When most people think of shipping containers, they think of exactly what’s in the name: shipping. Formally known as an integral part of virtually any product moving across a supply chain, shipping containers keep products safe from external forces like weather and theft. However, recent advancements have been made to use shipping containers to solve an ongoing issue unrelated to their conventional use.
In Cardiff, Wales, shipping containers are being transformed into homes. It may sound questionable, but shipping container homes have proven to be a cost-effective solution to the ever-present struggle of providing proper housing to people in need. The new homes are also easy to relocate whether it’s an individual unit or an entire group. Cardiff Council paid for thirteen containers featuring amenities such as solar panels and sprinkler systems.
The project consists of two different variations of shipping container homes to meet the needs of a variety of household sizes. Seven of the thirteen homes are going to be two-bedroom homes made of a 40 foot and a 20 foot container, while the remaining six one-bedroom homes will be comprised of a singular 40 foot container. The two-bedroom homes are geared towards homeless families with children and will all have direct access to a fenced garden so that the children have a proper, safe place to play. One-bedroom homes will feature a roof terrace and a front door.
Perhaps the most notable features of the new designs are their energy efficient operations and ability to transport with ease to meet demand. If there are certain areas that begin to develop a higher volume of people in need of temporary housing solutions, moving the containers will save time and money in comparison to building new housing solutions.
Communities consisting of shipping container homes are already up and running in Merthyr Tydfil and Wrexham. Shipping containers are already used internationally, so it will be interesting to see if this new take on providing temporary housing will extend beyond the United Kingdom if it is met with success.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/shutterstock_1221257680.jpg34564608Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-06-06 15:57:512019-06-06 15:57:51How Shipping Containers are Helping the Homeless
Many companies are still using the transportation management system (TMS) they installed 15 or even 20 years ago! Technology has changed and improved significantly over that time. So if you’re still using an outdated TMS to manage your logistics operation, it’s time to upgrade to a modern, cloud-based system.
Why Should I Replace My Old TMS?
The old mantra “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” doesn’t work when it comes to technology. Just because a system is functioning doesn’t mean that there aren’t more and better features to improve your shipping operations. A horse and cart are likely faster than walking up the road, but that doesn’t mean a car isn’t the better option to get to your destination efficiently. The same is true when it comes to technology, without exploring all the options, you may be missing out on valuable features.
Legacy TMS systems often don’t provide the transparency and visibility you need to monitor shipments, optimize routes, lower costs and improve efficiencies. What sufficed for customers in the past probably doesn’t cut it with your current customers. Customers have become accustomed to Amazon-like delivery options and visibility to their orders. It’s up to you to meet these heightened customer expectations with technology.
With legacy transportation management systems, there’s no way to tell if a delivery is going to be late so you can warn your customers. You don’t have the ability to collaborate in real time with your carriers and onboarding new carriers is a hassle. Your old TMS is simply not keeping up with consumers’ changing expectations and the increasing demands of the modern supply chain. A modern, cloud-based TMS can help.
How Can I Improve My Transportation Operations with Technology?
Upgrading an older system is rarely an option. To compete in the modern supply chain where visibility and flexibility are key, you need to implement a cloud-based TMS. A cloud-based TMS offers faster start-up, lower usage costs, greater flexibility and rapid return-on-investment (ROI). Lower maintenance and support costs are a big plus, too. With a cloud-based TMS, any size business is given a fair chance at competing with larger companies because of low start-up costs and easier upkeep.
Modern transportation management systems can do a whole lot more than they used to.
Scalability is something that most legacy, on-premise TMS solutions do not offer because of their rigid infrastructure. With scalability available in newer TMSs, you are able to add new features and functionality to your system without starting from scratch. Your TMS should be flexible to grow as your business grows. Start with just rating, booking, scheduling and tracking, then add modular features like freight bill pay and audit, ERP integrations, order consolidation, route optimization, and collaboration portals as needed to help you customize the technology to best fit your needs.
Complete supply chain visibility is another feature which only new, cloud-based TMSs can offer. From the loading dock to the final mile, a TMS should track and trace orders down to the SKU level, giving visibility to what is on each truck, how many items there are and where the truck is. A TMS should help you answer questions like whether the truck is delayed and if there are items missing from the order.
Most legacy TMSs do not integrate well with other systems. Today’s cloud-based transportation management systems have the ability to easily connect and share with customers, suppliers and carriers, on any device, wherever the stakeholder is. New systems integrate purchase orders directly from any ERP system to facilitate the rapid creation of shipments, avoiding the need to re-enter the order, which can lead to errors and increased admin time. Retailers with their own e-commerce engine should be able to connect directly to the TMS by using open APIs, adding shipment tracking and the ability to rate, book and schedule deliveries.
