In the construction industry, transportation and logistics are at the core of implementing supply chain management that will gain you a competitive advantage. An effective transportation and logistics system ensures on time delivery of the right materials to your site, while reducing your costs. The following six tips help to create an effective transportation and logistics system for your next construction project.
Develop a Logistics Plan
For every construction project, create a logistic plan at an early stage of your project. Make sure that all the key players, including special contractors and key manufacturers, are on board with your plan.
Coordinate with Design Professionals
During the design stage, your design professional should create a process map. A bill of materials should be created to show the flow of materials needed on a project and ways of minimizing holds on material. All this will help you efficiently execute your transportation and logistics plan.
Communication
As part of creating your logistics plan, ensure you have open communications with all your key manufactures, suppliers and distributors. Look for ways to improve communication constantly, and make sure no one is accidentally being ignored.
Understand Tariffs and Non-Tariff Trade Barriers
Familiarize yourself with special trade programs like NAFTA so that you can take advantage of classification duty rates and eligibility. Also, be aware of non-tariff trade barriers. These restrictions can increase your liability and compliance costs.
Logistics Centres
Employing a logistics centre can give you many functions at your fingertips. These functions include:
- Storage
- Transport
- Distribution
- Direct Shipment
- Cargo Consolidation
- Sorting
- eCommerce
- Package Tracking
The main benefit of using a logistics centre is it can help you with the variations in supply and demand for resources that create challenges within your transportation and logistics network. The challenge is uncertainty, this creates inefficiency and unresponsiveness within your supply chain. Because a logistics centre has the technology to streamline all the functions in your supply chain, you can lower your costs and complete your project on time.
Partner with 3PL
Partnering with 3PL can eliminate the headache of handling material logistics and allow you to focus on your core skill: constructing beautiful buildings. Partnering with 3PL Links will help you do the following:
- Consolidate: If you have many suppliers in one country, we can combine your materials into one shipment to lower your costs. Also, you’ll always have a full container load shipment that makes your project more cost efficient.
- Informed Decision Making: We’ll always inform you of the cost of freight for each service, the reliability of each channel, and the true cost of carrying inventory so that you can make informed decisions.
- Automate Compliance Processes: We have software solutions to automate trade compliance. As a result, you’ll experience less delays at border crossings, which ultimately results in on time delivery, proper inventory and avoiding fines.
- Control of Costs: We help you determine all your shipping costs so that you can easily determine which mode of delivery is most cost efficient for you. Also, we help you account for materials needed immediately at your site. This gives you control of your shipping costs even when you might have to use an express service level.
These are some of the ways you can make the transportation and logistics of your construction project more effective. At no cost to you, 3PL Links can analyze your current transportation and logistics network and show you how to make it more effective. Contact 3PL Links today to make your construction projects more effective.
