Home: Automating 75% of Process Flow for one of UK’s oldest Rail Freight Operator

Overview

Rail has been fundamental to UK’s prosperity. It has played a key role in connecting businesses with markets. With changing EU dynamic UK is focusing on strong land logistics network which will be strong, realisable and cost effective to link ports in the country. The Rail industry carries goods over £30 billion every year. This industry is poised to grow at 30% in the next decade. A key to achieving this lies in the continued digitalisation of the rail system and their operations.

A Unique Player Rail Freight Operator Finds some Hurdles in Business Activities

Our client is one of the long standing and the most unique player in the rail freight industry across the globe. They have the pedigree of surviving in the rail freight business for more than a century in North America and Europe. Even at this age of technology adoption, their operations have remained partially manual and legacy prone. With multiple business units they lacked a single window for all their revenue accounting needs.

Addressing the Need to Transform Operations

Our client realized that 90 percent of the activities have been performed manually with longer timelines for coordination from other business units. While this caused operational disruptions and delays, the client also saw possibilities of improper revenue reporting. Also, the data was not from single source which caused redundancies and discrepancies. Hence, audit trails turned out to be challenging and a 360 degree integrated approach was required to streamline the entire operational flow and have complete control over the business functions. They chose Kale Logistics Solutions to build a bespoke integrated Order Management System for their multi-modal business units.

Solution offered by Kale consisted of:

• Digitizing Invoice Generation Process

• Transparent audit logs of operational activities

• An integrated financial reporting system to monitor revenue flow

• Setting EDI enabled Automated Messaging

• Integrating Operations among all Entities involved

• Terminal Storage and Handling to interface with Terminal Operating System

Delivering Order Management System as a One-Stop Solution

Order Management System (OMS) is a unique enterprise solution that connects the entire workforce which enables them to interact and perform their operations seamlessly on time. Gradually, the dependence on excel and word documents for invoice generation reduced and the process was automated for Order to Invoice and Tracking. OMS is created by the Business Intelligence tool which offers predictive and cognitive capabilities for the user.

Also, with the e-Dashboard, they can handle their client requirements with much ease and clarity. Monitoring the entire operational flow became simple. From order to cash I.e., from lead generation, management, invoicing and reporting, OMS offers seamless process management. Most notably, the terminal operations were handled with much ease. It was EDI integrated for easy process management.

Terminal Storage and Handling module is designed to interface with the Terminal Operating System (TOS) via Data Integration Layer (DIL). The module automates Rate calculations for Terminal Orders as per Customer Tariff. The module also allows users to alter Orders, if required, or add additional services to the Order. The process also automates generation of Invoice Adjustment or issuance of Credit Note to the Order. The Invoice/Credit Note details are pushed to General Practice (GP) Financial Accounting Application via DIL.

Unique Functional Capabilities

• Financial ERP Integrations

• Scheduled Reporting

• Terminal Management

• Electronic Dashboard

• Pricing Engine

  
  

Business Benefits

• Order Booking to Invoicing

• Faster Turnaround in Invoice generation and approval

• Operational Visibility

• Zero Revenue Leakage

• Compliance Control

• Significant Jump in Operational Efficiency

• Complete Control on Revenue Reporting

• Rework & Iteration Reduction

• Business Intelligence by graphical analysis of data

  
  

Measurable Impact

• 75% Reduction in Manual Documentation. Digitization of complex customer contracts

• 98% data accuracy

• Single view of data for all business verticals

• Streamlined Revenue Reporting

“Order Management System was specially designed keeping our business needs in focus. With Kale’s expertise in developing community as well as enterprise solutions, we could see the digitization advantage and we were not wrong on our judgements. Our terminal and heavy haul operations are well managed with Order Management System and we are looking for more tech support from their end.”

– Chief Information Officer