Your TMS Should Connect You To a Vast Network
If your TMS is not cloud-based, will not integrate with other systems and cannot provide end-to-end visibility, along with flexibility and scalability to easily add additional features, then it is time for a change. Not only that, your modern TMS should be connecting you with a vast network of carriers, suppliers, freight marketplaces, brokers, and 3PLs to streamline your operations. Being able to manage all of your shipping functions within a single system is essential. With a cloud-based transportation management system like Kuebix TMS, all of this is possible.
Become a Kuebix Free Shipper to see how a modern TMS can improve your transportation operations today!
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Is-it-Time-To-Upgrade-to-A-Cloud-Based-Transportation-Management-System-1030x687.jpg6871030Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-06-04 11:34:162019-06-04 16:41:50Is it Time To Upgrade to A Cloud-Based Transportation Management System (TMS)?
The truck driver shortage remains top of mind for many throughout America. To combat this perceived shortage, schools are hoping to equip their students for bright futures in a booming industry. They hope to encourage students to follow a career path within logistics by providing classes that walk them through the process of getting their commercial driver’s license (CDL). With the help of these programs, the trucking industry will be able to welcome a new generation of younger drivers looking for long-term work.
Elgin Community College Truck Driving Program
Located in Illinois, Elgin Community College has set out to educate their students on the well paying, steady jobs available to truck drivers and how to join the field. The program requires 320 hours of classroom and road times to teach students all of the information and skills they need to get their CDL.
The school is laying the groundwork for an appropriate foundation of knowledge and experience that will set students up for a more successful future. Those who participate in the program also get a direct line of connection to professionals willing to help them drive and talk to them about their experience in the industry.
Truck Driving Program in Central Minnesota
Concerns about filling what is projected to be just over 4,000 job openings in the trucking industry led to just over a half-dozen local businesses teaming up with Ridgewater College, the Willmar School District and Atwater-Cosmos-Grove City School District to create and provide a class to help students obtain a CDL and fill one of the many available jobs upon graduation.
This new program is only available to 18-year-old students. At the end of the program, students will have taken “a classroom course, taken the written CDL permit test, obtained a required physical, gained experience driving a semi in a simulator lab and spent nearly 40 hours of behind-the-wheel training in an actual semi with an industry pro serving as a mentor.” All of this experience comes together to ensure that the student has received a well-rounded education on the job at hand, allowing them to help companies as well as launch their own career.
Guilford Technical Community College’s Truck Driving Program
Based in North Carolina, Guilford Technical Community College (GTCC) has announced its intent to start a truck driving school on their Cameron Campus in Colfax. Faculty are anticipating a lot of interest in the program from students. With many drivers aging out, companies in the area find themselves constantly looking for drivers.
Guilford County hopes that the program will spark interest within the field, as logistics and transportation are a significant chunk of their businesses as well as the surrounding area. The school is hoping to shed light on the fact that the transportation industry is “one of the most profitable career paths available for students.”
In beginning these programs, schools are solving several issues at hand. They are filling the growing number of open positions within the industry while also helping students launch their long-term careers in logistics immediately upon graduation.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/CDL-License-Training-Students.jpg44486672Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-31 09:34:252019-05-31 09:34:25New Programs Encourage Students to Pursue CDL License
How Can Shipping Communities Gain Shipper Adoption?
For a shipping community to be successful it needs to be built upon a transportation management system (TMS). Shippers want to conduct all of their business through a single, connected platform. When they leverage a robust TMS to manage their logistics operations, they can rate, book, and track all of their shipments for every mode through a single window. When they are looking for additional capacity to supplement their negotiated rates, it makes sense that they’d want to use their main source of transportation management to find that capacity.
A TMS is the natural place to house a spot market where shippers can easily get spot quotes for their freight. That’s because users automatically form the basis of the shipping community that will use the spot market. When the shipper can’t get their freight covered as they need with a negotiated rate, they can seamlessly pivot to a built-in spot market where community members can collaborate to find efficiencies. Unlike a disconnected freight marketplace outside of their normal processes, their TMS joins disparate marketplaces, brokers, carriers, and fleets to make it easy for shippers to find additional capacity through the network.
Not Just Any TMS Will Do, Though.
