General Questions      

1. What is the logistics organization structure at the plant and HO?

2. Rough cut % for dedicated and market vehicles. Contracting process with transporters? Annually?

3. Is the rate decided for each route or transporter bids on these lanes? Is the rate PTPK? Or fixed for vehicle type-lane?

4. Does the rate differ for L1, L2, L3 transporters? What are the payment terms?

5. How is diesel escalation handled? Who handles it? Is it at plant level? Central team? How frequently?

6. Are there SLAs in contract? Detention @ Loading, Unloading, Late Delivery? Are tax terms the same for all transporters (FCM/RCM)? Transporters selected centrally or at plant level?

7. How many trips in general?

8. What is the average lead distance?

9. Customer segmentation/Channels: Like Primary/Secondary, OEM/Retailer/Trade etc.

Indent & Bidding

1. How is an indent requirement identified? Sales Order? Delivery Order? Shipment? Are these indents created once a day or is it a continuous process?

2. Is Indent in tonnage/vehicle type? What platform do they use to identify the right vehicle type? Transportation Management System/ Master file? Are there any other variables in the indent for this consideration?

3.  Is indent created on FT Platform or their IT system? Who is responsible for the IT System? How does the on-ground team or plant team know about the indent?

4. Is indent publishing happens once a day or as per requirements?

5. Is indent created at truck level or delivery order level? How are multiple shipments merged into one truck? Are there multiple deliveries from one truck to different consignee?

6. How does a consignor publish indent to transporter? What's the mode of communication? How will the plant/depot identify if the transporter has accepted the indent?

7. What data/information is provided to Transporter while publishing the indent? For example, destination city, material type, weight, consignee name etc.

8. What is your SLA for vehicle placement and what is the compliance %? What is your current unfulfilled %? How do you measure these variables? Is there a platform or is it done manually?

9. What is the impact of unfulfilled indent on business:- Cost and customer servicing

10. What's the penalty on existing transporters for unfulfilled indents or late placement?

11. Are there multiple transporters on a single lane? Do you have L1, L2, L3 concepts? Do you have to maintain allocation % for transporters on the same route?

12. Do you publish indent simultaneously to multiple transporters? Does the transporter deploy vehicles for indent or route?

13. Which department at the consignor maps the truck to an indent? If there is a shortage of trucks how is the priority decided?

14. When does it move into the open market? Is it for contracted transporters only? What's the existing process? Which department works on this? What's the criteria for selection of a new transporter?

15. % of market transaction, no of market hiring per month

16. Approximately what % of your indent requirements get fulfilled without bidding, or get fulfilled by bidding, or remain unfulfilled?

17. Is the target rate defined for each route? What happens if the non-contract rate differs from the target rate?

18. How do you decide which bid to accept? Reporting time, transporter, rate etc

19. Does the bid received require approval? Who approves? Are there multiple levels of approval?

20. What happens in To Pay cases? Does the consignee approve?

21. Who pays for the extra bid amount? Contracted transporter?

22. Is the payment made on a per tonne basis or per vehicle basis? Do you specify the vehicle type needed or the tonnage that needs to be shipped? Can the transporter place a different vehicle type than what you requested? (even in bidding the consignor can ask for either vehicles or tonnes right?) 

23. Will we try bidding for select routes/all routes? Only unfulfilled indents or all indents?

24. Do we have a multi-pick up or multi-drop scenario?

25. Would they be able to create vendor code for new transporters everytime or would they go through FT?

26. When would the truck report? Does the deadline shift? Current time-slots to publish, accept, assign and report - What would happen if the deadline shifts?

In-plant

1. What happens when the driver reaches the plant/depot? Whom does he contact once he arrives? Transporter Babu? Security?

2. What documents are furnished by the driver?

3. Is Gate In and Gate Out getting captured in the system? Is there a yard inside or outside the plant where the truck waits? Do they have a yard management system?

