Digital yard management company PINC is joining forces with supply chain Internet of Things platform project44 to enhance real-time visibility and automation solutions for carriers and shippers.
PINC’s system already illuminates and automates operations at transportation nodes, but project44 will provide visibility to customer assets outside yard boundaries, PINC CEO Matt Yearling told FreightWaves.
“This will be the first time that the shippers, carriers and customers will have access to this kind of real-time visibility and automation capabilities from in-transit operations as well as from a yard perspective,” he said.
The partnership, announced Tuesday, comes as e-commerce demand skyrockets, putting pressure on distribution centers, warehouse and manufacturing plants to improve gate velocity, optimize driver turnaround times and reduce costs.
Project44’s shipment and ETA data in concert with PINC’s asset and load data will accelerate the check-in process and provide customers with dynamic load scheduling visibility, Yearling said. Supply chain companies will also gain real-time insights into yard asset and load life cycle transitions through project44’s Advanced Visibility Platform.
At the enterprise level, the data exchange between PINC and project44 will enable shippers to
improve shipment velocity, enhance sustainability, reduce accessorial charges, and manage
carrier contracts and transportation budgets more effectively.
Citing an example of how the integration will lead to more efficient operations, Yearling said suppose five loads got delayed and arrived at the same time — and on top of another shipment to boot. With project44’s ETA information, PINC’s system “can know and automatically adjust” the appointments based on different criteria and then alert different parties to the changes.
This process eliminates gate congestion, Yearling said.
The ETA information also removes the need for shippers to repeatedly call carriers about shipment location and when they will arrive. “This improves the shipper’s overall customer service experience and reduces labor in the shipper’s transportation organization,” according to Yearling.
Founded in 2004, PINC digitizes yard management, providing turnkey and software-as-a-service (SaaS) yard management and supply chain visibility products.
The company has a cloud-based real-time tracking platform, powered by an IoT sensor network that includes passive RFID, GPS, computer vision, cellular and other sensors. The platform automates and optimizes gate activities, trailer movements, dock scheduling, yard operations and functions performed by yard workers and administrators.
In an interview with FreightWaves earlier this summer, Yearling noted the company’s yard system targets what he referred to as a “blind spot” – the link between transportation and warehouse activity.
Also in June PINC announced that it had secured a significant growth equity investment from Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm.
The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
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