Most transportation management systems aren’t designed to have a successful community built upon them. For a start, the TMS needs to be capable of handling its users’ every need. That means every mode needs to be covered by the platform and the TMS must integrate directly with any ERP system. Reporting and tracking functionality are also important along with many other features lower-level TMSs simply can’t provide. Simply put, the TMS must be built for small and enterprise sized customers and everyone in between. Features that can be modularly added as the company’s needs change also increase usership since shippers only pay for what they use. Users must to be able to complete all of their logistics operations inside the TMS to keep them engaged with the system and using it routinely.
On the other hand, the TMS needs to be accessible by the masses. Many small businesses can benefit from streamlining their operations with the help of technology. By offering both free and affordable subscription versions of the software, the TMS can rapidly gain more usership by tapping into a segment of shippers in the industry that would otherwise never be able to be connected to collaboration opportunities. When more users join the network, every other user benefits. This is known as the “Network Effect,” a phenomenon where each additional user of a tool increases the value of the tool for every other user.
Kuebix Community Load Match
Kuebix Community Load Match is the spot market built upon Kuebix TMS that any member of Kuebix’s shipping community can take advantage of and is just one of the benefits members receive by belonging to the network. This spot market connects shippers with available truckload capacity without making them leave the system. With Community Load Match, every shipper can discover additional savings on truckload freight by connecting with Kuebix’s vast ecosystem of dedicated truckload carriers.
Currently, Kuebix has over 16,000 companies using the TMS. This group is made up of companies of all sizes, some using Kuebix Free Shipper, some Business Pro users and some Enterprise users with extensive logistics operations. No matter what type of account a user has, however, they are part of Kuebix’s shipping community and can leverage Community Load Match. This makes Kuebix an ideal partner for carriers, brokers, fleet owners, and other freight marketplaces to expose their capacity through.
As the community grows, more opportunities are created and even more shippers and companies with capacity join the network! This is why shipper adoption is the key to growing and maintaining a successful shipping community.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shipping-Community.png8691306Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-28 12:05:562019-05-28 12:05:56Shipper Adoption is the Key to a Successful Shipping Community [Infographic]
The United States Postal Service (USPS) has awarded autonomous-truck creator, TuSimple, a contract to conduct a 2-week pilot program of self-driving trucks starting on Tuesday, May 21, 2019. The self-driving truck startup reached “unicorn status” earlier this year with a $1 billion valuation.
This trial run will transport mail more than 1,000 miles each way between Phoenix and Dallas over the two week period and be used to gauge the affect self-driving trucks could have on delivery times and operational costs for the mail service. TuSimple will complete five round-trips, hauling USPS trailers from a distribution center in Phoenix to another in Dallas.
Each autonomous shipment will be accompanied by a safety engineer to ensure nothing goes wrong during the journey. TuSimple’s self-driving trucks are ranked as Level 4 autonomous, which means that they are capable of operating without the need for a human driver or monitor in certain conditions. Safety engineers will only be present during test runs and are not expected to be needed long term.
During the USPS pilot, the TuSimple trucks will autonomously navigate I-10, the southernmost cross-country interstate highway in the American Interstate Highway System. The I-10 is one of the busiest highways in the country and roughly 60% of all U.S. economic activity touches its pavement at some point.
TuSimple vehicles will also traverse the I-10 in the USPS pilot, indicating that road conditions are suitable for Level 4 autonomy. 60% of U.S. economic activity touches I-10 at some point, according to TuSimple’s press release announcing the contract. In addition to good operating conditions, the length of the route along with on OTD pressures makes it an ideal candidate for self-driving trucks to replace traditional, human-operated ones where drivers work in teams to relay shipments, often working overnights. These factors make it the ideal testing grounds for a long-haul pilot program.
“It is exciting to think that before many people will ride in a robo-taxi, their mail and packages may be carried in a self-driving truck,” said Xiaodi Hou, the founder, president and CTO of TuSimple.
TuSimple’s announcement comes after stalling news about autonomous trucks throughout the industry. Self-driving vehicle creators must battle challenges from regulations to different weather conditions nationwide before they can hope to begin selling to the public or government. TuSimple’s new contract with USPS to conduct a two-week pilot is seen as the next step in the process of making autonomous delivery a reality in the United States.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/USPS-Is-Testing-Self-Driving-Trucks-With-TuSimple-Autonomous-Technology.jpg52007000Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-22 10:14:342019-05-22 10:14:34USPS Is Testing Self-Driving Trucks With TuSimple Autonomous Technology
Virtual reality (VR) is most commonly known for its recreational use in video games. However, the advanced application of technology is beginning to gain traction and be recognized for its improvement of training programs in a multitude of industries. Forbes Magazine reported that VR-based training programs can reduce the amount of time it takes to train a new hire by 40% and improve that employee’s performance by 70% in comparison to a traditionally trained new hire. Through the incorporation of programs involving VR, companies can cut costs and improve performance at the same time.
