This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Enterprise Fleet Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Impact of technology on productivity in trucking
DETAILS: Kelly Williams is the president of Enterprise Product Management for the transportation sector at Trimble. After spending 20 years at a leading carrier, she leads the product development organizations for several of Trimble’s core transportation technology verticals, including transportation management (TMS), maintenance and network optimization.
KEY QUOTES FROM WILLIAMS:
On gains in the industry from new technology: “What I do believe is that there is this underlying mindset of slow adoption in this particular industry, slow adoption of new technology and new ideas. WThere was this real ramp-up in a run of great technologies that have entered the marketplace. Where I see the issue right now is that we haven’t really been able to connect them in a way that’s impactful for the people that are doing the work every day.”
On the value of human experience: “Is technology supposed to boost that productivity? I think it has to, but it has to be combined with that underlying knowledge.”
On the progress that has been made: “I think the pure brokers out there have done a nice job of automating some things and streamlining because they had to, because it was so resource-heavy early on. I think the same could be said of the procurement technology that’s come into play. Historically, the bid tools have been driven by the shipper side of things. And I think that technology is evolving in a really nice way that brings the carrier view into perspective.”