Leading specialist transport technology firm Forward Solutions has announced its partnership with Ceedbox Ltd, part of Forward’s ongoing investment and development.
Ceedbox was launched last year by logistics firm Cardinal Maritime to support the growth for digital technology in the sector. Leading logistics player Woodland Group are also a partner in the Ceedbox business and have helped to develop its products further. Both firms are long standing customers of Forward Solutions.
Ceedbox, led by Alex Grant with a team of specialist software engineers, has spent three years developing products, in response to the growing demand for real-time good tracking across supply chains.
The partnership with Forward Solutions is a perfect alliance, with two parties who are specialists in transport and have extended knowledge of the freight market. Rather than being technology firms who went into software they are primarily freight experts.
Forward Solutions is one of the longest established freight software development companies, providing an end-to-end solution for a wide range of operators with 20+ users in the UK, Europe, Asia and the US. The company are transport sector specialists, providing IT systems for leading multimodal players across air freight, sea freight, road freight and rail freight.
Forward Solutions’ is partnering with Ceedbox for Forward Vision, a new digital supply chain management product, accessed through Forward Office, a flexible freight management software solution (FMS).
Forward Solutions’ Managing Director Richard Litchfield comments; “We are delighted to be working with Ceedbox to strengthen our services to our clients’ customers. We will be using Ceedbox expertise to integrate exclusively into Forward Office which will be a huge boost to our roster of users.”
“There has never been a more crucial time for freight forwarders to utilise best-in-class technology, with increased demand across the supply chain for digitisation. Efficiency and automation of information and full transparency is essential for customers across all modes of transport.
“As a business our approach is very similar – we are freight technologists first and foremost. I am pleased to be collaborating even further by siting on Ceedbox’s Vision Panel to contribute to advance product development and enhancements to the product.”
Forward Vision is a web-based portal allowing customers of Forward Office users to manage their entire supply chain, from purchase order to delivery. Forward Solutions’ operators will be able to offer their own customer true visibility within their own supply chain. The system offers dashboards and detailed reports that will monitor required KPIs and ultimately offer greater ability to meet delivery targets and more transparent communication, reducing errors. Shipments can be managed and tracked using global mapping tools, and customers can also be notified of deliveries and delays.
This new highly intuitive front-end solution meets the growing need for digital platforms that can provide fast and UpToDate management information, providing instant access to all elements of the client’s supply chain. Forward Vision’s insights means that customers can track, analyse, and provide real time data.
This is the latest ambitious step from the firm who have invested ¾ million pounds in redeveloping and reengineering its product portfolio. Forward Solutions is developing an additional User Interface (UI) to utilise the existing feature rich solution.
Cardinal Maritime, which is headquartered in Manchester, employs more than 500 people and has 40 offices globally. Woodland Group is based in Chelmsford and has 700 staff across the world. Its US business is headquartered in New York, and its Asian operations are run from Hong Kong.