Virtual Reality in Trucking
The trucking industry is no exception to this steadily rising trend. UPS has estimated that by the end of 2018, they will have put 4,000 new package delivery van drivers through a training program that involves virtual reality.
With VR-based training programs, new hires have the ability to train for their new position as a driver without incurring costs related to insurance, gas, maintenance, or repairs. Traditional methods of training require either physical experience on the roads or watching videos of other people explaining the dos and don’ts of vehicle operation. While physical experience can be costly and tutorial-like videos can be disengaging, virtual reality eliminates both of these concerns and promotes a hands-on, remote method of training.
Companies who implement virtual reality into their standard training methods are also finding that it reduces the risk associated with traditional approaches. Potential accidents or vehicle damage that may happen during the training process are both costly and dangerous. Through VR-based training programs these two scenarios are avoided. In fact, programs can actually give new hires a chance to repeat dangerous situations that are rare and often times turn out to be costly. If the driver ends up in that situation or a similar one later down the line, they will be better equipped and feel more prepared for how to handle it.
According to a report by the American Trucking Associations, approximately 90,000 truck drivers need to be replaced each year for the next decade to combat the truck driver shortage the industry is experiencing throughout America. VR-based training programs teach new drivers quicker than traditional methods, getting them out on the roads faster while still being just as effective.
Not including the cost of accidents, traditional styles of training for truck driving can cost up to $7,000. Despite the growing need for more drivers in the industry, many companies cannot afford such a steep price. Companies adopting VR-based training are experiencing lower costs as well as better quality training programs that are finished in less time. Although it requires an initial investment, VR-based training programs are rapidly gaining traction in the trucking industry.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Virtual-Reality-Trucking-Industry-Kuebix.jpg53047952Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-16 13:04:172019-05-16 13:05:00How Virtual Reality is Transforming the Trucking Industry
Amazon is once again raising the bar for speed of delivery with its announcement that the company’s new goal is to make 1-day delivery standard for Prime customers. Amazon’s 2-day free shipping guarantee has already had huge implications on supply chains, so much in fact that the term the “Amazon Effect” was coined just to describe it.
The Amazon Effect is a trend where customers expect incredibly fast delivery, full visibility to tracking information, and great customer service because of the experience they get with Amazon Prime deliveries regularly. Customer expectations have increased because Amazon has proven it’s possible to deliver products in just 2 days, and to do it for free.
How Does Amazon Plan to Make 1-Day Delivery a Reality?
Amazon has laid out an aggressive strategy to make their 1-day standard delivery promise a reality. The company has announced that they will be greatly expanding their Delivery Service Partner program by incentivizing current employees to open their own package delivery businesses. Current employees will be offered $10,000 and three month’s pay to open their own delivery business, greatly reducing the risk and difficulties associated with staring a new company.
By removing many of the barriers to entry, Amazon hopes to expand the number of available trucks to deliver final mile packages across the country. With more available capacity to hand, Amazon will be able to get products to end customers faster. According to Amazon, entrepreneurs who take advantage of this new incentive program will have access to logistics technology, insurance, and support to be successful. Delivery partners who expand their fleets to 40 vehicles can earn as much as $300,000 in annual profits.
As Amazon increasingly replaces human labor in their warehouses with technology, this is also a strategy to move employees into new, fruitful positions with upward mobility. Many employees who may find their jobs in jeopardy of being replaced by robots can make the switch now to being delivery partners. Amazon is not only encouraging current employees to begin final mile shipping operations; the company will also be reimbursing military veterans up to $10,000 to start their own programs.
What Does This Mean For Companies With Their Own Supply Chains?
Customer expectations are about to rise again. Companies with freight to ship will need to work even harder to deliver superior customer experiences without going into the red. Every business will need to emphasise fast shipping and complete shipping visibility in order to compete with the outstanding service Amazon provides its customers.
What Can Companies Do to Keep Up With Increasing Customer Expectations?
Companies need to leverage network-based technology like Kuebix TMS to optimize their supply chains and connect to the greatest number of opportunities to collaborate with other businesses.
It isn’t feasible for most companies to create their own extensive private fleets like Amazon is doing with its Delivery Service Partner program. Instead, businesses need to connect with capacity already available in the industry to find opportunities to cut back on costs and improve speed of delivery.
