AFM Logistics Pvt Ltd is one of the leading international logistics companies in India. Along with understanding the complexities of your supply chain, AFM Logistics resolves the issues and becomes a crucial part of your operations.

1. How to optimize shipping and logistics
1. Supplier Inbound Compliance
In order to manage all your inbound freight ensure you have consistent processes. Perform an
annual audit to measure what percentage of your material purchase orders have “collect” shipping
terms versus “prepaid.” In general, a buyer should control inbound transportation unless the
product the company is buying is extremely expensive or risky to move.
If you allow suppliers to ship freight prepaid, you also run the risk of paying 10–40 percent
premiums, which are profitable for the supplier, but expensive for you, the buyer. You may be
paying state sales tax on freight charges if they’re buried in the overall product cost, also known as
“freight allowed” or “freight included.”
2. Outbound Routing Discipline
You have thousands of carriers to select from to haul your freight. Do you always pick the low-cost
option? Or are you choosing a carrier based on convenience? Make sure your process for selecting
carriers is consistent across your company.
Use a web-based TMS (transportation management system), with a network of pre-qualified
carriers, to provide your team a consistent means to quickly compare carrier rates, transit service,
and match the best carrier with your shipment. Utilizing a TMS provides you visibility to all your
outbound and inbound freight, so you can make data-driven decisions that drive cost savings for
your business.
3. BOL Reduction
Reducing the total number of BOLs (bills of lading) created each day will help lower your freight
costs. If your team is responsible for outbound and inbound freight, make it a practice to combine
more orders into one shipment, which will create more cost-effective larger volume loads. With
more intra-company transparency and connected technology systems, you’ll create significant cost-
saving opportunities.
4. Mode Shift and Multi-Mode Combinations
Combining multiple shipments into a single, larger shipment, is called mode shift. With this tactic,
you move your shipments into an alternative, less expensive mode. An example of this is combining
multiple LTL shipments into a volume LTL, partial truckload or full truckload.

2. When shipping expedite, it's essential to compare ground and air freight options. On any given
shipment, air freight might be less expensive than a sprinter van, but sometimes, a two-person
driving team in a cargo van or 28-foot box truck might be less expensive than shipping via air.
Leveraging multimodal shipping services and logistics solutions, like combining intermodal with
truckload and final-mile, helps reduce your overall costs while mitigating capacity challenges and
meeting your customer delivery demands.
5. Accessorial Audits
Take the time to audit your freight invoices from the past 6–12 months to make sure you’re not
being charged incorrectly, and identify opportunities where you could eliminate accessorial charges.
Administrative accessorials like weight and BOL adjustments can be avoided with proper training.
Educating your employees on accessorials, and the importance of properly weighing, measuring, and
classing shipments, can help reduce your accessorial fees and overall shipping costs.
6. Get Your Product Closer to Customers
As consumers and B2B buyers increasingly expect next day delivery, your fulfillment and logistics
strategy is an important part of your customer service equation. When you leverage a nationwide
network of warehouses, you reduce the distance between your product and your customers, which
can also decrease your cost of transporting your product to market. The overall cost of regional
freight shipping from fulfillment centers is usually less expensive than shipping cross country.
7. Increase Lead Times
The more time your logistics partner has to book a shipment, the more leverage they have to secure
the best carrier and equipment for your load and lane, identify efficiency improvements and
negotiate rates. An advance shipping notice helps a carrier line up the assets and resources they
need to efficiently pick up and deliver. One of the biggest costs for carriers is paying for a trailer
that’s sitting idle somewhere, waiting to load. When you plan ahead for pick up, staging, and
loading, carriers can reduce idle time, lower costs, and pass savings on to you.
8. Leverage Backhauls
Once carriers complete a delivery, they typically travel back to their home base, or to the next pick-
up destination. This trip is often taken unloaded or without any freight on board. Every minute a
truck is empty it incurs expenses. Carriers are most efficient when they are hauling freight instead of
an empty truck. Logistics service providers can negotiate backhaul credits or targets to help you save
money and meet your delivery demands.

3. 9. Pool Shipments
Pooling deliveries from different shippers, destined for the same region or distribution networks,
results in cost control. Third-party logistics companies like GlobalTranz can leverage their network of
25,000+ shippers and 34,000+ carriers to coordinate pooling opportunities that combine your
shipments with other deliveries and help you save on your overall transportation costs.
10. Drop Trailers
Drop trailers are often used at locations that have enough outbound shipping volume to fill a trailer
in a week or less. These enable you to load freight when convenient and combine shipments, which
might normally go LTL, into one full truckload. Drop trailers also reduce the amount of time drivers
sit idle waiting for their truck to be loaded. In today’s tight capacity market, and with the recent
launch of the ELD mandate, carriers and drivers are more conscious of dwell time and lost
productivity. Using drop trailers creates flexibility for your dock and warehouse schedule, helps
mitigate capacity issues, and enables drivers to quickly pick up your delivery, which in turn helps
keep your freight costs down.
11. Create a Freight-Optimization Culture
When you optimize your freight shipments using these tactics, you’ll deliver savings to your
company’s bottom-line. Over time, driving these practices into your culture will yield overall freight
savings far beyond one-time rate discounts.