A logistics system manages the shipments of goods supplied from a plurality of
different shippers by a plurality of carriers. It has a variety of modules integrated
with each other to perform various functionalities. For example, it may have a
purchasing module evaluating proposals by shippers for respective shipments of
goods and awarding contracts for the shipments to the plurality of carriers. It
may have an optimization module analyzing the proposals and informing the purchasing
module if an opportunity exists for at least some of the shipments to be consolidated,
in which case at least one contract awarded by the purchasing module is for a consolidated
group of the shipments. It may have a contract administration module maintaining
information relating to the status of proposals received and contracts awarded
by the purchasing module. It may have a scheduling module scheduling shipments
according to the awarded contracts. It may also have a shipment management module
tracking the status of shipments awarded by the purchasing module and scheduled
by said scheduling module. It may further have a financial module authorizing payments
according to the status of shipments tracked by the shipment management module
are passed between first and second asynchronous clock domains.