Programs like Kuebix Community Load Match help shippers quickly and easily connect to a vast ecosystem of dedicated truckload carriers. Through Community Load Match, shippers can receive spot quotes and book loads without needing to pick up the phone.
Amazon is expanding their network by incentivizing employees to create delivery services. Other shippers can expand their networks by leveraging Kuebix to access new, valuable sources of capacity alongside their negotiated carrier rates.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Amazon-Prime-1-Day-Shipping-Kuebix.jpg35745360Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-14 15:16:352019-05-15 11:46:24What Amazon’s One-Day Delivery Promise Means for Supply Chains
For shippers, calculating freight costs can be one of the hardest expenses to predict and can seriously impact the bottom line.
Using a transportation management system (TMS) can help optimize your shipping process and cut freight costs for LTL, truckload, parcel, intermodal, and other shipping modes. There are a variety of factors that impact how freight rates are calculated. It is helpful to understand these when making strategic shipping decisions on freight. Below are a few of the top factors impacting your freight costs.
Mode of Transportation – The mode you choose to ship your freight will have a large impact on the cost of goods. Shipping a product by air is generally more expensive than driving a truck from point A to point B in the United States. Air can, of course, increase the speed of delivery, making it an important factor to weigh when comparing customer expectations and cost. Full TL is another example of a cost-saving mode when compared with LTL loads. If consolidation of several LTL shipments into one FTL shipment is possible, money can be saved in unloading costs, fuel charges and labor. Consolidation into FTL is often not an option, however, and the best shipping mode remains LTL.
Weight – The shipping industry uses the hundredweight pricing model, which means that freight costs are calculated per hundredweight (CWT). Carriers consult a pricing chart that lists these costs and weight brackets. Under this model, the more your shipment weighs, the less you pay per hundred pounds. Many carriers will offer more competitive prices on volume shipments. Using Kuebix TMS, volume spot quotes can be leveraged directly through the technology.
Distance – The further your freight needs to travel, the higher the freight rate will be. This is due to wear-and-tear on assets, fuel utilization and driving time. It is important to always optimize each load so that the truck takes the most direct route to all stops and fewer trucks are utilized.
If you’re looking for great freight rates on truckload shipments, the best place to look is a community with thousands of shippers, carriers, vendors and brokers collaborating to create the best loads. Kuebix Community Load Match is a truckload spot market where any shipper can easily connect to trucks with available capacity. If you have freight to ship and are looking for additional capacity, you can request and receive truckload spot quotes through Community Load Match for free!
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/calculating-rates.jpg40166016Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-08 10:46:342020-06-11 11:16:32What You Need to Know About Calculating Freight Rates
The team from Kuebix will be exhibiting and speaking this year at the Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2019! This conference is the world’s most important gathering of supply chain leaders and promises to be a great event. The Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference takes place May 13 – 16 at the JW Marriott Phoenix Desert Ridge Resort & Spa in Phoenix, Arizona.
Kuebix will be showcasing our transportation management system (TMS) and doing demos at our booth. Our technology is the industry’s fastest-growing TMS with over 16,000 companies within the Kuebix shipping community already. If you’re planning to attend the conference, we’d love to schedule a demonstration at our booth. Click here to request a meeting through this link.
Dan Clark, Kuebix Founder and President, will also be speaking at the conference. Dan’s session, Community Powered TMS: Driving Profits for Shippers and Carriers, will teach attendees how a cloud-based transportation management system can be the foundation of a vast shipping community where shippers and carriers realize new levels of efficiency and savings.
Dan’s speaking session will begin at 5:15 PM on Wednesday, May 15 and take place in the Grand Saguaro Foyer at the JW Marriot. We hope to see you there!
About the Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2019
Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2019 is the world’s most important gathering of supply chain leaders. Disruptions large and small confront today’s supply chains on a daily basis. At this year’s conference, chief supply chain officers and their leadership teams focus on how to recognize the impacts of disruptions and create transformational strategies that empower the organization to exceed performance expectations.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/KBX_GartnerSCC_Social_600x313-1.png313600Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-05-02 13:34:282019-05-15 10:19:27Join Kuebix at the Gartner Supply Chain Executive Conference 2019
Cloud-based transportation communities are digital networks where companies connect to find opportunities for efficiency and cost savings. These networks are comprised of shippers, carriers, suppliers, brokers, freight forwarders and every other type of company involved in the shipping of freight. On these digital networks, members connect to leverage efficiencies such as finding additional truckload capacity and filling empty fleet miles.
