Best TMS for Manufacturers Expanding in Europe

This guide is for logistics and supply chain managers at European manufacturing companies who are considering entering a new market, setting up a new site, or using new carriers. It covers the changes that happen during expansion, what to look for in a TMS, and eight tools, comparing their features.

What changes when a manufacturer enters a new country

Logistics teams face new challenges when a new country goes live.

More carriers and rate sheets. A domestic setup might use two or three carriers, but entering a new market usually requires the use of a new regional carrier to handle specific loads or provide a better local coverage. Each new carrier has its own price list, surcharge logic, and booking method.

Cross-trade shipments. Your company’s account may be based in a different country to the one from which goods are shipped. Danish furniture maker OMHU faced exactly this issue. Its headquarters are based in Copenhagen, the production facilities are in Poland, and their customer base spreads across 25 markets. One of the first things to be solved was to get shipments flowing without manual workarounds.

New paperwork. This includes CMR consignment notes for road freight, ADR declarations for chemicals and lithium batteries, and export documents for anything leaving the EU: The rules change depending on the mode of transport and the destination, and missing documents can result in a truck being held at the dock.

More people are asking where things are. Production planners are working at the new site, customer service is dealing with a new language, and sales reps promise delivery dates in a market that they may not be familiar with. If a shipment goes through five carrier portals, each of those questions generates an email to the logistics department.

OMHU started with two Danish carriers and a set of Excel spreadsheets that required constant double-checking. According to its logistics coordinator, this setup could never have handled the carriers and markets that OMHU runs today.

7 things to check in a TMS before expanding

TMS tools often look similar. But once you add a carrier or a new site, the differences become visible. The checks below focus on these differences. If you are running a formal selection process, include them in your TMS RFP template to get the same response from every vendor.

1. How fast can it connect a carrier you have not used yet?

This is what matters most, because every new market brings carriers you don’t work with today, often a regional network or a small local haulier.

Some TMS vendors treat a new carrier integration as a paid project. Others ask the carrier to implement a standard EDI message on their side, which many small carriers don’t do. The result is that new carriers sit outside the system and get booked by email.

A good TMS connects a new carrier in days and at no extra cost.

2. Can one account run several sites and countries?

When you add a production site, you want it in the same account as the first one with carrier lists, separate users and permissions, freight costs and on-time delivery across every site.

You don’t want a separate setup for each country with different logins, rate sheets and manual spreadsheets.

3. Does it work with your contracts, or push its own rates?

Your negotiated carrier rates should stay yours. But some platforms make money by reselling their own freight rates or taking a cut of your freight spend.

A neutral TMS allows you to upload your price lists, surcharges and fuel adjustments exactly as agreed, and shows you the cheapest option among your chosen carriers. 

4. Can the ERP connection support growth?

The ERP system is responsible for orders, while the TMS system is responsible for shipments. When you add a new site, the order data for that site should flow into the TIMS via the same integration without the need for a new IT project. (Our ERP vs TMS guide explains how the two systems divide the workload.)

Check that the TMS has a ready-made connector for your ERP (whether that is SAP, Microsoft Dynamics 365, NetSuite, Odoo or Monitor) and find out what happens when a second legal entity or warehouse is added.

5. Can it handle all types of freight you will be shipping?

Manufacturers rarely only ship in one direction. They send parcels, pallets, part loads, or full truckloads. A tool focused on parcels will cover one category, but may struggle with the others.

Make sure the TMS can handle parcels, LTL, FTL, air and sea freight, and provides rate comparisons for all of them in one place.

6. Is it ready for European paperwork and reporting?

Every new country adds new documentation. These include CMR notes for road freight, ADR declarations for dangerous goods and export documents for shipments leaving the EU. A TMS should generate these documents from shipment data rather than leaving your team to fill them by hand.

Note: There are two changes worth planning for. Firstly, the EU’s eFTI Regulation will apply in full from 9 July 2027, by which time authorities in every member state will be required to accept freight documents electronically via certified platforms. Secondly, CO₂ reporting for transport is becoming a standard part of ESG reports and ISO audits. 

Latvian electronics manufacturer HansaMatrix already opens its TMS during audits to demonstrate shipment-specific emissions data.

