How a Transportation Management System (TMS) Can Benefit a Business of Any Size

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A Transportation Management System (TMS) helps companies streamline their logistics processes so that they are as efficient and connected as possible. Instead of manually managing logistics operations over the phone and email, companies can use technology to save money, reduce processing time, scale operations and improve accuracy. At their core, TMSs help companies rate, book and track shipments. Additional functionality like reports and dashboards, integrations, financial management and spot services can be added to increase the value companies realize from their TMS.

Many organizations incorrectly believe that TMSs are only for large, enterprise organizations. This notion may have been true once when the time and monetary expense limited the implementation of technology to only the largest companies. Now, however, technology has advanced and companies like Kuebix have democratized the booking for freight with plans for every size company.

According to Inbound Logistics magazine, “most Tier 1 shippers – those that spend $100 million+ annually on freight – already use TMS solutions.” These companies say that a TMS contributes to critical business drivers, such as complexity, scale, customer experience and freight cost savings.*

Smaller firms still use manual approaches to manage their freight, relying on in-house expertise using spreadsheets, fax, phone and email, often resulting in excess admin time, errors and duplicated efforts.

However, with globalization and the growth of e-commerce opening up new markets and reaching customers around the world, the time has come for smaller firms to take advantage of TMS solutions that can bring better customer service, lower freight spend, improve performance and more.

To get up and running quickly, small to medium-sized businesses can adopt cloud-based TMS solutions – getting rates, booking and tracking shipments and communicating with carriers and shippers in real-time – all on a single platform. Because of the cloud, these systems offer a much lower total cost of ownership, are simpler to implement and require no internal IT support.

 

Using a TMS, compared to manual approaches, can help your business to:

• Optimize and consolidate shipments

• Improve service levels, giving customers a great first impression

• Save on freight costs

• Lower admin costs and reduce errors

• Access a large carrier pool

• Address all shipping options and modes, all on one platform

• Monitor shipments in real-time

• Quickly evaluate carrier performance through historical reports

• Increase visibility into what is happening within your transport operations

• Communicate shipment status to customers

• Get much-needed carrier capacity in a tightened market

 

What if you need more functionality? Choose a TMS that is flexible enough to grow as your business grows, allowing you to add features in a modular fashion as needed. Kuebix TMS lets you begin rating, booking and managing your LTL, TL, parcel, rail, ocean and air freight in minutes. For more complex supply chains, Kuebix can be configured with Premier Applications and Integrations to meet the needs of even the largest enterprise.

Check out our free Kuebix Shipper TMS for unlimited rating, calculating freight cost, booking, and tracking!

*Primary Research in Evaluating the Business Case and Approval Process for Supply Chain Execution Systems Acquisition – Jim Hendrickson, Professor, Fisher College of Business, The Ohio State University.

Kuebix SupplierMAX

The Recipe for an Unbeatable Inbound Freight Management Strategy

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Managing inbound freight operations is an ongoing challenge for businesses with large numbers of suppliers. Companies are impacted by the inefficiencies, low levels of visibility and lack of standardization associated with the management of their inbound freight. These problems are exacerbated when companies lack comprehensive strategies for obtaining the lowest possible shipping and unloading costs or a plan to improve the behavior of their suppliers. A complete strategy for inbound freight management needs to encompass the following three aspects; visibility, collaboration and accountability.

Visibility – Although companies control their own destinies on the outbound side of the equation, that level of control dwindles when it comes to inbound freight. In the end, the receiving company does not have full planning and visibility for shipment arrivals and dock reservations. To optimize their inbound, stakeholders can benefit from better visibility of information (e.g., knowing what carrier is being used, exact timing of deliveries, how much manpower is in the DC to load/unload shipments, etc.), real-time data sharing and the knowledge that everyone is working toward a common goal.

Collaboration – By using a comprehensive inbound freight plan based on a collaborative ecosystem of shippers, suppliers and carriers, companies can effectively establish a dynamic rating and unloading allowance program. As companies work in partnership with their suppliers to determine the most cost-effective method to handle each shipment – customer pick-up (CPU) or vendor controlled (VDS), the goal should be to reduce overall shipping costs. By giving suppliers choices, they’ll be able to pick the most effective service and billing procedure. Convert inbound shipments from VDS to CPU shipments only when it’s feasible, and then establish preferred rates with a select group of carriers to handle those inbound shipments at the lowest possible cost and best service type. Use a standard routing guide to establish a set of mandatory carriers that will be used for all VDS and CPU shipments. This will enable LTL pricing improvements, superior service levels and maximize opportunities for LTL consolidation.