A new eBook, Putting Community in TMS: Enabling the Network Effect in Transportation Management by industry analyst and President of Adelante, SCM, Adrian Gonzalez breaks down how the network effect can be enabled in transportation management. He discusses how network-based transportation management systems (TMS) act as a conduit for shippers to maintain thousands of relationships without needing to manually forge relationships one-by-one with other companies.
“Instead of establishing and maintaining hundreds or even thousands of one-to-one connections, companies make a single connection to the network to communicate and collaborate with their existing trading partners.”
In order to attract the most users and keep them engaged on a routine basis, network-based transportation management systems serve as the operating system for these communities. Shippers are already accessing the TMS for their daily logistics needs and can therefore easily pivot to community-specific features like truckload spot markets and load matching services.
To make these community-specific services enticing and valuable for shippers leveraging the TMS, there need to be a multitude of opportunities flowing into the network-based TMS from the other end. That’s to say, there needs to be extensive available capacity exposed to the community of shippers for opportunities to be found. That’s where partnerships come in.
Kuebix, as the first and only network-based transportation management system, is pioneering this concept. By partnering with external communities and thousands of individual brokers and carriers, Kuebix is able to expose available capacity from all over the supply chain industry to its TMS users.
Partnering with Emerge Private Freight Marketplace
A new partnership with Emerge has enabled Kuebix to rapidly expand the number of opportunities available to its customers in Kuebix Community Load Match, a truckload spot marketplace. Through this partnership, members of the community can tap into Emerge’s Private Freight Marketplace and seamlessly book with thousands of verified carriers without needing to maintain individual relationships.
Partnerships like that with Emerge quickly grow the shipping community and provide users with more opportunities for collaboration. The key is to connect every transportation player through a single system where it is easy to find opportunities for collaboration while simultaneously keeping users engaged with the community, even when they aren’t actively looking for additional capacity.
Kuebix TMS and the Network Effect in Transportation Management
Kuebix TMS was built around the concept of the network effect and is proving the theory in conjunction with transportation management as described by Gonzalez in Putting Community in TMS. As more users join Kuebix’s logistics community by becoming users of the TMS, more carriers, brokers, freight forwarders and other supply chain players can be partnered with to expose available capacity. This creates a snowball effect where when more shippers join to leverage the new opportunities, new partnerships with carriers and brokers can be established to take advantage of more shippers seeking capacity. It’s a win-win for all supply chain players and grows the cloud-based community exponentially.
Currently, there are over 16,000 members of Kuebix’s shipping community and that number continues to grow. The new collaboration with Emerge and other strategic partnerships will continue to drive shippers to the technology, encouraging more partners with available capacity to expose their assets through the technology, and so on and so forth, creating the industry’s largest cloud-based shipping community.
Challenges like the driver shortage, capacity crunch, increased final mile delivery expectations and rising freight prices have shippers looking for ways to improve their supply chains. The solution to these problems is to implement a transportation management system (TMS). A robust TMS can speed up logistics operations, reduce waste and improve the company’s bottom line. Here are a few of the main advantages and benefits of transportation management systems (TMS).
Save between 10 – 20% on your total freight spend depending on your supply chain’s current processes.
Gain visibility to all your loads and always have an answer to the question: “Where’s my truck?!”
Select the best rate & best service type for every shipment by comparing all options side-by-side.
Optimize and consolidateloads and routes to reduce empty miles and improve efficiencies.
Track and trace orders down to the SKU level to provide better service to customers.
Analyze reports, dashboards, and carrier & supplier scorecards to make strategic changes to your supply chain.
Centralize all order and load information so that it can be easily accessed by any team member, creating continuity for logistics teams.
Exceed customer expectations and improve customer satisfaction by shipping faster, cheaper, and with improved visibility.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/TMS-Benefits-and-Advantages.jpg33756000Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-04-25 12:49:002019-05-10 14:14:28The Advantages and Benefits of Transportation Management Systems (TMS) *Infographic*
Sustainability initiatives and efforts to “go green” are trending through every industry and many are focusing on thesupply chain. There are innumerable reasons why companies are prioritizing sustainability. These reasons range from everything from worries about climate change, the need to save money and streamline operations, to increasingly eco-friendly customer bases and the need to please investors that are prioritizing sustainability.
Bloomberg New Energy Finance reported in January that global venture capital investment into startups focused on sustainability jumped 127% to $9.2 billion in 2018, which is the highest seen since 2010. If that increase in investments doesn’t show where the economy is headed, Forbes recently reported on a study which found that:
• 68% of Millennials bought a product with a social or environmental benefit in the past 12 months.