4. In-plant activity in general? Are these activities getting captured in the system? Does unloading and loading happen in the same sheds? 

5. How does the driver know when and where to go for loading? Who manages loading at the consignor's end? How do they determine the shed and location and timings? What should be the loading SLA? What is it right now

6. Does loading happen in multiple docks and sheds? Is there a priority order for loading? How is it decided? Is there a supervisor when loading happens? Does he have access to some system for entry? Is there a loading timing for specific channels? What are these channels? 

7. How will the driver identify if loading is completed? What action does he need to take? Does Babu handle the entire operations for the driver? 

8. What documents does the consignor provide to the driver? Which department is responsible for handing those documents? Are these documents at truck level? What's the unique document at truck level? Are multiple invoices or LR created for a truck? Documents during invoicing?

9. What documents are created by the transporter? Is Babu responsible for it?

10. Who creates the LR? or transporter? If its transporter, is the format the same across all transporters? Sample LR Copy? If LR is digitized, does it still need an authentication signature from the transporter? 

Visibility

1. What information do you take from FT Platform for visibility? How frequently? What's your action upon it? SLA across routes? 

2. How does the consignee know the ETA of the arrival? Is there planning done on this basis? Whom does the consignee contact regarding the delivery? Does unloading site work 24*7 or varies customer to customer?

3. Do you face detention charges at unloading sites? Who pays for the detention at unloading?

4. ePOD is physical? LR or Invoice? Why do we even need an LR? Does LR change during vehicle breakdown?

5. What are the actions taken if delivery is with issues? Who contacts from consignor end to consignee? Whom does he contact? Who makes the payment for the damaged goods? Is an audit process involved? Is there a dispute between transporters claims and consignee claims?

6. Validate Customer Address - Delivery Address and Invoicing Address? Is the full address available on LR or the driver must connect with the consignee to identify the location?

7. Do you have any CRM system or app for order status?

LR

1. Is LR created manually or on the transporter system or consignor system?

2. How long does it take to create LR after an invoice has been generated?

3. Does the LR have SKU wise details? 

4. How different is the LR structure for primary and secondary movement?

5. Can LR have multiple invoices? 

6. How does the consignee identify if the delivery is okay without SKU-wise details? (FMCG)

7. Is the LR returned to the consignor? Primary/Secondary?

8. What is the mechanism through which it is returned?

9. Is there a portal to upload LR/ePOD?

10. What are the must fields that must be present in an LR?

EPOD and AP

1. How much time does the transporter take from delivery to invoice submission? Where is it submitted? Portal or manually to logistics ppl? 

2. Is there a scanning process involved to convert physical pages to a soft copy? How long does this process take?

3.  Approval Process flow and Audit Flow? How long does it take?

4. Is payment done by HO or the plant finance team?

5. For damaged goods, is the bill/invoice on hold or the penalty is debited from later invoices?

6. Payment terms with transporter

7. How much time it takes to approve and do payment to transporters

Questions for Transporter

1. What is the organisation structure for operations?

2. When an indent is received - who is it communicated to? 

3. Are trucks blocked for a single customer or multiple customers?

4. How is a truck booked internally? 

5. How do you decide to place your own vehicle or market vehicle?

6. Who connects with the broker? Is there a batch request or requests flow throughout the day?

7. How does Babu come to know about vehicle status? Is it on mail, call etc?

8. Do you have a route wise set of brokers?

9. Do you connect with truck owners directly?

10. How much time do you take for assuring whether a truck can be placed or not? 

11. Internal System being used by Babu or internal team at HO?

12. Who pays the driver? Transporter Babu? Generally, how much is the payment?  How is the reconciliation done? Who gives money to Babu?

13. After delivery, how is the POD sent to the transporter?

14. How much time to submit the POD and Invoice to the customer?

15. Who ensures that the number of boxes loaded is the same as in LR? Or Weight Loaded?