Transport management plays an important role in the present day Sri Lankan context, particularly when the Government has made significant advancements in terms of investment in physical infrastructure in the domain of transport and logistics. Efficient management of transport and logistics systems by the relevant service providers, however, becomes an important lynch-pin for the nation to effectively realise the objectives of such large scale investment effort, namely becoming a regional transport and logistics hub. It is within this context that costly transportation, which has hit the bottom line of organizations engaged in manufacturing and logistics, has attracted attention of corporates, which look for way of minimising such costs through adoption of ICT and outsourcing to third-party service providers. This interest is mirrored by the increasing trend towards outsourcing of warehousing and distribution functions by manufacturers, importers and exporters in Sri Lanka to 3PL service providers. This, in turn, has led to an increased number of 3PL service providers focusing on transportation products and attracting an increased spectrum of customers. The Third-Party Logistics Study Report (2015) refers to this trend also observable globally. According to this report, transportation management (execution), electronic data interchange (EDI), transportation management (planning), customer order management, visibility (order, shipment, inventory, etc.), warehouse/DC management, web portals for booking, and order tracking figure vital success factors in the global 3PL industry in providing cost-effective and advanced customised solutions. The report also states that there exists a persisting IT gap in this regard at global level, bridging which would be a strategic niche for gaining competitive edge. This IT gap in the Sri Lankan setting is very significant, particularly in the context of the country‟s transport and logistics hub dream. Even though local 3PL industry comprises of many Fleet Management Systems (FMS) to track and trace vehicles on the move through web browsers, such systems have not been able to fill the gap between the transport requesters and 3PL service providers. Figure 1 below depicts this persisting IT gap. On the other hand, the Sri Lankan service providers face difficulties in implementing global IT trends and solutions, in view of bridging this service gap, mainly due to cost constraints. Even though, a few large firms have spent millions of dollars and purchased commercially available software products, developed for warehousing and transport management, such as SAP or Oracle Business Suit, and some have even extended such systems to 3PL service provision, the problem appears remaining largely unresolved. It is in this context that several 3PL service providers have taken initiatives to develop ICT solutions of their own for their business processes, the effort launched by Advantis 3PL plus being one such local initiatives. This paper presents the inventive effort in view of development and implementation of an Extended Transport Management System (ETMS) undertaken in 2015 by Advantis 3PL Plus, one of the leading third party logistics service providers in Sri Lanka. It also discusses the outcomes of the research project, its benefits as well as lessons learnt for future research.

Madurapperuma, S., Ebert, L.J., & Dissanayake, S. (2022). The development and implementation of an Extended Transport Management System (ETMS) [Extended Abstract]. In T.L. Gunaruwan (Ed.), Proceedings of 1st International Conference on Research for Transport and Logistics Industry 2016 (pp. 103-106). Sri Lanka Society of Transport and Logistics. https://slstl.lk/r4tli-2016/