also colleagues so I thought it would be great idea to make a simple to read article to explain it. Note there is plenty of details on the OpenAI site that explains what it is and how it works so if you are technical I would suggest you go there instead of reading my simplified version. The simple TL:DR description ChatGPT is a special program that us ..read more

The steps to reprint a Bill of Lading in SAP is easy, a Bill of Lading is a SAP output type. The output type itself sadly is customer specific so you’ll need to check your system output descriptions to know which output type you company has used. We have standardized on the following output types ZBLS – Standard Bill of lading ZBLM – Master Bill of lading (for shipments only) CMR1 – CMR Bill of lading (Eurpoe, shipments only) With that in hand If we want to generate a bill of lading from a delivery we can reprint directly form the delivery itself so lets look at that first. Access transacti ..read more

With the pandemic limiting our travel, I have had a more significant opportunity to give remote talks or be included in conversations on the dramatic changes we see in the logistics supply chain. On a recent Clubhouse Supply Chain panel, a panelist commented that he was using THE eBOL app and was producing eBOLs regularly. What was significant for the conversation was more about the process. Still, my takeaway from that conversation is how much misinformation exists about what an eBOL is and what it can do for us. I hope to be able to explain more about what an eBOL is in today’s blog post and ..read more

Advanced Solutions enhances eBOL technology across digital supply chain platform FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:                                                               February 23, 2021 (Chicago, Ill.)  Advanced Solutions, today launched enhanced support for hazardous materials with its eBOL – digital bill of lading data model and digital Supply Chain platform. Shippers of hazardous material will now be able to use and benefit from t ..read more

Very little thought is usually give to the setup of carriers in our ERPs systems, in most cases they are considered just another vendor. Because of our experience over the years integrating our own solutions and third party shipping systems. We have adopted some simple leading practices to establish carriers records to support activities such as carrier performance, track and trace etc. I will show you how to adopt those in SAP below. The key is our carrier SCAC (Standard Carrier Alpha Code), it purpose is to uniquely identify a carrier and is administered by the NMFTA.  SCAC codes are re ..read more

When working with our solutions or third party solutions we regularly need to establish a SSL/TLS connection to SAP for secure communications. In today’s post Ill walk you through the steps necessary to get your SSL connection up and running and show you how to quickly verify that its working. Add your https connection parameters a. In SAP access transaction RZ10 to edit server profile. b. Select your instance profile, select the extended maintenance option and select Change button c. Select the new parameter push button to add a parameter. d. In the parameter entry screen enter https param ..read more

When talking about ways to use and optimize transportation processes our conversations regularly move to talking about what Amazon does. Amazon and their logistics operations are held in high regard by logistics professionals the world over. Interestingly enough optimization techniques that Amazon uses have been available for years but very few companies have the capabilities that Amazon does to implement them. In addition their capabilities uniquely provide Amazon the capability to combine multiple optimization tactics to better control their costs and delivery timetables. I will not spend a ..read more

In a previous post I talked about the various freight optimization techniques available in logistics to optimize freight costs. We received some good feedback and want to expand the conversation to discuss bill of lading documents and the leading practice for the use/creation of bill of ladings in most scenarios you will encounter in domestic transportation. A quick note, these are the typical uses but your specific carrier or carrier agreement will dictate whether these scenarios for example the master bill of ladings will be honored for freight rating and billing purposes. For now I’ll  ..read more

As shippers we are always looking for opportunities to optimize our freight costs. The transportation environment has changed dramatically since 2018, first with the capacity crunch and now increased market demands to deliver smaller more frequent orders with less tolerance for shipping delays. Over the years we have worked with customers to implement various optimization techniques using SAP. In today’s post I will describe some of the common transportation optimization techniques and how they work and that way establish a common body of knowledge. In a later post in this series I’ll also sho ..read more

Advanced Solutions provides several solutions for managing truck shipments, that include Bill of ladings and proof of delivery. A common question is what is the difference, when is one appropriate over the other etc. In today’s post I’ll describe them and how they are used and give you a couple of examples. First let me describe both documents. Bill of Lading Fig.1 Bill of Lading A bill of lading is a legal document issued by a carrier to a shipper acknowledging receipt of goods for transport and listing the terms of delivery. (Simplified definition). Proof Of Delivery Fig. 2 Proof Of Deliv ..read more