Cutting-edge freight tech startups and innovators give an intimate live product demo on the latest technologies changing the industry. The second round of ten live technologies demonstrations at MarketWaves18 included collaborative, blockchain-based logistics platforms, software that integrated directly into devices onboard a truck, and AI solutions that automate repetitive manual tasks, as well as a focus on driver safety.
Freight Friend
Founder and CEO, Noam Frankel presented on how people drive the transportation industry and it’s dependency on relationships. It’s a SaaS model solution moving truckload freight with asset-based trucking companies. They’re about matching capacity with freight in real time, linking back to TMS if they’re interested in booking the freight. They help assign a carrier to an individual route for one of important steps in the collaborative relationship. Core carrier relationships focus leads to a doubling in efficiency. An affordable visibility and automation approach to working together on a friendly and social media-style basis.
Full Circle TMS
Founder and CEO Stuart Sutton presented on the SaaS-based TMS system. This is the third time he’s built a TMS. It’s a fully functional TMS, built-in network of brokers and carriers, a mobile app with external integrations and white labeling. It includes payment advances in part or in total depending on how you want to customize. Full Circle TMS provides text messaging to all partners in the supply chain. A complete demo of how the product worked took place in under seven minutes. They also provide signatures and bill of lading and invoicing. They’re taking the technology worldwide and the tech can be integrated into blockchain.
HubTran
CEO Brian Rudich presented on how HubTran creates efficiencies. The system automates back office work. Rudich said they are about “reality, not buzzwords.” It integrates with all TMS systems, reduces errors and reduces operations. 3PLs are seeing a 400% increase in producing invoices over what a human alone can do (75 a day). It knows the backoffice pain points, offers real time data feed from TMS, and accounts receivable records. It can automatically check to see if invoice the amount matches the bill. Also, it ensures you’re paying the right entity, stores and files the data, as well. If you want it now, it only takes seven business days to integrate it into your system.
Jackfruit Systems
Sharan Savadattimath CIO and cofounder, says their product addresses the driver shortage in the industry. Their FleetOperate system will revolutionize how carriers can manage their drivers, including hiring them, and being able to trust that they’re making a good decision. It also helps them pay their drivers. The search portal gives a list of drivers available and carriers can select their driver. All the information about experience and numerous details (criminal background, etc.) are immediately available. It creates an ecosystem of trust and accountability and visibility. They work with the drivers in onboarding them onto their system as well. Drivers also receive life insurance packages.
SmartDrive
Dan Lehman, senior VP of corporate development presented on the video-based safety company with three key elements: (1) exonerate your drivers with hard evidence, (2) give you the understanding of risks happening within fleets, (3) provide you with data to make educated decisions. Drivers face a great deal of adversity, and they can provide you with insight into what’s happening. Drivers can be given a small alarm, for instance, if it’s apparent they’re falling asleep. The team also develops analytics for fleets. The KPIs are safety score, driver coaching, and analysis of skills. It offers specific things like following distance, degrees of speeding, and can provide a driver with their own video. The data is also able to be shared with the other applications. Coaching sessions can be as quick as five minutes. This converges technology to provide third party applications.
KPMG
Managing director Yatish Desai and audit partner Ryan McCarthy presented. They say they are one of the only tax advisory auditing applications in the industry. It’s a focus on blockchain technology seeking to add transparency and visibility in the transportation space. The solution helps with multiple-party transitions. This is more from a customs broker perspective, although there are many applications. From a freight forwarder or manufacturing or a carrier perspective, you can see them all. It can take information from legacy systems and integrate. They also compile information and automate the process, helping track a product in order to reconcile it in avoiding extra taxes and fees. KPMG helps fill in the gaps for any kind of sending back and forth in global shipping. They also have a mobile app.
McLeod
Paul Erikson senior software architect presented on McLeod’s blockchain use case/proof of concept for food and pharmaceutical products. It’s about product integrity and the high cost of auditing. The idea is a smart contract creation tool managing a product from beginning to end with a variety of measurements. FlowLogix for blockchain was designed to allow the business owner to easily develop smart contracts for things like flu vaccines. It’s a visually based app with a process flow that helps with what to do with excursions. You can add different components to customize for particular contracts. Using an Ethereum-based blockchain with seven nodes, but there are huge amounts of flexibility for how things are modified and written.
Routeique/Northstar Venture Technologies
Bill DeGrom, president of Northstar, presented in partnership with Routeique on the future of supply chain finance. They want to help to manage cash flow, develop trust technologies, and change the way money flows and businesses interact. It’s also about settlement trust with a focus on identity, distributed ledger, and consensus as the three things necessary to require transactions. It’s about smart contracts dynamically created. Once verified it can then be written to the block, and the members can be notified the transaction is ready to take place. They can then verify the consensus. There needs to be a central ledger in the supply chain. We can now have a status for each step in the flow of each order, a secured invoice. Approval and settlement can then take place. It’s meant to be interoperable regardless of the system you’re already using.
Opus9
CEO and founder Alex Ryu and VP of product Jeff Hiller presented on a digital 3PL that automates the digital supply chain. It’s a fully automated 3PL company, and an automated machine that works within the evolving tech ecosystem. Opus9 automates manual tasks like bills of lading, quotes, invoices, and payment. It services carriers and shippers. Users can get an instant quote, track shipments with your GPS, and a full end-to-end TMS. Plugging your terms and looking for capacity and provides you with an immediate quote depending on your criteria. Quick and easy shipment booking through their carrier network. The shipper can get free access and manage their bookings. The cost between shippers and carriers can, as a result, be reduced. When exceptions are necessary it’s always possible to communicate in a real time way, and not only through automation. Also, they provide full GPS monitoring.
Truckload Carriers Association
Chris Henry from TCA presented on the TPP program about it being a performance-benchmarking program. TPP consists of eight groups including 100 carriers and online users. They have a unique data set that’s “an inch wide and a mile deep.” They call it the mainstream of trucking. “While the tech may not be as strong as some of the other companies,” said Henry, the program is effective and has been around since 2002. Engage is the tool they’re been using for the past four years and is a part of the TPP program. Carriers of all sizes can get on board with the program. Those who get together and share information can see how they’re doing against each other with 230 ingrown KPIs. They ensure the credibility of their data by performing a data mapping routine with each new member and reconcile it against their own data. They match with peer groups and categorize the measurable KPIs.
