Finished vehicle yard management – a long used term to the describe the movement, storage and maintenance of new and used vehicles in purpose-built yards. That definition alone will not however secure its existence into the future.

Accuracy, quality and efficiency are all basic customer expectations in today’s market, no longer are they differentiators. So however efficient you may think you are, however large and sophisticated your yards or compounds may be, in order to thrive or even survive in the future world of automotive logistics, you will need to be a whole lot more than just an efficient storage and handling facility. Adaptability, flexibility and configurability have always been ProAct’s mantra when it comes to the software solutions that support change.

At the core of our solutions is the Process Digitalization Engine (PDE), a unique technology that has for years offered unparalleled levels of sophistication and agility, be that within yard management or indeed the entire factory to consumer supply chain. The PDE is about knowledge automation, the ability for complex business processes and decisions to be optimized, digitized and executed autonomously (always of course, with the ability for users to intervene) and accurately in response to and in context of real-time changes in the operational environment

Whilst ProAct has been at the forefront of yard management solutions for many years, our technology is now really coming into its own. Because the PDE enables the real-time, end-user configuration of unlimited, sophisticated business processes, the ability to extend and scale to the future needs describes above is inherent in our solution. One solution that can meet the predicted future demands of the industry and can also change direction at a moment’s notice when unexpected demands hit us.

ProAct’s yard management technology is already a market leader in the industry today, but our eye is most definitely on the future. That focus is reflected in the scope of and investment in our future roadmap. Ask yourself; does your yard management solution meet the demands of the market today and will it meet the demands of the market in future. If the answer is no, then ProAct can help. Once implemented, most other solutions in the yard management space will begin to harden. Just as concrete sets, the processes, decision logic and events that were initially defined will begin to be set in stone and become difficult to change, enhance or extend. This is the complete antithesis of adaptability and flexibility.

The container logistics market is evolving like never before, fueled by increased demand, impacted by climate considerations, shortage of containers, port congestion, trade disputes and a legacy of market uncertainty left to us by an unprecedented pandemic

Accurate container and order visibility and control has long been the ultimate goal for manufacturers (OEMs) and lead logistics providers (LLPs), however the software solutions market has never really embraced or facilitated this goal, preferring to focus solely on individual segments or modes thereby further perpetuating the antiquated, silo’d approach to supply chain management.

This partly because container management can mean many things to many people as do container management software solutions. Whereas service providers may be interested in little more than the container itself and its cargo classification, the shipper of that cargo will be interested in far more detailed information about the cargo including shipment order information, purchase order, packaging media and SKU level information. Knowing which SKUs are in which containers, which order lines they represent and which purchase order they reconcile against can be critical to the shipper. In addition, knowing where the container is destined, how it will be routed there and what are the latest ETAs at each point in the supply chain and ultimately its final ETA it critical. This is especially true if the cargo is feeding local manufacturing plant or fulfilling the needs of time critical or seasonal sales channels. Having visibility and control of all of this information seamlessly, end-to-end visibility within one solution, ProAct calls a ‘Control Tower’.

A true Control Tower technology brings many benefits, not least that it can project more accurately, down to SKU level the availability of product currently in the supply chain at its final destination. Knowing what product is in which containers at what points in the supply chain also makes it easier to re-prioritise individual containers and expedite critical SKUs. All of this relies on the solution capable of having a detailed understanding of the entire process flow, its decision logic, its dependencies, its service providers, its constraints and overall the routing options for a specific container. This in turn relies on a technology that is dynamic, configurable and flexible enough to project, predict and optimise a complex end-toend, multi-modal supply chain based on all of this data.

The finished vehicle logistics market is evolving like never before, fueled by the increased pace of adoption of technologies such as Electric and Hydrogen, the changing way we buy and use vehicles, the entry of many new players into the market and of course, the cultural changes that have been accelerated rapidly by climate concerns and pandemic.

We are in the midst of probably one of the most prolific periods of change in the automotive industry for generations. Disruption is everywhere, often unpredictable and impacting every facet of automotive, not least the vehicle supply chain. ProAct understands that finished vehicle supply chains are inherently and increasingly complex, dynamic and unique, that decision-making is driven by countless variable parameters and that vehicle logistics has a myriad of nuances not seen in most other types of supply chains. Only a highly-flexible, highly configurable solution, built specifically for the industry can address these global, multi-modal challenges, both today or in the future and deliver true end-to-end visibility.

Without technologies such as ProAct, that manages the supply chain as a single holistic entity (from factory to consumer), we can never attain end-to-end control and we can never give the consumer visibility and reliability. The term ‘Digitalization’ is today frequently held up as the solution to all problems, but digitalization is ultimately only a means of extracting, collection and consuming data from real-world sources. In the absence of a technology that can make sense of it, both in isolation and in the context of the whole, such data is relatively worthless.

For ProAct, process digitalisation means a technology that provides a single, seamless, overarching view of the supply chain from production order to consumer delivery and indeed on into aftermarket. It means not tying the business to an oversimplified, inflexible, vanilla supply chain process that misses many of the key stages of control. It means being in control of every service provider in that supply chain, notifying them of their tasks, schedules and obligations and receiving back real-time updates that automatically reproject and re-predict the life of the vehicle.

It means technology that can be rapidly configured and then perpetually reconfigured to deal with and manage every conceivable process and activity that future supply chains may throw at us without be inhibited by complexity. It is a seamless platform to receive and transmit real-time information to or from any type of data source or device though any method. It means leveraging the power of connected vehicles and real-world devices, through use of telematics to gain real-time information and status of the vehicle.