• 87% of consumers will have a more positive image of a company that supports social or environmental issues.
• 88% will be more loyal to a company that supports social or environmental issues.
• 87% would buy a product with a social and environmental benefit if given the opportunity.
• 92% will be more likely to trust a company that supports social or environmental issues.
There is plenty of evidence that sustainability initiatives can improve companies’ bottom lines and strengthen customer loyalty and brand awareness. Finding the opportunities to implement these green initiatives, however, can be seen as a challenge for many organizations unfamiliar with this new terrain. For most companies selling physical products either B2B or B2C, the low-hanging fruit for environmental change lies within their supply chains.
The simplest and most effective way for companies to understand, streamline and make strategic changes to their supply chains is to leverage supply chain technology like transportation management systems (TMS). With the help of technology, companies can make environmentally friendly changes to their supply chains and add to their overall company sustainability initiatives.
Here are 5 ways supply chain technology can help companies can “go green”:
Plan Routes More Effectively
According to the American Trucking Associations, 3 billion gallons of fuel was consumed for business purposes in 2016. That number has likely grown as gross domestic product (GDP) in the United States increased 2.3% from 2016 – 2017 as reported by the World Bank. Reducing fuel consumption should be a priority for businesses not only to benefit the environment but also to reduce transportation costs.
Technology can help logistics professionals choose the best route for every load, something that can be nearly impossible to do by hand. Instead of manually comparing routes and consolidating loads one by one, routers and warehouse employees can leverage optimization technology to automatically create the perfect load based on predetermined parameters. An algorithm in the technology will ensure the fewest number of miles are driven for the maximum number of orders per truck, reducing overall fuel consumption.
Select the Best Mode
Selecting the best mode for every shipment is another way to ensure less fuel (and money) is used on a shipment. Many shippers don’t have time to compare LTL, FTL, ground freight pricing, and parcel for every order, however. With a transportation management system in place, every available mode type can be easily compared on a single screen. That means orders which would normally be shipped as LTL, for example, may be able to be shipped as parcel. By choosing the best mode type for every shipment, companies reduce wasted space on trucks and save money in the process.
Fill Empty Miles
For companies with their own fleet assets, filling empty backhaul and deadhead miles can be a lofty goal. Finding and booking available backhaul freight can be nearly impossible to do manually. It can require one or more individuals to dedicate all of their time to find opportunities, and more often than not those opportunities aren’t repeatable. By connecting to a transportation management system with a large shipping community like Kuebix, fleet owners can be easily matched with available backhaul freight. This means that trucks drive empty less of the time and less fuel goes to waste.
Waste Less Fuel Idling in the Yard
Idling is a large culprit of wasted fuel consumption. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, a typical long-haul truck “idles about 1,800 hours per year, using about 1,500 gallons of diesel.” That’s a shocking amount and most certainly cutting into companies bottom-lines, not to mention contributing to overall fuel emissions. While much of this time idling comes from regulated rest periods, some of it comes from long waits at gates and for available docks in yards. Not only are detention fees being racked up, fuel usage is as well.
Embrace the Circular Supply Chain
The circular supply chain is about taking apparent waste materials and returned goods and turning them into products which can be resold. Shippers can embrace this level of “reduce, reuse, recycle” by using a transportation management system to help track their orders and returns. Complete visibility to products down to the SKU level can help OS&D and customer service departments understand exactly where returns or damaged products are and turn apparent trash into revenue streams.
Reduce the Paper Trail
At their core, supply chain technologies are helping move traditionally operating supply chains to the digital age. That means saying goodbye to the physical paper-trail associated with shipping and instead keeping track of all operations online. By leveraging cloud-based supply chain technology, companies save paper while also speeding up their operations.
Should My Company “Go Green?”
If you’re asking yourself if your company should try to improve their environmental footprint with a sustainability initiative, the simple answer is yes. No matter why you decide to “go green” there will likely be positive benefits for your company. You’re likely to save money, please customers and investors and make a positive impact on the environment. A large portion of companies’ carbon footprints stems from the supply chain, making it the obvious place for many companies to begin their green initiatives. With the help of supply chain technology like transportation management systems, the overall environmental impact can be reduced in a smart and simple way.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Sustainable-Supply-Chain-Kuebix.jpg34566365Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-04-22 14:24:472020-10-19 10:30:216 Ways to “Go Green” With Supply Chain Technology
According to Adrian Gonzalez, President of Adelante, SCM, Supply Chain Operating Networks are the business equivalent of LinkedIn and Facebook. These cloud-based networks can enable companies to embrace collaboration and realize huge efficiencies. But Supply Chain Operating Networks are few and far between. One of the reasons for this absence is because the majority of technology traditionally used by supply chains have been housed within the “four walls” of individual companies. New SaaS, cloud-based technologies like Kuebix TMS are changing this.
