Material planning meets transportation excellence
Seamlessly connect processes with 4flow TORO for better material and order planning results and improved transportation utilization
- Break down planning silos
- Cut costs by 20%
- Go live in just 2 months
Is disconnected planning hurting your bottom line?
Late transport planning, organizational silos, and inefficient manual processes negatively impact material planning. 4flow offers 20+ years of integrated expertise in consulting, software, and services. Unlock measurable cost savings, improved utilization and sustainable results with a unique approach.
- Do you frequently need to adjust plans to make them actionable for transportation?
- Do your material and transportation planning teams work in silos, reducing overall efficiency?
- Are manual processes limiting your truck utilization?
See 4flow TORO in action
Optimize your supply chain by integrating material and transport planning early on
Break down inefficient planning silos
Integrate material and transport planning for more efficiency and lower costs
Harmonize planning across functions
Integrate transportation constraints into material planning and eliminate inefficient replanning
Establish structured planning flows
Align teams and eliminate costly ad hoc decisions with standardized processes
Enable smooth supply chain execution
Early coordination across teams ensures reliable planning and fewer disruptions
Reduce logistics costs at scale
Save costs through early planning alignment without sacrificing service quality
Maximize truck utilization
Bundle shipments and align truckloads to reduce empty space and freight spend
Prevent costly last-minute changes
Early planning optimization reduces shipment volatility and coordination effort
Reduce costs with early planning
Factor in transport cost drivers from the start to avoid missed savings
Boost agility with smarter planning
Maintain control of your supply chain and adapt to volatility with flexible, data-driven planning
Adapt shipments without disruption
Adjust call-offs dynamically to balance transportation, inventory, and demand
Stabilize demand and planning
Proactive planning makes for stable demand and prevents the need for reactive adjustments in transportation
Increase flexibility, not spending
Align planning decisions early on and enable adaptability without cost penalties
Maximize utilization, cut costs
Align call-offs and shipments early to boost truck loads and reduce freight spend
Increase truckload utilization and cut costs
Align call-offs with transport capacity to build fuller, cost-efficient loads
Increase planning stability
Account for transport needs early to streamline workflows and enable stable planning
Automate integrated planning
Use smart algorithms to arrange loads and shipments directly in material planning
Communicate better and plan ahead
Improve transport planning quality by reducing costly last-minute adjustments
Align call-offs and transportation planning
Factor in transport constraints early to prevent last-minute schedule shifts
Avoid peaks and extra shipments
Balance demand and avoid costly peaks by shifting call-offs within time windows
Create stable, executable plans
Reliable plans provide stability and enable better collaboration across teams
Automate and streamline planning
Reduce manual effort and create consistent, efficient transport planning workflows
Connect planning to your existing IT
Data-driven transportation planning with seamless ERP and TMS integration
Create consistent planning flows
Structured transport workflows replace ad hoc tasks and reduce planning complexity
Seamlessly connect planning tasks
Cross-functional planning for feasible shipment schedules and fewer team silos
Early planning for reliable supply
Fewer last-minute changes through transport-aligned material planning
Provide feasible delivery schedules
Create executable plans by aligning with real transport constraints
Avoid costly call-off adjustments
AI-driven algorithms bundle call-offs early on for stable, efficient schedules
Improve planning visibility
Leverage KPIs and dashboards to align call-offs with transport capacity
Balance inventory without extra costs
Avoid stockouts with smart planning aligned with transportation
Optimize material call-offs early
Avoid late changes and coordination effort through early constraint checks
Standardize planning adjustments
Apply smart planning rules to prepone call-offs and reduce inventory fluctuation
Reduce manual workload
Minimize manual work and last-minute changes with standardized, automated planning processes
Streamline routine planning
Handle daily call-off decisions with built-in logic – no short-term changes needed
Replace spreadsheets and workarounds
Move from manual patchwork to a connected, system-driven planning approach
Focus on proactive planning
With fewer disruptions to handle, you can spend your time improving processes and material flow
Shift orders to facilitate consolidation and minimize costs
Many companies perform transportation optimization too late – either during execution or in tactical planning stages. At this stage, the opportunity to consolidate shipments has passed, leading to underutilized trucks and high transportation costs. Volatile demand makes effective consolidation difficult, often resulting in excessive freight spend and emissions.
4flow TORO shifts shipment planning to an earlier stage, enabling dynamic consolidation of material and sales orders. The solution bundles shipments for better truck utilization and lower costs, long before transport execution. Integrated 3D load planning reduces empty space, making your transportation more sustainable and efficient.
Key capabilities for cost reduction
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Reschedules material and sales orders to bundle shipments and improve truck utilization
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Reduces CO₂ emissions by minimizing unnecessary shipments and increasing load efficiency
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Visualizes optimal truck loading to minimize empty space and streamline shipment planning
Integrate planning across your networks
In many organizations, order and call-off planning is siloed from transportation planning, focused only on production or customer needs. This disconnect leads to underutilized shipments, last-minute changes, and high transportation costs across inbound, intercompany, and outbound flows.
