With the challenges carriers face involving communication, consistency, managing productivity, finding and matching loads, and many more issues, there is a rise of logistic companies offering solutions for both shippers and carriers.
Freight-tech startups as well as long-established companies picked up on trends and challenges in the industry and have developed cutting-edge, intelligent solutions.
On Tuesday at FreightWaves LIVE Chicago, leading minds from around the globe presented rapid-fire demonstrations of technological solutions to the trucking industry.
The following are some of the demos presented during one of the sessions:
Shipwell
Shipwell presented a centralized shipping platform providing full visibility “in a single pane of glass,” said the company’s Jason Traff. The startup promises a proactive, delightful and seamless experience not only for suppliers, but for their employees, carriers, and third-party logistics providers.
Shipwell’s multi-modal web application covers everything from order entry to consolidation, quoting, dispatch, tracking, reconciliation and payments. The application provides communication aid with the capability to send and parse emails, text messages and phone calls. “The goal of Shipwell,” Traff says, “is to allow every user to feel like they have a control tower view of every supply chain — whatever it looks like.”
With this level of automation, carriers are able to clearly and efficiently manage and communicate in less time than ever before. “Automation is a spectrum and Shipwell seeks to automate what you want automated, fix what you want fixed, and to alert you of problems and potential problems as soon as you want.”
Shipper 360 by J.B. Hunt
J.B. Hunt demonstrated its next release of Shipper 360. Mark Brewer of J.B. Hunt announced a brand new multi-modal freight marketplace. This marketplace is combining an industry-leading intermodal platform with an industry-leading digital freight-matching platform.
In his presentation, Brewer demonstrated how to create a Shipper 360 account, book a load based on the most efficient loads available in real time, and view other load options for the next 14 days as well as shipping patterns for each day of the week — all in under six minutes.
“We are excited about any size shipper using this platform; We really think small to medium businesses are going to love it as they will have the ability to drive out inefficiencies, optimize their transportation and stay connected with real-time visibility.” Brewer said.
Here Technologies
“Here was founded in 1985 and we’ve spent the 35 years since mapping the world,” reported Alex Osaki of Here Technologies. “We collect a tremendous amount of data at a tremendous degree of precision,” Osaki continued, “If we mapped the human body to the same degree and same resolution as we have mapped the world, we would know the location of individual DNA base pairs.”
Here Technologies’ map includes hundreds of road attributes including lane width, weight limits, bridge heights, pole costs and many more. The precision of this map provides the information necessary to make accurate and informed decisions about truck routing. In fact, millions of changes on the map are processed each day to support the release of Here Technologies’ Tour Planning software.
Tour Planning organizes a truck’s daily list of jobs, with each location, time-of-delivery requirements, specific restrictions, etc. What Tour Planning does not only organize but create the best possible route for drivers to take, saving time and money, increasing revenue, and maximizing productivity.
Full Circle TMS
Full Circle TMS is an enterprise level transportation management software system build on the cloud. “This is the third time that I built a TMS,” said Stuart Sutton, founder of Full Circle TMS, “I built my first in ’95, and then in 2001, I built my first SaaS-based TMS, and in the last four years I started this one from the ground up for my third attempt at the perfect TMS.”
Sutton considers Full Circle TMS to be the backbone of its customers’ business. What makes this TMS unique is that it comes with a built-in list of customers and carriers, loadboard and bid board, and a mobile app.
Drivewyze
Drivewyze’s product manager, Charlie Mohn, presented the company’s recent release of Drivewyze Safety Notifications. With a background as “North America’s largest weigh station bypass service,” called Drivewyze Pre-Clear, Drivewyze launched Safety Notifications as a free add-on for bypass users.
Drivewyze Safety Notifications sends push notifications right to the driver to warn about any safety risks they may be approaching, such as rollover-prone curves, low bridges, high-collision areas and steep turns.
A curated list of risk zones is synced to the truck’s cab device, and as the truck travels, the device detects the location and possible approach of a risk zone. The driver hears a chime and a virtual road sign appears on the cab device.
