Overview
Established in 2004, SUP Publishing Logistics (HK) Limited consolidated the distribution departments and warehouses of its publishing group into a central logistics platform. The group includes Joint Publishing, Chung Hwa Book Company and The Commercial Press. Its business covers agency and distribution planning, exhibition sales operations, warehousing and distribution, freight services and comprehensive third-party logistics. It delivers books to more than 50 group stores and provides third-party warehousing and transportation services to over a thousand customers. The customer uses Deep Insights WMS and TMS; the September 14, 2017 source article specifically documents the TMS transportation transformation.
Challenges
High-Volume Orders and Fragmented Communication
Numerous small book orders from group and external customers arrived through complex communication channels. Diverse, handwritten business documents increased the risk of errors and made standardised execution difficult.
Complex Rates and Manual Billing
Different customers and carriers used different tariffs and charging rules. Manual charge calculation and related billing work consumed substantial staff time.
Manual Dispatch Across Multiple Delivery Scenarios
Doorstep pickup, home delivery and store-to-store transfers required frequent dispatcher-driver communication about vehicles, locations and goods. Manual route boards could lead to missed orders or incorrect routing, while unclear pickup information caused wrong collections or insufficient vehicle capacity.
Packaging and Barcode Control Gaps
With many book identifiers and frequent dispatches, the existing SAP workflow could not quickly record actual carton contents and print carton labels. Visual checks at pickup, arrival and signing were prone to missing or incorrect goods.
Limited Order-Level Visibility
Telephone calls and GPS tracking did not provide timely order-execution updates, and customers struggled to obtain accurate shipment status.
"Predefined routes, two-leg pickup and delivery tasks, and mobile barcode checks replaced manual coordination with visible, standardised transport execution."
Case article summary
Based on the September 14, 2017 article; not a direct customer quotation
Solution
Standardised Operations with Deep Insights
The Deep Insights implementation consultants spent two weeks reviewing delivery operations with the customer. Together they cleaned up master data, identified process issues, designed optimised workflows, unified document formats and clarified staff responsibilities.
- Delivery-process review and master-data preparation
- Standardised documents and operational responsibilities
- Automated transportation management workflows
Fast Packaging Entry and Carton Labels
A customised quick-entry workflow addressed the SAP packaging limitation, enabling users to record actual packing information and print carton labels for frequent, multi-title book shipments.
- Rapid entry of actual carton contents
- Carton-label printing
- Workflow tailored to on-site operations
Automatic Route Matching
Deep Insights TMS stores predefined delivery routes and automatically matches orders to routes during load planning. Dispatchers then decide whether to arrange transportation based on the orders on each route, replacing experience-led scheduling on a manual board.
- Maintained route master data
- Automatic order-to-route matching
- Dispatcher-controlled transport scheduling
Online Orders and Two-Leg Load Planning
Customers can place pickup orders online. Load planning separates execution into a first leg from the customer to the warehouse and a second leg from the warehouse to the recipient. Each leg follows its assigned tasks, making pickup and delivery visible throughout.
- Online customer order submission
- Customer-to-warehouse pickup tasks
- Warehouse-to-recipient delivery tasks
- Task-based execution and visibility
Mobile Barcode Verification and Transport Tracking
The Deep Insights TMS app supports handheld barcode scanning and repeated checks at pickup, arrival and signing. The TMS cloud platform provides multiple ways to query execution progress, replacing reliance on telephone or GPS-only tracking.
- Barcode scans at pickup, arrival and signing
- Repeated verification of shipment goods
- End-to-end transportation status queries
Results
More Reliable Dispatch and Pickup
Predefined route matching and segmented pickup/delivery tasks address missed orders, incorrect routes and unclear collection instructions, while simplifying dispatch across varied distribution scenarios.
Fewer Shipment Errors
Handheld scans and repeated verification address wrong-item collections, missing goods and incorrect deliveries. The source reports qualitative improvements, not a measured error-reduction percentage.
Packaging Bottleneck Resolved
The customised quick-entry workflow resolved the long-standing difficulty of recording actual packing information and printing carton labels within the previous SAP process.
Visible Transportation and Better Customer Service
Order execution became visible across the transportation process with multiple query options. The source reports improved customer satisfaction without a numerical score.
Key Takeaways
- Customer systems: Deep Insights WMS Cloud and TMS Cloud; documented implementation details focus on TMS
- Business scope spans agency/distribution planning, exhibition sales operations, warehousing, distribution, freight and third-party logistics
- Two weeks refers to the delivery-process review, not a reported total implementation duration
- Custom packaging entry and carton labels address the existing SAP workflow limitation
- Automatic route matching and two-leg tasks standardise store delivery and doorstep pickup
- Mobile barcode checks and order-level queries improve transport reliability and visibility
- No numerical ROI, error-reduction rate or WMS-specific performance results were reported in the source article