4flow TORO connects material and order planning with transportation planning in one integrated system. Transportation constraints are considered early, enabling better decisions, fewer adjustments, and greater efficiency. The software automates shipment consolidation across supply chain stages and transport types – from FTL and FCL to LTL, LCL, and milk run for material and empty flows – ensuring optimal utilization and lower transportation costs at every step.
Key capabilities for end-to-end planning
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Optimizes inbound, intercompany, and outbound shipments early for lower costs and better results
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Ensures efficient container and truck usage across FTL, FCL, LTL, LCL, and milk run shipments
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Aligns material, order, and transport planning to avoid conflicts and reduce late-stage changes
Automate and accelerate planning without IT complexity
Transportation and supply chain planning is still often managed manually, using spreadsheets, outdated tools, or fragmented systems. The result? Inefficiencies, significant manual work, and limited flexibility to respond to change.
4flow TORO automates transportation-relevant planning steps to significantly reduce manual workload. The system supports seamless ERP and TMS integration, or it can be deployed quickly using a CSV workflow – ideal if you’re looking for fast, low-complexity optimization. Either way, you can make a smooth shift from reactive, manual planning to automated, data-driven decision-making without the need for lengthy IT projects.
Key capabilities for automated planning
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Reduces planner workload by adjusting call-offs and shipments automatically
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Integrates with ERP and TMS systems or works with CSV upload for quick deployment
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Transforms reactive processes into data-driven planning with fewer errors and more efficiency
4flow TORO across industries
Automotive
4flow TORO enables automotive manufacturers and suppliers to synchronize planning across suppliers, parts and users. By integrating transportation constraints early into material and order planning, 4flow TORO improves truck utilization, dynamically reduces inbound frequencies, and ensures material availability. The platform automates thousands of daily call-off adjustments and can be directly integrated in ERP and TMS solutions. This automation reduces manual planning effort and enhances end-to-end planning stability, achieving up to 20% cost savings in automotive environments with dynamic manufacturing and demand.
Consumer goods and retail
4flow TORO empowers consumer goods and retail companies to optimize order and demand planning by aligning production, inventory, replenishment and distribution flows with transportation capacity. With this approach, orders are consolidated early to improve full truckload (FTL) utilization or make dynamic adjustments to delivery frequencies. The software automates SKU-level shipment planning and standardizes logic across regions, channels and customers. This reduces manual effort, decreases per-unit shipping costs, and ensures on-shelf availability even during peak demand periods.
Discrete manufacturing
4flow TORO supports discrete manufacturers to increase supply chain resilience. With early integration of transport and material planning, manufacturers can ensure components are always available when needed for uninterrupted production. 4flow TORO optimizes load consolidation and shipment timing across full truckload (FTL) and full container load (FCL) modes. The result: reduced transport frequency, fewer disruptions, and measurable cost savings—even in volatile supply environments.
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4flow TORO is beneficial for many more industries, including pharmaceuticals, medical technology, high-tech, construction and logistics service providers. Curious how 4flow TORO supports your industry?
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Get in touch
How much could you save on transportation?
Discover your savings potential in just three steps, completely obligation-free:
- Contact us to schedule a call
- Provide call-off or order data for 5-10 sample lanes
- Hear back with your savings potential within one week
Case studies: Proven results with 4flow TORO
FAQs
Yes. 4flow TORO enables a phased rollout by starting with selected suppliers or lanes that have good data. Master data can be continuously improved and enriched during ramp-up.
4flow TORO limits inventory impact by controlling how far orders are preponed. Typically, only 10–20% of order lines need to shift to unlock savings. Users can fine-tune settings per material or lane.
Absolutely. 4flow TORO offers flexible options – from Excel-based workflows to full ERP/TMS integration. Start simple and scale integration at your own pace.
4flow TORO works with or without a TMS. It can operate as a stand-alone system or enhance existing TMS setups by pre-optimizing shipments, improving both efficiency and cost savings.
A first go-live typically takes 2–6 months, depending on your IT setup and scope. The process includes design, integration, testing, training, and go-live preparation in a structured rollout.
By consolidating or splitting call-offs, 4flow TORO improves truck and container utilization, reduces LTL shipments, and delivers up to 20% savings on transportation costs.
Yes. 4flow TORO supports road, sea, and air. It optimizes across FTL, LTL, FCL, LCL, and milk run shipments.
Most customers see ROI in 6-12 months. Key drivers: fewer shipments, better utilization, and lower costs – compared to minimal inventory impact and implementation effort.
4flow TORO dynamically adjusts call-offs within planning windows, balancing material availability and transport efficiency. This reduces disruptions and improves truck utilization.
A TMS executes transportation. 4flow TORO plans ahead – optimizing truck loads before call-offs are sent. 4flow TORO works 1-90 days in advance; a TMS manages shipments up to 48 hours in advance.
Used in combination, 4flow TORO pre-optimizes shipments, enhancing TMS performance for lower costs, higher truck utilization, and fewer disruptions.
You can quickly see your optimization potential in a few clicks with our free online calculator.
If you’d like a more detailed analysis of your cost savings potential, or an estimate tailored to your network, our 4flow experts are happy to help. We can calculate your optimization potential for you free of charge based on a sample of your call-off or order data. Contact us to get started.