Infosys-Oracle Blog

The Copenhagen Climate Summit is grabbing the newspaper headlines all over the world. This led me to introspect about how Oracle Transportation Management (OTM), a Transportation Management System (TMS) by Oracle, can help in making the world a better place to live.

Several researchers have revealed the fact that 15% of the global emissions and 31% of the Ozone release can be attributed to transportation. This suggests that we have a large gap to fill in. Being a Transportation and OTM consultant my first thought was how OTM helps to fill up this gap.

Oracle itself builds products which are “ISO 14001 Environment Management Standard” compliant. It helps organizations fulfill its environmental policies. This led me to believe that the same has been built into OTM as well. The benefits for the environment are plenty. Before we get into the environmental benefits let’s try to figure out the benefits every company is looking for after an OTM implementation. Then we’ll see how the 2 are connected. Organizational benefits after an OTM implementation:

·         Route Optimization without any compromise on delivery dates/time.

·         Explore multi-modal and continuous move opportunities while planning

·         Explore consolidation opportunities while planning

·         Automated shipment execution (includes tendering and visibility) and freight settlement process

·         Automate pool and cross dock planning

·         Reduction in Transportation Costs

What many ignore is the fact that most of the above benefits inherently helps reduce the company’s carbon footprint and makes it greener. Let’s try to break it up.

1.       Route Optimization without any compromise on delivery dates/time –

a.        Reduction in truck miles

2.       Explore multi-modal and continuous move opportunities while planning –

a.       Reduction in truck miles

b.      Reduction in number of trucks

3.       Explore consolidation opportunities while planning –

a.       Reduction in number of trucks

4.       Automated shipment execution (includes tendering and visibility) and freight settlement process –

a.       Paperless environment

The points above make it very apparent that OTM reduces the fuel consumption and in turn reduces the CO₂ emissions. EDI integration for Shipment Execution (204, 990 & 214) and Freight settlement (210, 110) makes the entire process paperless and also automates it. Apart from the above, “Cooperative Routing” helps corporations make strategic decisions on which route to optimize and in turn optimize the fleet utilization.

Want to know how much your corporation emits after OTM implementation? Very soon OTM’s Transportation Intelligence module, FTI, will help in providing a dashboard for knowing the CO_2, NO_X and Fuel Consumption for each transport modes run by the corporation’s transportation department.

OTM TMS is a very effective way to reduce the unnecessary emissions of a corporation due to transportation. OTM combines the environment protection and cost reduction in such a symbiotic way that it not only helps the organizations but society at large.