Technology that helps you get the most from your drivers, trucks and trailers was in the spotlight at the Rapid-Fire Demonstrations on Tuesday at FreightWaves LIVE Chicago.
The seven-minute, live demonstrations allowed companies to showcase their products’ capabilities.
SkyBitz
SkyBitz, which provides end-to-end asset management solutions for businesses seeking to improve margins by automating workflow and processes, demoed its new SkyBitz InSight analytics platform.
“We are passionate about providing actionable data to our customers,” said Terri Lucas, vice president of sales for Herndon, Virginia-based SkyBitz.
The best-in-class hardware solutions fuels the SkyBitz analytics platform with actionable information that drives productivity and increases profitability. During the demo, SkyBitz looked at three freight scenarios: finding empty trailers, managing idle times and managing trailer pools.
“Now no one likes to turn down revenue, and no one likes to send the driver to pick up a trailer that’s not really empty,” said Debbie Sackman, SkyBitz senior product manager.
Platform Science
Platform Science provides carriers with flexible and future-proof IoT fleet management. The company demonstrated how carriers can customize the in-motion driver experience to become more efficient.
“What if remote platform management (RPM) was able to access driver duty status and customize their experience based on what they are doing? You can make sure that your driver isn’t doing anything non-compliant when they’re off duty.” Darrin Demchuk, Platform Science Vice President of Product Management said. “The same thing is available in reverse, so you can make sure entertainment applications are only available to your driver when they are off duty or in the sleeper berth.”
Carriers can also enable their lock screens to display relevant information, like trailer IDs and locations, to the driver. This allows the driver to see relevant information while driving, so they do not have to look for it elsewhere and risk distraction.”
CloudTrade
David Cocks, CEO of CloudTrade, said their e-invoicing e-document technology network enables companies to “get rid of a reliance on paper invoices.”
London-based CloudTrade uses rule-based technology to read and convert electronic documents such as invoices, sales and purchase orders, advanced shipping notices, and other data-rich documents into a 100% data-accurate freight-processing solution.
“The goal is having no manual touch — a fully automated solution that you can scale and run 24/7,” Cocks said.
K-Ratio
K-Ratio used FreightWaves LIVE Chicago to launch its new card service, in which a client’s card is made up of visual elements displaying different types of graphs, metrics, filters and tables, all populated with data that K-Ratio extracts and organizes from a company’s transportation management software.
Zachary Brictson said the service allows clients to choose the metrics they want to track to make “real-time, data-driven decisions.”
“The goal is to get around storytelling and gut instincts to make decisions because those often have biases,” said Brictson, K-Ratio’s senior business intelligence analyst.
K-Ratio, a commodities trading adviser based in Chicago, advises carriers and shippers on hedging strategies.
Transflo
Velocity+ from Tampa, Florida-based Transflo is the company’s new solution to connect brokers, third-party logistics providers and carriers.
“Velocity+ is a business solution for brokers that want to eliminate paperwork and communicate quickly with their shippers, carriers or their own back office,” said Don Mitchell, Transflo’s director of marketing.
Velocity+ has been integrated with the Transflo mobile+ app that has more than 1.3 million downloads and is used by a network of 60,000 carriers for managing loads, hours of service, documents and payroll, Mitchell said.
Trimble MAPS
Princeton, a New Jersey-based Trimble MAPS which offers commercial routing and navigation solutions for freight, also introduced new services at FreightWaves LIVE Chicago.
Using trucking application programming interfaces, third-party logistics providers can use Trimble MAPS to automate real-time visibility and ETA impact of current conditions like traffic and weather, as well as driver behavior on the road.
“Trimble MAPS has a new notification service built on top of a unique trip management solution to effectively monitor and manage freight movement — it offers an advanced collision detection alerting system, and it can alert drivers to upcoming changes in speed limits,” said Rishi Mehra, director of business strategy for Trimble MAPS.
Imaginnovate
Imaginnovate discussed technology platform Fleet Enable for last-mile delivery solutions during its demo and also discussed machine learning smart dispatch technology.
“Fleet Enable is a last 2-mile delivery platform that is customizable for small enterprise clients with scalable solutions,” said Corey Boelkens, vice president of operations for Imaginnovate.
Fayetteville, Arkansas-based Imaginnovate works with carriers, shippers and third-party logistics providers in load management, capacity management, fleet optimization, route planning and delivery solutions across all modes of transport, including over-the-road, intermodal, regional and last-mile delivery.
FreightFriend
Chicago-based FreightFriend discussed its new new Capacity Guru routing engine at FreightWaves LIVE Chicago.
FreightFriend — which works with shippers, brokers and carriers — is a carrier relationship management (CRM) software and next-generation freight matching platform that allows users to gather proprietary data on carriers and assets.
“Capacity Guru uses multiple data sets — load history, lane history, truck history, tracking data, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration data — to give carriers the information they need to make decisions,” said Michael Culberson-Fehling, director of business development at FreightFriend.
Cargo Sciences
Cargo Sciences offers customized technology development, technology and growth strategy consulting, and commercialization services to the overall logistics market.
The Los Angeles-based company demonstrated new tools – PTMS and Data Hub – to help shippers maintain better communication and visibility of their products as it moves through the cold chain shipment process.
“Most of you should know that about 30% of the food that is transported is wasted,” said Michael Kronenberg, CEO of Cargo Sciences.
“What we are presenting today is actually tools that we have implemented, developed not just as an idea, but actually used in a real case, with about 90,000 tons of perishables shipped on an annual basis – two tools we would like to present today. One of it is the operational tool, which we very often called a conveyor belt, which is basically about automation for shipping. It’s about integration. It’s about better communication with the client in and within the company as well. And the second tool is about visibility.”
Kronenberg said shippers and carriers can use Cargo Sciences’ tools to better monitor the shelf life of shipped foods.
“At the end, you can have all that data, but you need to transform it into how many days and hours of remaining shelf life the product has – what’s the quality? Because this is what comes at the end. How does it arrive at destination?” Kronenberg said.