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VICS
"Bill of Lading"
This White Paper prepared by Steve
Thorp, Project Coordinator for the SoftForms VICS Bill of Lading
Software and DLL.
OVERVIEW
The VICS Bill of
Lading changes a standard that has been around for decades.
This document will discuss the significant changes, and how they can be
incorporated into your logistics planning and operations.
The
VICS Guidelines document has a good summary that describes the changing role
of the Bill of Lading.
“Traditional
use of the Bill of Lading was to establish a contract for carriage and as a
receipt of goods. Over the last several years the Bill of Lading has become a
primary source of information within the supply chain. The Bill of Lading has
now taken on much greater importance as it is used for the scheduling and
recording of shipments as well as input to carrier EDI transactions. Many
shippers have modified the form, in no consistent manner, to fit the
requirements of the carrier and the consignee for scheduling and unloading of
the shipment”.
“The standard Bill of Lading document and
guidelines address these problems so processing time can be reduced while
gaining Bill of Lading accuracy”.
SUMMARY OF CHANGES
BOL
Number – The 17 digit VICS Bill of Lading number is a globally unique
number when the UCC/EAN Company prefix is incorporated.
FOB
Terms – The VICS BOL has 2 FOB
boxes. FOB Origin and FOB Destination.
SID
/ CID – There are Shipper and
Consignee ID fields
Location
– There is a separate field in the Ship To box for a Store or Location
Number
Bar
Codes – Spaces for 128 bar-coded
Bill of Lading and Carrier SCAC / Pro No.
Customer
Order information – This section
provides a way to describe the shipment in terms of Customer Orders vs.
Commodities.
Commodity
Description – This is the
traditional Pieces & Weight section with a change.
Instead of Pieces & Weight, there are 4 columns.
There are Quantity & type of Handling Units, and Quantity &
Type of Packages. You can
describe a commodity as “2 Skids – 48 Boxes”
Declared
Value – There is a section to
declare the release value. It can
be “Dollars per Pound”, or “Euros per Kilogram”.
Trailer
Loaded – There are 2 check boxes.
One is “By Shipper”. The
other is “By Driver”. This
states who loaded the trailer.
Freight
Counted – There are 3 check
boxes. One is “By Shipper”.
The second is “By Driver/pallets said to contain”.
The third is “By Driver / Pieces”. This states who counted the
shipment.
Received
Text – The text starting with
“RECEIVED, subject to individually determined rates…” has 2 versions.
One version is for LTL shipments, and the other is for Truckload
shipments.
WHY CHANGE?
The
VICS format has some new data elements that are useful, and is being adopted
by the largest retailers in the country.
Is that enough to justify the cost of such a change?
The
question of change really needs to be broken down into two pieces, since they
can be evaluated and addressed separately.
Inbound and Outbound Bills of Lading have different issues.
This document will focus on the Inbound issues.
Inbound
Bills of Lading are mostly the fulfillment of Purchase Orders.
Such Bills of Lading can have one or more Purchase Order numbers. The
VICS format provides an Order Number section for just that type of
information.
If
your suppliers use a VICS Bill of Lading, and they fill out the Order Number
section, that information will be available on the Bill of Lading document.
That may help in the receiving process, but it will not help you manage
your supply chain. The real issue
is how to get this type of data in a useful format, and in the “right”
time frame. The “right” time frame is sometime before the shipment shows
up at the D.C. – Ideally, it would be before the shipment leaves your
supplier’s dock.
BENEFITS
The
following list is from the VICS guidelines document.
·
An
established uniform format for accurate shipment documentation across the
supply chain.
·
Ease of
tracking shipment information with the use of the standard Bill of Lading
number.
·
A means
of bar coding the critical data within the Bill of Lading form for ease of
capturing the data.
·
Reduced
driver and office administrator time used to process the information from the
Bills of Lading.
·
A
potential cost reduction through the elimination of redundant forms.
·
A
reduction in the number of undocumented Purchase Orders received.
·
A
reduction in the number of incorrect invoices due to unclear freight terms.
·
A
reduction in denied freight claims due to lack of indication of who is
responsible for loading and counting the freight.
In
addition to the above list, the data can be useful in other ways.
The information can be sent to Purchasing.
The Inbound Bills of Lading can be imported into the Trans-Bill
Auditing system. They could then
be automatically pre-audited, and checked for routing compliance.
LOGISTICS INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE
To
take advantage of today’s real-time information flow, you must have an
information infrastructure in place. It
is quite similar to moving commodities. Data
is created at Supplier “A”. The
data needs to be packaged and transported to Customer “B”.
The data needs to be un-packaged and stored in data “warehouse”.
The data can then be distributed throughout Customer B’s facility.
You
must have a central repository for transportation rates.
Your Preferred Carrier and Benchmarking rules need to be stored and
available to other applications via a DLL interface.
Your transportation auditing system should utilize this central
repository to rate and benchmark transportation invoices.
Your system should have the capability to generate and store VICS Bills
of Ladings.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The
“standard” infrastructure can be expanded to include real-time Inbound
data. The next attached chart
outlines a possible data flow. Inbound
Bill of Lading data is being collected and made available to different areas
of the company. Inbound BOL’s
can be imported and pre-audited, automatically.
The matching carrier invoice and receipt records complete the audit
loop. UPS transaction files can
be imported and run through an automated rate audit.
Purchasing can access the rates and rules to help in supplier
negotiations.
The
Inbound BOL data could feed a delivery appointment system.
This system could assign appointments, and send E-Mail’s or FAX’s
to the carriers / suppliers.
HOW TO GET IT DONE
The
key to making this type of scenario possible is getting the data well ahead of
the piece of paper and the goods being shipped.
The
fourth chart shows 4 ways to create and move the Bill of Lading data from the
suppliers to your database.
The
assumption is that the suppliers have been motivated to do this by some
combination of rewards / consequences.
Each
method has some Pro’s and Con’s. There
are many means of creating data and moving it from Point A to Point B.
The 4 methods depicted on the chart are simply 4 possibilities. Other
methods might include EDI, XML, and the new 2D barcodes.
SUMMARY
The
Bill of Lading is changing. The
change offers possibilities for increased efficiency, automation, and control.
To take advantage of new possibilities you must invest in change.
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