Accountability – While companies can’t always control what their suppliers do or the efficiency of suppliers’ systems, they can implement Vendor Inbound Compliance Standards (VICS) to help improve supplier behavior. A comprehensive set of compliance procedures will establish rules and processes that must be followed by suppliers when making deliveries. These accountability levels should also extend to the company’s own supply chain/logistics department and procurement group, both of which play a role in ensuring that products get quickly from their origin to the distribution center (DC). The goal? Improve supplier behavior so that their inefficiencies are not wasting time and money at the DC. It’s also important that a company’s inbound strategy includes leveraging detailed analytics to measure the results of the program and take action where necessary to improve service with suppliers and carriers.

By following this general recipe, companies can work with specialists in inbound freight to develop an unbeatable inbound freight management strategy. But knowing what to do and being able to do it effectively are two entirely different hurdles companies need to jump. It’s for that reason Kuebix has developed SupplierMAX, a program where companies can leverage Kuebix’s technology and logistics experts to manage all or a portion of their inbound freight program. SupplierMAX improves supplier behavior and increases the efficiency of warehouses and distribution centers by incorporating a series of comprehensive strategies to improve inbound operations. To learn more about this program, click HERE to read the SupplierMAX press release in full.

What Should You Pay For Your Freight?

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Calculating freight rates is a critical step for any business with product to ship. Freight rates may be for a variety of destinations, multiple classes and different weights, but how much it costs to ship product will always be a key driver of your total cost of goods. Getting all the information is necessary to positively impact your bottom line by lowering your cost of goods and getting your product shipped on your terms.

Enter the Kuebix Freight Rate Calculator – a new free tool for all transportation and logistics professionals to research and get instant estimates on their LTL freight.

Here are 3 Reasons to Use the Kuebix Freight Rate Calculator:

  1. Do you have freight to ship but no negotiated carrier rates?
  2. Are you working with a 3pl and have no idea what your freight should actually cost?
  3. Are you just curious if the rate you are currently using is a good rate?

Using the Freight Rate Calculator is simple and only requires the basic information on your freight. Simply visit the calculator by following this link and type in your shipment information. You will need the postal code (zip code) for the origin of the freight as well as the destination postal code. The origin city and state will automatically populate below. Then simply enter your freight’s quantity, weight and dimensions and instantly receive an LTL freight rate.

After receiving your LTL freight rate estimates, you can explore even better rates on LTL, TL and Parcel shipments plus book and manage all your freight by signing up for Kuebix Free Shipper, the free multimodal TMS for unlimited rating, booking and tracking. Kuebix Free Shipper allows you to view all of your carrier rates side by side, empowering you to book the best rate for every shipment.

Begin Calculating Your Rates Now

Kuebix Global Logistics Community

Global Online Logistics Community: If You Build It They Will Come, Sometimes

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Over the past decade, there has been a focus in the transportation industry on creating new avenues for finding capacity, getting better rates and improving customer service. To this end, a number of online communities have popped up with the promise of freight savings through matching carrier capacity to shipper demand.

However, over the years many of these communities have failed. Here are 5 reasons:

  1. A focus on spot rates only
  2. No support of negotiated carrier rates
  3. No direct connection to carriers
  4. No sticky factor to keep the shippers coming back
  5. High barrier of entry to get shippers on boarded

Many online logistics communities were originally established as a marketplace for volume spot transactions. A major reason these communities failed was because they focused on just a small piece of the way companies ship freight. On average, 90%+ of freight is booked via negotiated carrier rates, leaving just 10% or less for volume spot rates. Most communities built around volume spot rates alone failed because they didn’t offer access to the negotiated carrier rates that companies use to ship their freight the vast majority of the time.

Many communities also underestimated the importance of long-standing carrier relationships. However, direct connection to carriers was not possible until just a few years ago when carriers began exposing their APIs for rating, booking and tracking on their websites. Now technologies like Kuebix can build direct connections to carriers, allowing companies to view all their carrier rates, book shipments and track freight on one platform.

Communities also need a “sticky factor” to entice members to join and keep them “glued.”  An online logistics community must offer a tool that logistics professionals use every day, like a transportation management system.

Finally, a community must have a very low barrier to entry. Free versions of technology are very appealing for this reason. Think about what would have happened if, when Facebook was started, people were charged to connect to the network and use its features. Because Facebook is free, millions of people were able to join the community without any barriers.

The idea of building a community that offers dramatics savings by matching carrier capacity to shipping demand is appealing, but communities that are not built with shippers’ day to day needs in mind are destined to fail.

Learn more about Kuebix’s Free TMS and the Global Logistics Community. Try our new Freight Rate Calculator.

Gaining Supply Chain Visibility Doesn’t Have to be a Daunting Task

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Supply chain visibility (SCV) is at the forefront of supply chain leaders’ minds in 2018. Today’s businesses need to know where their product is, when it is going to be delivered, and every detail regarding the contents of their freight. It’s also essential to provide this level of visibility to all the stakeholders in the supply chain. Silos between procurement, warehouse ops, finance and the customer cause breakdowns in the system, resulting in wasted time and lost revenue. Imagine connecting all the logistics professionals who are working to ship your freight from point A to point B on one seamless interface. Giving stakeholders access to the same actionable information in real-time sets them up for better communication and the ability to remove roadblocks.

