Moving and storing goods as they make their way from point of origin to point of consumption requires many activities including network design, material handling, inventory management, warehousing and order fulfillment.  In order to plan, implement and control these activities effectively and efficiently, accurate and timely data is critical for monitoring and decision-making.

Edgewater Technology has been working with transportation and logistics organizations to identify and collect data and/or facilitate access to data already captured in existing systems.  Since data may reside in multiple data stores, applications or reporting structures are established so individuals throughout the organization are referencing and leveraging a common set of data.   For example, in one project Edgewater interfaced with roughly 100 internal sources of critical data, in addition to external sources, in order to reference and calculate performance and capacity measures.

Often times the data is used to track items, containers and vehicles throughout the system network, not only for establishing and verifying location, but also to ascertain throughput and flow, as well as the utilization of assets.  Other key performance indicators (KPIs) include on-time performance, the quantity of assets, compliance to contractual obligations and cost and revenue statistics.  Being able to visualize these KPIs facilitates analysis and eases trend detection and interpretation.  The sooner someone can see or anticipate an issue, the sooner corrective actions can be taken.  Frequently, visualization is accomplished through maps, charts, and graphs since they easily show performance from an overall perspective for specific items of interest.  Supplementing such visualization with drill down capabilities allows a user to identify data points behind aggregated data.

By having and utilizing actionable data, organizations are well positioned to improve customer service, increase operational efficiencies and ultimately increase market share and profitability.  Each organization has its own KPIs that are vital to measure and display.  Edgewater has the experience to analyze how the metrics should be derived, who should see them and the frequency with which they should be updated.