TCS Depot Dash

Overview

Movement of goods is a costly affair, roughly estimated at 8-10 Trillion globally. And transportation accounts for about 10% of the overall global GDP. The disruptive events over the past year, along with changes in consumer behavior have had a significant impact on the transportation value chain. As movement becomes increasingly global in nature, multimodal will be the key. To make it more seamless and efficient, barriers between the modes and parties involved will be removed and boundaries will be blurred. The ability to optimize different transportation modes - be it road, rail, water, or air will be crucial.

In North America we are witnessing a surge in inter modal traffic, with a number of new intermodal hubs being opened. Smart Operations at the hubs to reduce dwell time has become important to bring efficiency. According to statistics, multimodal transport can improve transportation efficiency by 30%, reduce cargo damage by 10%, reduce transportation costs by 20%, reduce highway congestion by more than 50%.
Another trend in multimodal is expanding the yard space capacity. With limited capacity at Sea Ports and increased volume, railroads are looking to pitch in with additional capacity at nearby rail yards to address the need.
This would also help with optimized utilization of resources. Multimodal accounts for 80% of total traffic in Canada and by 2040, it is estimated that about 12.5% of total freight volume in US will be multimodal.
To meet the demand for reliable freight transportation; the industry needs to bring back its trademark resilience and agility to rise to the occasion. What's required is an integrated transportation system that offers flexibility in getting goods to consumer markets.

The future is intermodal and with the surge in intermodal traffic there is a need to connect all parties in the multimodal transportation and provide better visibility.

Key Features & Functionality

If highways are the arteries that keep the movement of goods flowing, multimodal Freight terminals are the hubs where the movements converge (and subsequently diverge again) and with all the manual interactions, it is no wonder that activity becomes sluggish.

TCS Depot Dash Solution is primarily built to help truck drivers complete the mission of pick up and drop off of intermodal load at the terminal seamlessly, with increased automation. Subsequently, the solution cuts down manual processes. It enables a Shift left of activities and truck drivers can complete check in activities prior to arrival at the gate to reduce check in time.

Key Features

Self Service Portal - The solution has a Self-Service Channel for drivers to Register and initiate Cargo pickup and drop off. Features include pre-check in activities, increased automation in the 'In Gate and Out Gate' operations, use of facial recognition for driver verification.
Terminal Operations Portal - The portal also provides them with a dashboard to monitor all the gate operations and manage gate operations efficiently.
Build once and Deploy Anywhere - Ability to deploy on Mobile and Desktop, ease of implementing integrations with downstream systems and ability to use AI functionality in the process.
Appian records provide a good option to give a 360 view of the Intermodal Mission along with actions to be taken. We have the ability to bring in more enterprise level records like Shipment details, and other enterprise apps view in future.
Intelligent & Straight Through Processing - We have used TCS MFDM - Machine First Development Model to use Azure AI services to do the user authentication and customer service connect using chatbot ability.

Benefits & Business Impact

Accelerated Migration Reduced effort up to 40%
Process Optimization Improved efficiency and easier Integration
AI Services Leverage AI for facial Recognition and faster processing
Case Management View of the Case within Appian with all action details
Improved User Experience Rich User Interface and Rules
Mobile Enablement Build once deploy anywhere with Appian