7. Can your suppliers book inbound shipments on your rates?

For larger manufacturers, inbound logistics are often the bigger blind spot. When raw materials arrive late, production is delayed and nobody saw the delay coming because the supplier booked the truck. But if suppliers can book through your TMS using your contracted carriers, you can see inbound and outbound shipments in one place and know what is arriving, from whom, and when. This becomes important with every new supplier country you add.

The best TMS options for expanding manufacturers compared

The table below covers eight tools that European manufacturers most often choose.

Cargoson

Cargoson is a multi-carrier TMS built specifically for European shippers. It allows you to compare carrier rates, book freight and track shipments all from one dashboard. It’s designed for shippers, not carriers or 3PLs. It connects to over 2,000+ carriers via direct API and EDI, and new carrier integrations can be built free of charge on request. It also connects to SAP, Dynamics 365, NetSuite and Odoo. Suppliers can book inbound shipments at your contracted rate. 

For expansion, the free carrier integrations do most of the work. A regional carrier in a new market can be connected before the first order ships. The rate engine reads any price list, including complex surcharge and fuel rules, and only uses your own contracts. We cover parcel LTL, FTL, air, sea and rail. 

Best: If you are a €20M-500M manufacturer looking to add countries and carriers who want it up running in weeks, not months.

Alpega

Alpega is a multi-modal, pan-European TMS for manufacturers, retailers and distributors, offering an integrated spot-capacity network. It has a large European road freight network and strong spot and contract rate tools. New carriers can join via the portal, but custom API integrations are more difficult to set up.

With a network of over 80,000+ transport professionals across Europe, Alpega can help you find capacity on lanes you have never shipped to before. It can also manage reusable packaging, which is important for chemical and manufacturing companies. It usually relies on standard EDI interfaces that carriers must implement.

Best: If you mostly ship by road and run regular freight tenders.

Transporeon

Transporen connects over 1,400 shippers with over 150,000 carriers, offering strong tendering and real-time visibility for full loads. Many carrier connections use standard EDI or email rather than API integrations.

Its carrier base is mostly European, with the strongest presence in FTL. Its spot market tools offer built-in freight benchmarking, enabling you to assess if a new lane is competitively priced. Other modes are handled by partners. For manufacturers with mixed parcels, pallets and full-load freight, this often means that smaller LTL shipments require a second tool. While carriers can join the platform for free, custom integrations may cost extra.

Best: If you move high FTL volumes and have the budget of a large enterprise.

nShift

nShift has a strong parcel coverage across the Nordics, the UK and the Benelux countries, with connections to over 1,000 parcel carriers. Coverage of pallet and full-load freight is weaker, and adding each new carrier adds extra costs.

Custom freight tariffs are handled by a third-party partner, which can have difficulty with the complex pallet and surcharge price lists that many manufacturers use. New carrier API integrations come at an additional cost and can take months to implement, which delays the entry of new markets that need a local carrier.

Best: If you ship mostly parcels or a few pallets.

Descartes

Descartes is designed for mid-market shippers, offering multi-modal load planning, carrier management, rate shipping and fast deployment. It is also good at customs documentation and global trade compliance across all modes.

Descartes markets its Shipper TMS to medium and high-volume shippers in North America and Europe. It forms part of a wider portfolio, which was partly built through acquisitions. These include 3G TMS, Pacejet for parcel shipping with ready-made ERP connectors, dock scheduling and MacroPoint for visibility. That range of options is useful if you ship outside the EU, since customs and trade compliance are provided by the same vendor. It is possible to add a new carrier, but this may cost extra.

Best: If you ship a lot outside the EU and for whom customs is the biggest challenge.

SAP Transportation Management

SAP Transportation Management is an enterprise-grade TMS for large manufacturers requiring deep integration with their existing SAP ERP and the ability to operate on a global scale. It provides robust planning for complex FTL networks. Carrier connections rely on email or standard EDI, and carriers are usually added through SAP partners. 

Within a SAP landscape, orders, deliveries and freight costs move between modules without the need for separate integration, which is the primary reason for its popularity. Outside of SAP, it may make less sense as a standalone TMS. Carrier collaboration runs through SAP’s Logistics Business Network, and rate management is mainly focused on full loads. For an expanding manufacturer, entering a new country or working with a new carrier usually involves a SAP project.

