The freight broker and third-party logistics provider spent a year developing the app, called Navisphere Carrier, replacing the company’s previous CHRWTrucks version.
The freight brokerage and third-party logistics services provider C.H. Robinson on Thursday released a new version of its mobile app for contract carriers targeted at small trucking companies with limited access to technology.
The Minneapolis-based company spent a year developing the app, called Navisphere Carrier, by incorporating experiential feedback from small carriers, Bob Biesterfeld, president of North American surface transportation at C.H. Robinson, told American Shipper Friday.
“We spent time in the field with a number of carriers,” he said. “Instead of building an app and hoping they’d use it, we interacted with small business owners in their cabs, in their offices and in their living rooms, to see how they use their phones and tablets. We did that for a year, with multiple beta apps.”
The app, which replaces the company’s previous CHRWTrucks version, is intended to empower companies with limited operational or transportation management technology to tap into C.H. Robinson’s single-instance global technology platform Navisphere. CHRWTrucks’ 15,000 users will immediately be supported by the new app, the company said.
C.H. Robinson’s target is to draw in more of the roughly 50,000 small carriers it works with to use the new app. Navisphere Carrier has separate workflows for dispatchers and drivers, and can be configured by the carrier to allow drivers to indicate whether they want to accept loads.
“We focused on who was going use the app,” Biesterfeld said. “Was it going to be the for driver or dispatcher? There was no delineation in the previous app. And we found there are needs on both sides – dispatcher functionality and driver functionality. The dispatcher can search for loads online or via mobile app. They can manage drivers within the mobile app, assign a load to a driver on their driver list. Drivers can accept the load, and handle document imaging (using a smartphone camera) to get payment faster. The app also harvest location services so the dispatcher knows where their fleet is.”
He said those location activities are largely handled by calls or emails.
Biesterfeld related a story of one small trucking company owner who said she needed to bring her laptop with her on vacation to manage operations because the trucks needed to keep rolling even when she was away. That meant, she needed a RV with a power source for her laptop.The new app was designed, he said, to allow her to run critical functions from her phone.
Carriers can download the app and register through it, a departure from CHRWTrucks, where users had to first established an online account through their desktop and access it through the app. Navisphere Carrier is more standalone, though functions are integrated so that if a dispatcher assigns a load through the app, it is reflected immediately in the desktop/laptop version.
The other advantage of the app, Biesterfeld said, is that the data supplied by carriers benefits Navisphere users on the shipper side. For instance, a load assigned on the app will use the location services technologies of the driver’s smartphone to provide constant position of the truck. That visibility not only helps the dispatcher, it also feeds into the visibility C.H. Robinson can provide the shipper whose cargo is riding in that load.
“If an update comes in from a carrier, it’s automatically visible to a customer,” he said. “One of the goals of getting carriers better engrained is certainly to provide a better customer experience.”
Another lure for carriers are tools on the app that theoretically would speak payment to the carrier, because drivers can take images with their phone of critical trigger event documents, like proof of delivery or unloading receipts, and upload those to Navisphere.
“The document images are attached to the load and it automatically goes to billing,” Biesterfeld said. “Today, if they’re on the road, they usually wait until they get to their terminal or home base, and manually scan or submit their paperwork. It literally removes days in the payment cycle for the carriers.”
Biesterfeld admitted the app probably won’t find many takers among the larger carriers, many of whom already have technology to address many of the things Navisphere Carrier is attempting to address. C.H. Robinson connects with those carriers through normal system-to-system integration like application programming interfaces (APIs) or electronic data interchange (EDI).
“The big focus of this launch was to maintain an industry leading position in mobile,” Biesterfeldsaid. “We needed something to meet needs of carriers.”
C.H. Robinson releases new app to arm small carriers with tech tools
