The Logistics Control Towers Consolidation

The moment

We have experimented in the last decade, especially in the last 3 years, an authentic revolution in terms of visibility systems for the logistics área. The permanent processes evolution, in addition to the technology advance, brought significant operational gains to the companies. It is worth remembering that the economic crisis also are an important fuel in this equation because they force the company's impulsion in competitive markets.

Everything contributed for an innovations and new projects decade, like monitoring systems, BI, APP for everybody, and many, many data to be worked. The last frontier of these waves where the Logistics Control Towers.

We entered 2020 with an explosion of control tower projects in the company's logistics areas. The reduction in the cost of large LED screens, added to the benefits of visual management, made many companies initiate their control tower projects.

Looking at this demand, Runtec inaugurated its new office in February 2020, which now has a control tower showroom. Runtec realized that the clients wanted to see and “pilot” their own control towers in a real environment, in order to be possible to materialize their projects.

The initiative was successful right away. More than 10 clients visited the showroom in the first two weeks. And the schedule remained full for the following weeks.

Data and processes structure

However, it is important to highlight that the control tower construction must be in a structured way. Like the construction of a house, the first step is to make the foundation. And don’t make any mistake: in case of control tower, the foundation is just the most laborious, costly and time-consuming part.

It is not unusual to see companies hiring architects and buying huge LED screens, before thinking on the indicators that must be monitored by the control tower and, mainly, which processes and systems will be adopted to supply those information.

In this case, it would be like to construct a house beginning by the finishing. Just as it is not possible to install the tiles before putting up the walls, it is also necessary to start the accurate control tower project with the definition and choice of the tools (systems) and processes.

To supply this project demand, Runtec offers the HODIE Suite, which is easy to operate and very comprehensive: they are 9 integrated modules, which make the HODIE Suite one of the most complete and powerful logistics monitoring and visibility tools on the market, covering processes from the order cycle to reverse logistics.

The HODIE implementation process adopted by Runtec also converges to a control tower construction project, once the company studies the “as is” client processes and, together with his business team, designs a process “to be” that aims to optimize operations.

Physical structure

Finally, it is time to implement the control tower physical structure: screens, vídeo wall, company layout and teams must be revised.

It is necessary to arrange the furniture oriented to the screens, in order to the alarms triggered by the systems be seen by the users who will take the actions. The teams also need to be trained and prepared to act in a structured way to ensure the control tower works correctly.

Discipline

The result of this job is certainly very rewarding. A well-implemented project is a source of pride for everyone involved, who can look back and see that all the work (which is not small) was worth it.

But we can not think that it is over: after the implementation, it begins an equal or more complex challenge for everybody involved, which is the control tower maintenance in operation.

It is a fact that the day-to-day logistics operations generate tens and hundreds of exceptions, alerts and alarms which demand a lot of work and treatment from the teams. So, it is necessary to be prepared to maintain its control tower in operation, otherwise the indicators begin to accumulate delays and pending issues.

Completing 25 years in softwares for logistics in this year, Runtec continues working together with its LATAM clients (Brasil and other 4 countries) to build and maintain the visibility of their logistics operations.