What makes Drivewyze different from other safety software? First, safety notifications are always enabled and alerts will appear even if the driver is not using navigation at that moment. Second, according to Mohn, “Our highly curated risk zones are unique, focusing on areas with a history of collisions.
“Our goal is not just to copy road signs, but to give our drivers clear, actionable alerts to help our drivers make the right decisions in order to stay safe.”
Opendock
“We have a troubling problem in the supply chain. It’s not a new problem; it’s been around for a long time, but it has been getting more attention recently and that problem is truck wait time,” said Bob La Laggia, founder and CEO of Opendock. According to La Laggia, when trucks have to wait, it causes problems for the warehouse as well as the driver.
Opendock sought to solve the problem of wait times by allowing carriers to book directly with warehouses. “Carriers like this way,” La Laggia said, “because it allows them to avoid that unknown, annoying back and forth of emailing and calling. Warehouses like it because it allows them to work in a much more organized and orderly fashion.”
With interfaces for both the warehouse and the carrier, Opendock makes booking loads, updating delivery statuses, making changes and scheduling simple, quick and efficient on both ends.
Trimble Transportation
Trimble Transportation is a global software and hardware solution provider for carriers, shippers and third-party logistics providers which pioneered GPS technology, according to Wilbur Deck of Trimble Transportation.
“Through deep domain knowledge, Trimble delivers an open, scalable platform to help customers make more informed decisions to maximize performance, optimization and safety,” Deck said.
In his presentation, Deck showcased two connected technologies within the Trimble transportation ecosystem: Visibility and Trust Center. These technologies are intended to automate communication, provide visibility to the status of specific vehicles, and provide overall data quality and security.
“If the rest of the world is at your fingertips, shouldn’t your supply chain be as well?” Deck asked.
Descartes
As a global logistics technology company, Descartes offers solutions in many different platforms. Benjamin Derin of Descartes announced visibility solutions for just about anyone in the industry: private fleets, shippers, manufacturers or brokers.
Visibility solutions by Descartes include capacity matching with insight on the best load opportunities, according to Derin. As well as capacity visibility, Descartes provides the option to search through the history of loads and see what carriers have done specific loads in the past, which gives helpful information and direction when it comes to suggestions for new customers.
KoiReader Technologies Inc.
AI-powered unstructured data platform KoiReader Technologies launched its product around six months ago and is now doing business in five countries and three continents, according to Viktoriya Voloshina, from KoiReader Technologies.
“Unstructured data comes from many platforms, whether it’s through email, documents, videos. … But KoiReader provides a way to digitize data in a way that no other technological company has ever attempted,” said Ashutosh Prasad, founder and CEO of KoiReader.
With the ability to identify, digitize and organize information across many platforms, KoiReader saves an image list of information it has read, whether it’s a license plate number or shipping container size, and even whether or not a trailer has been damaged.
“Just bring us your business case and we can provide a solution,” Prasad said, “Or as I like to say, ‘BYOB — bring your own business [case].’”
PostBidShip
Released in April 2019, PostBidShip provides automated spot shipping, which allows customers to tap into the spot market in an “innovative, automated, and intelligent way,” said Sam Levin of PostBidShip.
PostBidShip is the first platform to integrate FreightWaves SONAR to provide insight on where the spot market is, industry rates, carrier challenges, etc. Further, by using this data, users gain insight into the current rates and are then able to provide customers with fair, honest pricing.
“What we value the most is relationship” Levin said. “We want to provide honest industry insights and provide visibility to load options, compliance, safety and quality.”
Digital Logistics Cartel
DL Cartel was presented for the very first time at FreightWaves LIVE. As Jon Walters said, “DL Cartel is an essential platform for small and mid-sized carriers trying to reach the market as well as shippers trying to manage their freight.”
As anyone in the industry knows, trucks make money only when the wheels are turning. DL Cartel seeks to minimize the number of digital apps truckers today are using and centralize a driver’s needs through one platform.
By “reimagining fundamentals,” as Walters put it, DL Cartel allows users to enter the pickup and delivery locations and type of equipment, and gives actual booked prices in a matter of seconds.
Walters is confident DL Cartel, as a communication tool, will enhance performance and efficiency for its customers.