Trucking Goes High-Tech
Trucking Goes High-Tech, Saving Money & Time
By Drew Robb
Wednesday January 19, 2005 — 8:00 am ET
Trucking has traditionally been a low-tech arena. The best you might expect would be a CB radio, a cell phone and maybe a backend server for orders and driver assignment.
But the slick image and real-time savvy of Fed Ex and UPS now is bleeding into the more traditional world of trucking. As a result, wireless, GPS and real-time updates now are being adopted by some companies as a means of competitive advantage.
''We needed a faster, more reliable way to gather data on our pickups and deliveries, and to improve our route optimization processes,'' says Gregory Confer, director of Process Analysis and Improvement at Ward Trucking. ''By implementing wireless technology, we have reduced clerical data entry by several hours a day at each of our facilities and increased overall efficiency.''
The company adopted route optimization and dynamic dispatch software by Cheetah Software Systems Inc. of Westlake Village, Calif., as well as Nextel cellular voice and text messaging. As a result, the company now can track the movement of its fleet, and offer accurate ETA's to customers, as well as updates on the progress of shipments.
Less than a Truckload
Ward Trucking is headquartered in Altoona, Penn. and serves the mid-Atlantic market. Formed in 1931, Ward's fleet services a client list that spans Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia. The company serves a specific niche in the trucking world, known as Less than Truckload (LTL). An LTL carrier does pickup and delivery (P&D) business for loads smaller than one truckload. Customers place an order and share the trailer with materials from other customers.
Similar to airport shuttles, you share the ride with several other passengers rather than having your own dedicated taxi service. And the similarities continue. Anyone who has ever ordered a shuttle knows that the time of arrival can vary widely, and that occasionally you may even miss your flight. Your trip from the airport might take one hour or several, depending on how many other passengers are aboard and where they have to be dropped off.
The average LTL carrier operates in a similar fashion. You call in an order, clerks manually type these orders into the back-end system, and at the end of the day, they type in the deliveries made by returning drivers. Dispatchers take all this data and schedule the order of drop offs for the coming day, then contact drivers by phone or two-way radio to verify deliveries.