Technology to help with freight asset operations, sales and technology integration highlighted the third block of demonstrations at FreightWaves LIVE in Chicago on Nov. 12.
WinMore is a provider of bid and tender collaboration software to help freight forwarders and brokers win more — get it? — contracted rate business, Mark Gamble, director of product marketing, explained.
The software is designed to better qualify shipper requests-for-proposal so logistics providers can focus on bids that drive the greatest margin, gain top-down process visibility so bids are submitted accurately and on time, and help commercial, product and pricing teams work together on sourcing and pricing strategies.
“Inbound RFPs represent the bedrock of your business, especially in these times where the spot market is unstable and unpredictable. Shippers are rushing to lock in contracted rates, [so] you need to make sure you have the tools to win their business away from competitors,” rather than relying on spreadsheets and email, Gamble told the freight transportation audience.
PowerFleet representatives drilled down into one application of how the company uses Bluetooth and blockchain technology to create an integrated data platform for more precise location and tracking of high-value assets. PowerFleet’s secret sauce is pulling together connected sensor data from the cab, trailer, forklift, pallet and other supply chain nodes into one view for trucking, cold chain and domestic intermodal operators.
At FreightWaves LIVE, they highlighted how a tiny camera embedded in the trailer door can take images of the shipment at certain points, such as loading, and when triggered by an event such as swerving or hard braking, can show the transport company and the shipper if the load shifted or was damaged. Packets of information are bundled in a series of transactions in the blockchain, and the results can be accessed through a QR code.
“What really makes this exciting is that we are using a highly decentralized public blockchain, typically associated with cryptocurrency, and we are storing our unique data and images within the constraints of the blockchain,” PowerFleet’s Adam Wolfe said.
Lytx uses artificial intelligence and machine vision to power its video telematics and analytics tools for commercial and public-sector fleets. Its services include driver safety through the DriveCam event recorder, risk detection, fleet tracking, compliance and fuel management.
Shayan Nazempour, senior product manager, claims Lytx can translate billions of miles of driving data, combining technology with professional review, to identify risky driving behavior or analyze an incident.
McLeod Software, an established transportation management software provider, is using gamification to spread the word about the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning in freight transportation. It has created an AI Racing League, where virtual trucks race on virtual race tracks and intra-company teams compete for points and the League Cup, like in NASCAR, representative Amy Jones said. Training and intra-company racing will start in January. Each company or school can have as many intra-teams as they want and participation is free.
KeepTruckin offers a fleet management platform. For one of its applications, it has indexed 120,000 facilities across the U.S. for dwell time and made that information available to truck drivers, demonstrator Kelly Hanson explained. The company also has an app that lets drivers receive dispatch information and share data with brokerages and logistics providers.
Lean Tech specializes in recruiting, training and onboarding bilingual software developers to help logistics companies but has reinvented the whole way it approaches development projects. It now uses artificial intelligence to help clients properly estimate the cost, budget and execution strategy for IT development projects, said co-founder Alfonso Quijano.The AI engine keeps track of completed integration steps. Instead of taking two to three weeks to complete a project proposal for a customer, the system can now do it in minutes, he said.
“We want to be the enablers of disruption by facilitating the way you get technology into your business,” he said.
project44 introduced a new feature of its transportation visibility platform called collaborative visibility, designed to solve problems associated with inbound, prepaid freight. The feature reduces track-and-trace costs, dwell at facilities and improves delivery planning and staff readiness, said Jessica Schnepf, director of product experience. Customers can create perpetual data-sharing relationships to upstream and downstream partners, even those outside the project44 paying network.
Uber Freight launched the shipper platform a year ago to add visibility into pricing. It can forecast pricing and flexibility in transit time 14 days in advance of pickup. Once the rate is confirmed, it is guaranteed and appointments can then be scheduled for pickup and dropoff.
Uber’s marketplace and data science capabilities can populate load details, making life easier for the shipper, members of Uber Freight’s engineering team said. Uber can automatically generate a bill of lading, saving time and helping the carrier manage all their documents in a streamlined way.
Big companies have the resources to manage public freight marketplaces, but small businesses lack their own systems of record, with transportation management technology engineered and priced right to provide the needed data privacy and scalability, EKA Solutions Chief Revenue Officer Steve Weiby said.
EKA Solutions can help smaller shippers, carriers, brokers and 3PLs enjoy the same benefits of a digital environment, he said. Public exchanges can charge 1-5% transaction charges, while private exchanges offer greater transparency, quality and consistency for a fraction of the cost, Weiby said.
Revenova is an application development company focused on transportation management that connects sales, marketing, service, shipping and accounting data so the freight department can interact more easily with other parts of the company.
Mike Horvath, chief marketing officer and co-founder, said Revenova built its TMS on the Salesforce cloud for that reason, and because Salesforce invests $1 billion per year on analytics and artificial intelligence and it has an ecosystem of thousands of applications customers can deploy on their TMS.
Workhound is a real-time feedback platform for workers that helps truckers improve retention by up to 30%, company representative Max Farrell said.
The trucking industry is notorious for driver turnover. The platform is proactive rather than reactive so drivers’ concerns are addressed before they quit, Farrell said. There are 20,000 drivers on its platforms who share anonymous feedback through their mobile web browser.
Miracle Software Systems has developed a platform for artificial intelligence and machine learning to help carriers predict maintenance failures or delays and notify customers, presenter Naresh Jasotani said.