Best: If you already use SAP and move large volumes of full load.

Generix DDS TMS

Generix DDS TMS is an enterprise-level solution designed to help companies comply with CSRD regulations. It offers automated carbon-per-shipment reporting, invoice auditing and full execution management. It is part of Generix’s wider supply chain suite. 

On the execution side, it handles shipment tracking, appointment scheduling, hazardous materials, multilingual use and mobile access for drivers. The planning features support load pooling and modal shifts, which are both useful for reducing costs and emissions as volume increases. It connects to Generix’s warehouse and yard management tools. 

Best: If you want transport management as part of a wider supply chain suite from one vendor.

Shiptify

Shiptify is a simple platform for parcels and pallets, with a strong presence in France. The depth of carrier integration varies by carrier.

It handles parcel and freight shipments from a single interface and lists over 2,000+ carrier accounts, with more than 300 parcel carriers integrated. The quality of integration varies: some carriers have true API or EDI connections, some use the webhooks implemented by the carrier, and others have no integration. 

Best: If you are a smaller French shippers with a mostly domestic network.

How OMHU added markets without causing disruption

OMHU designs modular sofars in Copenhagen, manufactures them to order in Poland and ships them to over 40,000 customers across 25 European markets and the US.

The company started small, with only two Danish carriers and shipment details shared via Excel. Each order had to be checked against the truck list twice, so mistakes were easy to happen. Before opening up to more markets, OMHU took two key steps. First, it implemented an ERP, and then it added Cargoson as its TMS. This meant that the order flow was structured before the volume orders increased.

The first market to go live was the Polish production hub, which ships products across Europe. Next came the US, followed by Germany. Each new market follows the same process. The OMHU logistics coordinator identifies the ideal local carrier, negotiates the terms of the agreement, and instructs Cargoson to develop the integration ahead of the market opening. When OMHU entered the UK with a small carrier that had never done an API integration before, only one online meeting between the three parties was needed to make it work.

The cross-trade setup, involving an account in Denmark and goods leaving Poland for Finland, France or the UK, was set up once at the beginning and now runs independently. Around a dozen people from the logistics, customer service and supply chain departments use the same system, and the production department connects to it via the API. OMHU contacts the support team once or twice a week, mostly when adding a new carrier.

In the coordinator’s words: “It's really nice that it just works.”

Read the full OMHU case study

Tips for implementing a TMS into a new country

The biggest concern for most plant managers is that a new system will disrupt shipping while staff are learning to use it. Here are some tips to help ensure that the existing process continues to run smoothly until the new system has been fully adopted.

Collect what you have. Make a list of every carrier per country, including their price lists and surcharge rules. Also include your standard package types and the addresses to which you ship frequently. 

Connect the ERP. Link the TMS to your ERP so that orders flow in automatically. With a ready-made connector, this is a setup task, not a development task.

Add carriers and rates. Upload your price lists and request integrations for any carriers that the TMS doesn’t yet connect to.

Go live at one site. Start with the site that has the most carriers or the most manual processes. Run a small number of real shipments and check the labels, documents, and tracking. Then switch to the full volume. 

Train the wider team. Give customer service, production planners and sales read access to that shipment-related queries stop being sent by email.

Add the next site. Each new site or country uses the same ERP connection and carrier setup, which is where the time saving comes from.

For comparison, HansaMatrix achieved a functioning, structured booking process in around six weeks. According to the company, a new logistics hire would have needed three to four months to reach the same level. The daily booking time dropped from around two hours to 30 minutes.

For a more detailed explanation of how to implement a transport management system see our guide.

Consider your next country when choosing a TMS

With the right TMS, shipments to new markets are booked in the same way as every other shipment. The order comes in from the ERP system, which shows rates from contracted carriers. The label, documents and tracking link are ready before the truck arrives. New carriers are connected before the market launches, so nobody has to rely on email on day one.

Over 500 manufacturers, including Ensto, AVK Group and HansaMatrix, use Cargoson to manage multi-carrier freight across Europe from one account.

Bring us details of your next countries and the carriers you plan to use there. We’ll show you what that looks like in Cargoson.

Book a free 30-minute consultation