As traditional, on-premises transportation management systems become replaced by SaaS, cloud-based ones, companies have the opportunity to digitally connect with one another via new Supply Chain Operating Networks. Kuebix is the first TMS to fully embrace this concept, with Kuebix’s technology acting as the backbone for a rapidly growing community.
The swift growth of Kuebix’s shipping community is proving the idea that the Network Effect can be used to great advantage in the supply chain industry. With over 16,000 companies in the Kuebix’s shipping network, thousands of suppliers, shippers, carriers, brokers, and other supply chain players are able to connect with one another for new collaboration opportunities.
These opportunities can lessen the impact of tightening capacity, help fill empty backhaul miles and ensure that shippers are always aware of the most cost-effective and customer-friendly options to ship.
Transportation management is inherently a network-based business process. It involves an ecosystem of different parties — a community, if you will, of shippers, carriers, consignees, brokers, and others that need to communicate and collaborate with each other in order to transport products and utilize assets and labor as efficiently as possible.
This transportation community is analogous to the connections and relationships enabled by social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn. A big difference, however, is that unlike Facebook and LinkedIn, which are powered by network native software, the transportation community has historically been powered by enterprise-centric software — that is, transportation management systems (TMS) that were designed for, and used primarily by, the transportation function within the four walls of a company.
This fragmented, “inside the four walls” approach makes it challenging to quickly and efficiently match transportation demand with available capacity, as companies of all sizes experienced in 2018. This growing need in the market for better matching of supply and demand, coupled with the rise of cloud computing, software-as-a-service (SaaS), application programming interfaces (APIs), and other emerging technologies, is driving the next evolution of transportation management systems.
Simply put, transportation management systems are transitioning from being “inside the four walls” applications to becoming operating systems that power transportation communities and enable network effects.
On March 16th, Skirmantas Strimaitis discovered he was the lone passenger on a Boeing 737-800 with a seating capacity of 189 people headed from Vilnius, Lithuania to Bergamo, Italy. When tour operator company Novaturas realized the flight they had chartered earlier for guests was going to fly back empty, they decided to put one-way tickets on sale in an attempt to generate additional profit on a trip they had to take regardless. This process is one commonly referred to in the supply chain industry as filling backhaul miles, which has become vital to the success of supply chains worldwide.
Courtesy Skirmantas Strimaitis
How Can This Concept Help Companies?
Whether freight is moving via flight, drive, or boat ride, all modes of transportation have one thing in common- the trip back. It has to happen, so why not utilize it? Through filling their backhaul miles with additional freight, fleets are largely improving their business. Delivering additional freight on a trip that they had to take anyways is generating additional revenue and reducing the amount of gas waste simultaneously. Having truck drivers deliver at a time where they have to commute regardless helps lower the cost of labor and maintenance necessary for the fleet to run smoothly.
Why Aren’t More People Doing it?
It may seem puzzling that filling backhaul miles isn’t common procedure if it is as helpful as it sounds. This is largely due to the fact that organizing and managing backhauls has proven to be time-consuming and oftentimes expensive. There are limitations as to how far and for how long drivers can be on the roads, which often makes it difficult to find feasible opportunities to execute backhauls in the first place. Routes that are already being driven face even more challenges because they are operating steadily and adding a backhaul can sometimes seem to be impossible based on location.
What Do We Do?
The most efficient and effective way to start filling backhaul miles is to utilize technology. Doing so allows companies to work even more efficiently and removes some of the pressure from the process. For example, Kuebix created FleetMAX, which is a program that matches backhaul capacity with freight to consistently reduce the number of empty miles and make the most of each trip. It simplifies the process of scrambling to find freight and provides real-time visibility into routes that have been planned and the locations and movement of freight. Letting a program like FleetMAX do the heavy lifting in a process as involved as filling backhaul capacity makes it a much more feasible task for all supply chains.
https://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/boeing-737-kuebix.jpg29204386Sammi Guillenhttp://www.kuebix.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/FW-Kuebix-Web-Logo-300x138.pngSammi Guillen2019-04-15 12:13:132019-04-16 15:47:34One Man’s Solo-Trip on a Boeing 737 is Really Additional Backhaul Revenue
