Justin Griffith, CTO of StayLinked, believes firms could ease the strain of peak season if they quashed delivery disputes with image capture software.
What do you do when your goods arrive damaged at client premises, despite your high standards for packing securely before shipment?
It’s a dilemma that is repeated to us by warehouse teams, day after day, year after year, and especially as we go into peak. Millions of pallets are neatly and securely packed and wrapped in warehouses, just like a Christmas present, but arrive in a less than perfect condition.
Who is to blame? And how can you prove it? Of course, most contracts for shipment include insurance and cover for accidental damage in transit. If your goods are shipped across the seas, then it’s a given that you can claim compensation for anything that finds itself going overboard.
But what about the less clear-cut territory of items being damaged because another item fell on them whilst in a container? And what of the millions of parcels that slide in the back of a transit van or lorry, daily?
Ensuring capacity to meet demand is of course an absolute priority. Brand promises are made on it. But promises are also made of excellent value, and high quality and perfect condition goods.
We all know that to deliver on these promises in peak season, manufacturing and warehousing teams go to great lengths, working long hours at extraordinary pace. However, this effort can be so easily undermined if the ‘final mile’ is subject to substandard care and attention.
Agreed, accidents do happen, but if corners are cut in the rush to get goods to customers, then reputation can really be compromised. No one wants disappointed customers, but none more so than at Christmas. We have customers who are facing this challenge, sadly encountering disputes with carriers who say goods arrive damaged because they had not been packed correctly at the warehouse. However, without proof, our customers must replace the items and pay for a second attempt at safe delivery. It’s a situation that costs manufacturers dearly at this time of year.
So, what’s the solution? It’s best explained using the example of PAI Industries, a global manufacturer of vehicle parts. It faced the exact situation, and not only were disputes starting to cost the firm money, they were also at risk of damaging its brand reputation.
PAI’s solution to the problem was image capture. Just as we see couriers take an image of a package in a porch when the recipient isn’t at home, so PAI started to take a photo before shipping via carriers. Thanks to new software, warehouse teams can use their existing rugged mobile computers to take a photo of correctly packed pallets, and then file them alongside all the data associated with that individual pallet. Now, if there are reports of damage on delivery, PAI can go into the photo archive and quickly and easily retrieve the relevant photos.
What’s astonishing about this deployment is that it paid for itself in weeks. Thanks to the evidence PAI now holds on file, it can accurately challenge disputes over damage in transit. To the extent that within weeks of implementation, $26,000 was claimed for damaged goods.
At a time when the industry needs to stay as efficient as possible, reduce returns and duplicated effort, this simple yet effective approach to maintaining high standards throughout the supply chain really should be food for thought.
Find out more about StayLinked Evolve, and how it can help with improving standards in your warehouse operations, at www.staylinked.com/evolve.
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