Avoiding the Ghosts of Bad TMS Product Design

Selecting and implementing a TMS can be scary! It’s a bit like walking into a haunted house – you never know when a terrible design flaw is lurking around the corner (cue Psycho music). 

Yet many supply chain practitioners view TMS software as a ‘commodity’ – vendors are essentially so close to parity at the feature-function level, you can select based on price alone.  

That is false, and to highlight, I will pick on design flaws seen in vendors in the Gartner MQ ‘Leaders Quadrant’: 

• A vendor that has no solution for an external supplier to initiate a ‘ready to ship’ update

• A vendor that cannot accept PO item level updates after the load has been created, causing loads to have inaccurate order, item, and shipping attributes (very scary if you’re a retailer!)

• A vendor that doesn't allow a freight forwarder to initiate a booking on an import load

• A vendor in the ‘Challengers Quadrant’ that doesn’t accommodate ‘time zone’ handling at the location, order, stop, and load levels 

Few things stall a TMS implementation faster than discovering, in the middle of the project, that a critical feature doesn’t work as expected. I’ve seen firsthand how mismatches between business requirements and vendor capabilities can derail momentum, team morale, and put delivery timelines at risk.  

When a key requirement is misunderstood or unsupported, the consequences are immediate and costly. Teams are forced to scramble for workarounds, often spending weeks redesigning processes or developing temporary fixes, if a workaround is even possible. In more complex cases, workarounds and fixes require additional automation and integration, compounding the workload and stretching already tight budgets and timelines.

Each new issue triggers a cascade of delays – isolating the issue, developing and testing the redesigned solution, and then regression testing to ensure nothing else breaks. What might start as a minor gap can quickly snowball into months of lost time and blown contingency budgets.  

Scary, indeed! 

Anticipating and addressing these risks early, before vendor selection and implementation, can make all the difference in avoiding frustration, missed milestones, and a solution that may never fully deliver on its promise.  

To align your TMS implementation with real business value and reduce the risk of design flaws, JBF has designed a distinct, proven approach: 

1. First, we create a vendor-agnostic, integrated future state design before any TMS vendor is considered. This means your requirements are driven by your business priorities and operational needs. As a result, you gain clarity on which features and capabilities are truly critical, empowering you to shape your RFP and vendor short list that aligns with your strategy. 

2. Second, our continuous ‘quality loop’ captures lessons learned from each implementation, including design flaws, defects, and performance issues. We use these insights to refine requirements and vendor criteria ahead of the RFP process, so you benefit from industry best practices and experience, and avoid common pitfalls. 

This dual approach sets JBF apart. By seamlessly integrating strategy, design, and delivery, we help you make smarter vendor choices and accelerate time to value. Simply put, our clients avoid costly missteps and achieve better outcomes because we bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Oh – and it doesn’t cost extra! It is simply a better process, designed to deliver better outcomes at lower risk for shippers.   

Brad Forester is the Founder and Managing Partner of JBF Consulting, bringing more than 25 years of leadership experience in transportation strategy, logistics technology, and supply chain transformation. A recognized industry expert, Brad has advised Fortune 500 companies and high-growth brands on complex global transportation initiatives, from network design and technology selection to implementation and value realization. His background spans senior roles in consulting, software, and shipper operations, giving him a uniquely balanced perspective on strategy and execution. Brad is a frequent industry speaker and thought leader on TMS, visibility, and logistics innovation.