LeanLogistics Transports Customers to New Levels of BI Sophistication

Transportation Management Firm Adds Reporting, Analysis, and Visualization to On-Demand TMS® App

LeanLogistics, a division of Brambles, delivers on-demand transportation management solutions (TMS) enabled by the industry’s largest transportation network. These tools automate planning, execution, settlement, and procurement functions for companies like Chiquita, McDonald’s, Nash Finch, and Otis Spunkmeyer.

The LeanLogistics On-Demand TMS® also provides unique functions such as inbound supplier management, appointment scheduling, benchmarking, and network-wide reporting, linking to an e-network of shippers, carriers, suppliers, and customers that share a single data and application environment. The on-demand software environment helps clients plan for carrier coverage, track inventory, and share information with partners.

“Our clients come from a variety of industries, but our model enables any kind of organization, from the pharmaceutical industry to the manufacturing sector, to streamline their shipping and supply-chain processes,” explains Andy Bass, vice president of Technology for LeanLogistics. “It’s an information-intensive industry, so the ability to aggregate and analyze a company’s data in real time can make a world of difference to an individual client.”

Even though LeanLogistics has always offered standard and custom reporting capabilities, savvy customers and increased industry competition led Bass and his team to seek out a more advanced business intelligence (BI) environment that would empower its clients to make the best use of their data. This, in turn, would boost customer satisfaction and give the company a solid edge in a highly competitive market.

“There’s a significant amount of value that comes out of the data we collect, and that’s where dynamic reporting comes in,” Bass says. “We partnered with Information Builders to mine knowledge from this data, giving our customers the tools they need to really move the needle within their organizations.”

Paving the Way for a BI Partnership

LeanLogistics always offered reporting and data extraction capabilities, but over the last few years its customers have grown increasingly more sophisticated in their information management needs. Bass and his team embarked on an initiative to replace their JReport environment, a Java-based™ reporting tool from Jinfonet Software, with a fully featured BI suite.

“We wanted a solution that could be deployed effectively in a SaaS model, but most importantly we wanted to have a good relationship with the vendor to get the most out of the tool,” says Bass. “We were intrigued by the WebFOCUS technology, especially its ability to visualize data in charts and graphs, schedule reports with ReportCaster, and give people flexibility with InfoAssist. But in the end it was the passionate people at Information Builders who won us over.”

LeanLogistics’ new reporting strategy involves replacing its legacy JReport environment with a new BI portal that includes guided ad hoc reports as well as an advanced end-user reporting environment. Their overriding objective was to enable non-technical users to create their own reports without IT intervention.

Key developers on Bass’ team enrolled in Information Builders Education classes to get up to speed with the WebFOCUS software. Information Builders Professional Services helped them to convert their legacy JReport reports to WebFOCUS reports. Internal developers went on to create standard reports for tracking carrier performance, shipping metrics, and consolidated freight metrics, which ranged from the volume of loads to average weights, total weights, costs by line haul or mile, and add-ons like fuel surcharges and handling fees.

LeanLogistics embedded a WebFOCUS dashboard into its SaaS application so users can seamlessly invoke these ad hoc reports through a menu system or create their own reports through InfoAssist. Because InfoAssist offers so many advanced capabilities, they devised their own training model and custom documentation.

Customer reports generally fall into two categories: management and operational. Management reports are summary reports that management personnel use to determine performance, spot trends, and correct problems. They include analysis of volume, performance, financials, and trends to foster continuous improvement. Network reports are another class of management reports that provide a holistic view of network trends and performance, including volume and lane analysis, complimentary network analysis (between companies), and network-wide carrier performance analysis. Operational reports help people manage day-to-day schedules and notifications for trading partners.

“Users can easily parameterize the information, drilling down by group or division, by shipping lane, by origin and destination point, by time frame, and many other common filters,” says Bass. “InfoAssist lets them analyze and display their data without having to conform to a rigid set of standards.”

The knowledge LeanLogistics gleans from these customer-driven reporting activities enables it to better direct its own reporting initiatives on behalf of clients who subscribe to managed services.

“We can track what types of reports are popular within InfoAssist and then determine how we can use those reports for our other clients,” Bass says. “That way, we can extend best practices gleaned from our entire client base to improve services for the entire network.”

Reaping the Rewards of Enhanced Reporting

LeanLogistics customers currently use WebFOCUS and InfoAssist to manage their transportation and supply-chain planning activities. Authorized users can access high-level metrics and interact with all of their data through a secure web portal. They can run reports on demand or schedule them to run later using WebFOCUS ReportCaster. Customers are happy with these advanced reporting tools, and LeanLogistics has identified new revenue opportunities by studying the types of reports that clients create.

“This initiative was always more focused on customer satisfaction and market competitiveness than it was on achieving a revenue goal,” explains Bass. “We wanted to create a reporting environment that was compelling and addressed user needs, but learning more about the value of the data is keeping us competitive in the marketplace as well.”

Developers also leveraged their existing security architecture to ensure that custom reports are constrained to each company’s designated data set. Additional filters are applied at runtime to ensure that the data pulled into each report is specific to the requesting organization and user.

“We layered customizations over our original tool to enhance the user experience,” explains Bass. “We went to great lengths to make the reporting environment as seamless as possible. WebFOCUS lets us provide our customers with an intuitive, high-end experience from start to finish.”

Bass and his team have extended advanced reporting capabilities to LeanLogistics’ managed services clients as well. Ultimately, they intend to make these sophisticated performance and metric reports available to the entire customer community, possibly through a store where clients can purchase reports in an e-commerce environment.

“If we can leverage the work our developers are doing for the managed services clients, we can apply what we learned to help the greater community and better address common needs among customers,” says Bass.

In the meantime, LeanLogistics is enhancing the reports by adding user-defined fields, more scheduling options, and advanced data visualization capabilities. They are also exploring the mobile reporting capabilities of WebFOCUS Active Technologies to enable users to access reports and dashboards while on the road via smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices.

“We are receiving such a positive response to the reporting tools, we are definitely planning to further expand them in the future,” says Bass. “WebFOCUS is paving the way to a whole new level of success for LeanLogistics.”