The goal of faster and more accurate data capture is a back-office challenge that all transportation and logistics companies have in common. Given that the largest firms may process upwards of one million pages of multilingual forms per day, the return on an effective data capture automation solution is enormous.

Mobile devices also bring unique challenges and opportunities to inherently globe-spanning industries like transportation and logistics. If properly implemented, these devices can connect geographically fragmented data sources to a single, central location—while automating every last bit of data capture. Below, Shamel Naguib, President of Paperless Productivity®, shares some recent insights on the trend toward device-agnostic OCR software:

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Incoming forms are varied, often including customs documents, bills of lading, certificates of origin, commercial invoices, or drivers’ logs, to name only a few. All contain business-critical information, and all must be processed correctly in order to fulfill customer obligations in a timely manner. Furthermore, organizations generally take in documents from several geographic locations. As goods move between locations, precious time is wasted as the same documents are scanned repeatedly. And when it comes to ports of entry, the utmost care is needed to ensure accurate tariff code assignment for customs clearance.

How Workflow Automation Expedites Logistics

Clearly, the stakes of data and document capture are high. But the unique complexity and volume of logistics data also create a remarkable automation opportunity. Optical character recognition (OCR) software for data capture automation removes nearly all manual input, while also minimizing errors. And that’s why best-of-breed OCR applications bring a slew of benefits to any firm saddled with large amounts of manual forms processing.

  • Cut data capture time and costs by up to 90% vs. a manual workflow
  • Provide remote and mobile data capture for terminal, office, and traveling staff alike
  • Virtually eliminate costly errors, with approximately 99.9% accuracy
  • Used customized database and business-rules validation to enforce correct tariff codes
  • Automatically export captured data to the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) and other electronic systems

The benefits of OCR data capture automation are so powerful that logistics firms have seen overall operating costs decrease as much as 28% following OCR software implementation. Others, as a recent case studies demonstrates, have decreased data entry FTEs by 90% through OCR software for document capture. Perhaps even more importantly, OCR users are able to strengthen their client relationships by providing faster and more reliable service than manual data entry could ever allow. Just ask WOW Logistics, US Foods, AFS, or any of the thousands of other OCR software users worldwide.

Architecting OCR Solutions for Transportation & Logistics Data Capture

Nuanced project planning and machine-readable forms expertise are the key ingredients in a successful logistics data capture project. Paperless Productivity brings years of knowledge in both areas, and our solutions engineers are happy to offer a complimentary workflow consultation to gain a better understanding of your organization’s particular document needs and automation opportunities.

For more information and a thorough demo, we invite you to view our OCR software resource library, and recent transportation and logistics data capture webinar. To discuss your specific business and workflow needs, please contact us today.