Development of TMS applications

With the onset of the global pandemic in 2020, when offline communication became problematic, businesses began to move online en masse. This trend has also affected the logistics sector. The first step towards digitalization of the industry was the introduction of Google spreadsheets, but it quickly became clear that they were not able to cover the needs and ensure business development.

Therefore, almost immediately they were replaced by TMS applications. Today, companies have a choice: save money and use one of the ready-made TMSs, or invest in developing their own application. What is the difference – we explain in this article.

TMS is a logistics management system. It helps speed up and streamline the delivery of goods, control the operation of the vehicle fleet in real time, simplify document flow and automate most routine tasks.

The main functionality of any TMS application solves five main problems:

• Planning. Automates the receipt and shipment of goods, minimizing the cost of human resources.
• Transportation. Builds optimal logistics routes, increasing the efficiency of fleet operation and speeding up cargo delivery.

• Escort. Provides a reliable communication channel between drivers, managers and cargo recipients, which helps to quickly resolve any issues during the transportation process.
• Data storage. Provides a reliable, systematized and convenient space for secure storage of data – contracts, invoices and other documents.
• Calculations. Automates the calculation of delivery costs, taking into account many variables: distance, cost and fuel consumption, driver rates, wear and tear of vehicles and other parameters.

The market offers many ready-made TMS applications that can be quickly integrated into your business and started using for a relatively small fee. At first glance, the choice of such a system is obvious. But there are some pitfalls here.

Boxed solutions are created with the mass market in mind and do not take into account the individual needs of each business.

The development and updating of such a TMS completely depends on the supplier company, which is why you will have to limit yourself to only the existing functionality – ordering an additional model will not work here.

Simply put, a ready-made TMS is a ceiling that will prevent your business from successfully developing. Therefore, this approach is only suitable for young companies with limited resources that are just entering the market.

A custom TMS opens up unlimited opportunities for business development. It is developed taking into account the specific needs of the company and helps it complete tasks much faster and more efficiently. If necessary, the functionality of your own system can be expanded at any time – for this, developers analyze the client’s request, design a solution and implement it by releasing an update. We have identified three main reasons why you should choose to develop your own TMS:

• Safety. When you store documents on third-party platforms, there is always the possibility of data leakage, which could also be used by your competitors. Our own TMS completely eliminates these risks, so you don’t have to worry about maintaining the confidentiality of information.

• Process optimization. A custom TMS application is a single tool that covers all company processes. This means that you don’t have to look for additional paid platforms, for example, for communications or data storage. As a result, employee productivity increases and business costs are reduced.
• Current analytics. TMS analyzes the efficiency of processes and different departments, so you have the opportunity to identify weak points in your business and take measures to optimize them. This will help to better organize work within the company and increase its profitability.

Each programming language and framework has its own advantages and disadvantages that are worth considering when adding to your project stack. For example, Python provides access to a rich set of libraries and provides high development speed, but is slightly inferior in performance to PHP. On the other hand, PHP is intended only for web applications and websites, while Python is as versatile as possible and is cross-platform.

Therefore, developers need to find a “golden mean” and select the optimal set of technologies that will fully satisfy the needs of the TMS being developed.

Our team can use most modern technologies in their work. Including:

• HTML/CSS/JavaScript or Vue.js/React.js frameworks – for the client side.
• Python/PHP/Java/C++/Node.JS or Django/Flask/Yii2/Laravel frameworks for the server side.
• Native Java/Kotlin/Swift or cross-platform Flutter/Dart framework for mobile development.

From a technical point of view, a TMS system is a rather complex product. Therefore, when implementing it, we use the iterative Scrum methodology. That is, all tasks are divided into short weekly sprints, and based on the results of each of them, the client sees a specific result.

Development consists of six main stages:

• Collection of information. The team studies the client’s request, the needs of his business and analyzes competitors.
• Design. A carefully thought-out prototype of the future TMS is created, which contains interface warframes, a description of the functionality, block diagrams of the main modules and a description of the logic of all internal calculations (project mathematics). Next, the mockups are presented to the client using special demo videos.

• UI design development. Designers design a user-friendly visual environment for a product, taking into account its functionality and workflows.
• Programming. This stage consists of two parts: Frontend – the implementation of the client part with which users interact, and Backend – the development of the server part responsible for storing and processing data.
• Testing. After development is completed, the functionality is thoroughly tested and debugged.
• Support and development. As we have already said, the capabilities of a custom TMS can be expanded without any restrictions. Therefore, after the product is released, our team can continue working on its development.

Unlike packaged applications, custom TMS help logistics companies actually optimize processes and improve their performance, since their functionality is focused on the needs of a specific business. And although the implementation of such an application requires large investments, with the proper approach to development, all investments quickly pay off.

If you are planning to develop your own TMS, contact our team by leaving a request on the website. We will select the optimal technology stack, and then design and implement an effective solution for your business.