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Why Transportation and Logistics Businesses need a Mobile App?

· IoT Technology,Logistics,Transportation,App Development

The transport industry is expected to register robust growth, with reports suggesting that the value of the third-party logistics industry shall reach $1.2 trillion by 2025. All trades are dependent on the logistics and transportation sector because there is no commerce possible without movement of goods from one place to the other. The Logistics and transportation industry is aptly considered as the backbone of the economy. The logistics industry is slowly warming up to the idea of having a mobile app for their services, and hence hiring an experienced mobile app development company that can develop a custom-app for their business is the need of this hour.

Mobile App for Logistic Business

Any logistics operation contains various interlinked components like packaging the goods for transportation, warehousing and managing the inventory of the stock, ensuring smooth flow of information, maintaining the mode of transportation(e.g.: truck, railway, ship, or airplane). Information technology is helping business owners in the logistics and transportation sector to manage all these activities with ease. E-commerce is a burgeoning industry, and this industry has further propelled the growth of the logistics and transportation industry.

With the advent of smartphones, it has become easier to keep a tab on all the activities involved in the logistics business through a dedicated mobile app. Let us have a look at the benefits a mobile app provides.

Various benefits of having a dedicated mobile app for your logistics and transportation business

Track the location of your vehicle

GPS enabled vehicles are quickly becoming the norm in the transportation and logistics sector. Now you can easily track the location of your car with the help of the GPS technology and see in real-time where your vehicle has reached on your mobile app. Tracking the location of the car also helps in stopping the theft of the car as well as the contents that it is carrying.

If the vehicle has broken down, then help can be arranged in time, if the exact location of the car is known. The next assignment of the driver can be scheduled, and once the current transfer is complete. A mobile app that is integrated with location-tracking technology installed in the vehicle would help in constant two-way communication between the driver and the fleet management ensuring that decisions are taken in a fast and effective manner.

IoT is starting to play a major role in the logistics industry; sensors are being installed on the vehicle which collects important data like speed, direction and tyre pressure of the vehicle.

Using IoT, a mobile app can also be used to send notifications to drivers if they are going the wrong way or if there is traffic jam on the road ahead, and taking a detour would save time. Over speeding and other traffic violations can also be controlled if you have a mobile app. For instance, your app could send warning notifications to the driver’s mobile if the vehicle is found to be over speeding. Over speeding leads not only to hefty traffic fines but also leads to a reduced mileage of the truck, hence by reducing the incidents of over-speeding you can save money on the fuel costs too. Apart from this, the insurance companies also charge less premium on safe drivers.

Optimally manage your vehicles.

Having a dedicated mobile app for your fleet would help you in distributing the workload on all drivers and vehicles effectively. Suppose a vehicle has just returned from a long haul trip then you can allocate another vehicle to the long haul order you just received. This would help in checking the vehicle for maintenance and repairs. A mobile app would help your logistic and transportation business in keeping a log of where your drivers and vehicles are, in real-time by integrating IoT and GPS technology.

Through your mobile app, you can manage expenses incurred while completing the trip like toll charges, driver allowance, vehicle breakdown charges and transfer the amount directly to the bank account of the driver or the e-wallet (PayPal, Paytm, etc.) linked to the driver's account. The app will record how much money you transferred to which driver on which date, thus helping you in keeping a tab on the expenses incurred.

A mobile app can be easily linked with the invoicing and booking system of your company. This would help in allocating the next assignment in an efficient manner, suppose two trucks are going in the same direction at half-load then you could send only one truck at full load leading to improved efficiency.

There is a slight difference in fuel prices all over the route, and then you can integrate the data of fuel prices of all gas stations on the route into the mobile app. This would guide the driver in deciding the most economical gas station. Even if the savings are only a few cents on each gallon, it could easily multiply into savings of thousands of dollars over a period of the year for a fleet of trucks.

Help in warehouse management

Mobile apps can help in the proper management of the warehouse, which is often the most complex function in the entire logistics chain. Mobile app will help in finding, the exact location of the product can be easily tracked in the warehouse; this would save countless man-hours which are lost in finding the product.

Many modern warehouses have a system in which the goods are automatically logged and their details are sent to a central server which can be accessed through a mobile app. The inaccuracies and duplication of entries which are rampant in the paper-based system can be easily eliminated in the electronic system.

Mobile apps can help in increasing the accountability of workers, for example, a worker can digitally sign on the app once he/she has taken the product from one place to another in the warehouse. This would ensure that as a businessperson you can track where your product is and who is processing it at the current moment.

Using data analytics you can identify the bottlenecks in your warehousing process and eliminate those bottlenecks to improve the efficiency of the process. For eg, few people are not comfortable doing packaging and are creating a huge pile of unpackaged products, affecting the whole system negatively. Data analytics can identify such people and shift them into more productive areas.

A mobile app can easily help the managers and workers in locating and using the equipment in an optimum manner. For instance, if a forklift is required immediately at a particular point, then by using the mobile app, a manager can see all the nearby available forklifts and ask the forklift operator to come at the point of requirement. This would ensure that the resources are utilized in the most optimum manner.

Ease of booking

If your company has a mobile app in which order booking is enabled, then your customers can easily book your service at their convenience and arrange for a door-to-door pick up from their premises. Providing this feature would boost sales, as everybody loves the convenience of booking through their Smartphones. Moreover if for some reason, the cargo is going to be delayed, then the mobile app can send notifications to the customer regarding this.

Wrap – up:

Mobile apps are changing the way logistics companies operate. Apps are helping these companies to streamline their processes by eliminating pilferage, tracking the location of cargo, catering optimal routes for drivers, and help in managing warehouse efficiently. Managing Logistic and Transportation business is getting simple, fast and efficient with mobile apps.