High reliability, real-time, accurate visibility compliance, and precision on-time pickups and deliveries are critical. It becomes table stakes in today’s high-velocity, e-commerce driven supply chains. What’s the solution? It starts and ends with the truck driver.
The challenge of visibility – and how to accomplish it consistently, reliably and accurately — has been around since the first truck picked up the first shipment, and the customer asked, “where’s my load.”
Yet in defining what is visibility, the conversation can get confused. What does the shipper want and need to see, versus where is the truck, and how do I know it’s really where it says it is.
When it comes to generating data on shipment location, not all technologies are the same. Carriers use different methods and tools. Some use data derived from in-cab Electronic Logging Devices, some from sensors on trailers, some from smart-phone based apps that use the phone’s GPS capabilities to identify location. And lastly, some use the old-fashioned method – picking up the phone and calling the driver.
At the end of the day, regardless of the tech solution, the most reliable resource for accurate information is the driver in his truck. And the one thing you don’t want to do is force technology that the driver doesn’t want and won’t use, and especially doesn’t make life easier on the road.
So, the key to an effective, sustainable, reliable solution: put the driver at the center. Understand the driver’s key role as a facilitator. Know that any app they download must improve the driver’s experience. Make the functional tools simple and easy to use, intuitive, mobile-friendly, and requires minimal steps to activate and execute. And make it part of an “all in one” app the driver already is familiar and comfortable with.
How do I bring in a vendor to help with this without disrupting my day to day work? We will share two case studies, how they’ve solved the visibility challenge, dramatically improved carrier participation and compliance, and built a happier and better performing carrier network in the process.
Featured speaker:
- Prasad Gollapalli, Founder and CEO, Trucker Tools
