Logistics & Freight: The Path to Greater Customer Visibility and On-Time Delivery in a Disrupted World

According to the Global Liner Performance Report, global schedule reliability reached 56.6% as of November 2022 for ocean freight. While this is an improvement, it’s still significantly off-pace from pre-pandemic levels. The Molex Global Supply Chain Global Center of Excellence (CoE) also reports that logistics disruptions result in significant pipeline inventory buildups, causing surges in import volumes. U.S. port congestion has also decreased the number of driver turns because of a reduced number of loads per day; more drivers are exiting the business because longer port delays are reducing their income.

With supply chain disruptions occurring with alarming regularity, Molex identified the need to take a more predictive approach to support accurate customer delivery dates and strengthen on-time deliveries. With global travel across oceans and continents, Molex shipments move by ocean, air, rail, and first- and last-mile shipments usually by truck. Those shipments can move directly to customers or to several regional distribution centers (DCs) that act as forward inventory locations and consolidation hubs servicing customers and channel partners.

Given the complexity and interdependencies of today’s global supply chains, Molex recognized an intense need for in-transit visibility, and we decided to act. Working with Infor Nexus (previously GT Nexus), a trusted global leader in multi-enterprise supply chain orchestration and optimization software, we developed a much more powerful logistics network solution to provide end-to-end supply chain visibility and flexibility to protect ever-critical on-time deliveries to our customers. The result is a cloud-based, multi-enterprise supply chain network platform that provides network-based order fulfillment applications and advanced network-based supply chain risk analytics to provide in-transit visibility into all Molex finished goods shipments.

Central to this approach is the Infor Nexus Control Center. In-Transit visibility is only as good as the ability to make sense of the data generated by thousands of shipments. The Infor Nexus Control Center is the brain that sits on top of in-transit visibility to identify not only if a shipment will be late, but to evaluate the impact of the delay and the mitigation options available to address it as early as possible. Consider the example of a ship departing late from Singapore. If the issue is not identified until the ship is due to arrive, then the result is an unavoidable disruption. But if that issue is identified 4-5 weeks in advance, shortly after the delay occurs, then corrective action can be taken. Inventory at another location can be identified and possibly airlifted to fill the gap created by the late shipments. That potential disruption becomes less disruptive or helps provide our customers with options. 

Also, consider that mitigating the effects of a disruption further in advance tend to have a definite cost impact. If a change from sea to air is implemented early enough, then it may be possible to send it by standard air, instead of next-day air, etc. On-time delivery performance is boosted by this dynamic combination of faster resolution at a lower cost.

Here’s a quick example of the Infor Nexus In-Transit Visibility in action: In 2017, the Hanjin Shipping company was declared bankrupt by South Korean courts. Many vessels were not moving as a result. But through the Infor Nexus In-Transit Visibility platform, we could assess which customers would be impacted by late shipments and determine the number of ordered units that were delayed. This visibility enables us to take direct action in the impacted areas to help mitigate risk to our customers. 

The current uncertainty around ocean freight illustrates another value to the Molex/Infor Nexus relationship. There were 117 blank sailings at the beginning of 2023 to halt a rate drop amid overcapacity and weak demand. It’s also projected that 2023 will see slow steamings as a result of new IMO regulations. Live Port, part of the Infor Nexus Control Center, connects to port authorities to gain intelligence on cycle times in ocean freight. This enables a better understanding of how blank sailings and slow steamings can impact variability in shipping lead times. The result is better forecasting, improvements in shipment reliability and better supply chain flexibility to our customers. 

It all comes back to making the entire freight and logistics process more accountable. By combining traditional enterprise resource planning (ERP) with in-transit visibility, every milestone and every movement can be tracked until a product is received at its final destination.

Molex is also working over the next year to provide Infor Nexus Control Center visibility to our customer service teams. That way, a collaborative relationship can be built where both customer and Molex teams work together to identify, address and mitigate any issues related to shipment disruptions and delays. When a customer calls inquiring about an order, a tracker would be able to point to its specific status and projected arrival within the supply chain. 

Molex will continue to work with Infor Nexus to drive even greater value from the system, including reducing the order refresh rate from every couple of hours to just every couple of minutes. It’s just one of our ongoing efforts to bring stability to the evolving supply challenges of our uncertain global economy.