5 questions to ask before you start looking for a logistics planning system
(And one answer after which it makes no sense to continue)
A planning system can help. But only if it takes responsibility for reality.
In many companies, however, it ends up as just another tool that someone has to constantly monitor, fix, and “guard” so nothing goes wrong.
From the outside, it looks like a system.
In reality, it is just another layer of manual work.
Before you start choosing a tool, it makes sense to name the reality first.
Question 1: Where does the order originate today – and where is it worked with next?
An order usually originates in the ERP system. That is where the date, quantity, items, or a cancellation are entered.
The question is:
Is this also the only place where the order is handled?
Or after it is created, are the data:
re-entered into a planning system,
copied into Excel,
checked “just to be safe” one more time?
Not because anyone wants to do this. But because other systems cannot work with these data directly.
Once an order starts living its own life across multiple tools, it is not just the risk of errors that arises.
A new process is created. Manual, fragile, and dependent on people.
Question 2: What happens when the order changes?
Changes are reality. Date, number of pallets, items, cancellation.
What matters is not whether changes occur, but what happens afterward.
Try to answer honestly:
does someone have to notice the change?
does someone have to inform others about it?
does someone have to manually update the plan?
If yes, the change is not part of the system.
It is a manual intervention disguised as a process, and at that moment the system is working with data that everyone knows are no longer valid.
In practice, it often looks like this: A change comes via email or phone, someone writes it down, someone re-enters it, and someone else hopes nothing was forgotten.
When something goes wrong, the system is not blamed.
The question becomes who was supposed to notice it. [AB2.1]
Question 3: How many people are actually involved in transport planning today?
Not formally. In reality.
dispatcher,
planner,
someone from the warehouse,
someone “only when there is a problem”.
If the answer is “more than one,” this is not an exception.
It is a setup that assumes the system alone is not sufficient and that its functioning is distributed among people.
That is not necessarily a mistake.
But it is a fact that must be acknowledged before moving on to another solution.
Question 4: What breaks when a key person is not available?
Imagine a normal peak day. And then one absence:
vacation,
sick leave,
shift change.
The question is not whether it would be inconvenient. The question is:
Would planning continue to work the same way, or would it have to be replaced by phone calls, messages, and improvisation?
If the system needs a specific person to “hold everything together,” the problem is not the people.
It is that the system does not take responsibility for changes and stops functioning without human intervention.
Question 5: Can you say today what transport actually costs you – and why?
Not approximately. Not by feeling. But based on data:
Do you know how much one pallet costs you?
Do you know what happens to costs when there are delays or changes?
Can you retrospectively show where unnecessary waiting times occur and why?
If not, planning is not a management tool. It is just operations reacting to problems after they occur.
The one answer after which it makes no sense to continue
If, while answering any of these questions, you found yourself thinking:
“We would always have to handle that manually.”
Then the problem is not which planning system you choose.
The problem is that:
the system does not have access to current data,
or it cannot react to them on its own.
In that case, a new tool will not bring calm.
It will only add another layer of work and another place where something can go wrong.
A planning system makes sense only when:
changes flow through automatically,
people deal with exceptions, not daily operations,
and data are used for decision-making, not just for record-keeping.
If you do not have these conditions today, a solution exists. But it does not start with choosing a system. It starts with honestly naming reality — even when it is uncomfortable.