For many companies working diligently to compete in the new landscape, the prospect of enhancing visibility to their supply chains is daunting. The expected time commitment and resources required to integrate legacy systems with a transportation management system (TMS) is often seen as too costly and inefficient; outweighing the benefits of such a system. These barriers to service are hindering many companies’ ability to gather data on their supply chains and compete at the high-level Amazon has made the industry standard.

Kuebix is revolutionizing logistics management with its intelligent TMS. By seamlessly connecting legacy ERP systems with Kuebix and bolstering the direct customer-carrier relationship, Kuebix enables shippers to see every node of their supply chains. Stakeholders can use one solution to view and manage their freight, saving time and breaking down silos. And depending on the scope of the integration needed, Kuebix TMS can be ready to use in a few weeks to a few months. This modular, scalable solution gives companies previously unable to cope with the commitment of old-fashioned TMS systems the ability to make data collected across the supply chain available to all users and gives them greater control and visibility into what is happening across their enterprises.

Supply chain visibility will be a weighty topic in 2018, as the industry acclimatizes itself to new levels of supply chain control. The question is no longer whether visibility is essential for shipping companies, but how long customers are willing to patronize suppliers without it. The competition will become fiercer and the bar continue to be pushed higher. Here are Kuebix we are excited to see how the demand for increased visibility will continue to evolve the supply chain.

How Food & Beverage Companies Can Optimize Their Inbound

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Food and beverage businesses have complex supply chains with many unique characteristics: ever-changing customer tastes, tight margins on store shelves, fresh products that may spoil, expiration dates on products, and more. Getting the right volume of products at the right time, and at the right location, is no easy task. Visibility into and control of supply chain processes will allow food and beverage businesses to address these challenges while meeting business goals.

Frequently overlooked and often pushed to the bottom of a shipper’s supply chain agenda, good inbound freight management can help companies improve shipment visibility, save money, and enhance customer service—all of which add to the bottom line and boost profitability. Done right, inbound freight management does more than just help companies gain an understanding of where their shipments are in real time. It also enables better relationships with carriers and suppliers for consolidation efforts, establishes routing guides that lead to much better dock efficiency, and empowers strategies for continuous improvement initiatives.

Food and beverage companies get dozens of deliveries a day from different suppliers. These inbound shipments aren’t coordinated or consolidated, fostering inefficiencies from the excess number of deliveries. Little visibility into arrival times and frequent changes to inbound deliveries wreaks havoc at the dock and warehouse, which can make accessorial charges skyrocket and your inbound transport costs go off the charts.

Small to large food and beverage companies have found a TMS to be the perfect tool for addressing the many challenges that come with managing inbound freight. For example, one food retailer that operates over 200 stores across seven states had a couple hundred LTL deliveries per week, but by using Kuebix TMS, they were able to lower the number of deliveries to 20 or 30 per week by combining LTL deliveries into full truckload deliveries from the consolidation points. The typical cost for unloading a truck is $200, leading to approximately $34,000 in savings per week just on unloading costs!

Here are three steps you can take to start managing your inbound freight more effectively today:

1. Partner with your suppliers to lay out a plan of action. Determine the most cost-effective and efficient way to ship and unload your freight, and build a plan with your suppliers that benefits both parties. There is no “magic number” for a percentage of shipments that should be vendor-controlled vs. customer controlled. Give your suppliers a choice so that they can select the most effective service and billing procedure. Then, implement a standard routing guide for supplier compliance. This will establish a set of mandatory guidelines that will be used for all vendor-controlled (VDS) and customer pick-up (CPU) shipments. Supplier compliance programs reduce your cost of goods by making your carriers and warehouse more efficient. In the event your suppliers fail to comply, they will share in your cost through violations outlined in the routing guide.

2. Create strong alliances with your carriers. Consolidate inbound shipments to full truckload wherever possible to reduce freight and unloading costs. Reducing the number of individual LTL shipments will decrease the cost of freight, dramatically increasing the efficiency of your distribution center and significantly reducing unloading costs. Think how much more efficient your operations will be with fewer trucks and fewer deliveries. For example, unloading 10 to 14 different LTL shipments can be five times the cost of unloading a single truckload. The customer and the supplier can share all of these savings through the efficiency of consolidated shipments and drop trailer programs. By consolidating your LTL pool, you can simplify yard management and maximize consolidation opportunities. Select carriers that provide attractive rates and superior service and try to limit that set to two to four different carriers, whether the shipments are CPU or VDS. This will give each carrier enough business to ensure LTL consolidation does not affect service levels. Having a strong partnership with your carriers also opens up other opportunities for additional savings such as backhaul agreements with LTL carriers to consolidate freight to single truckload for pick up by your own fleet for the final mile.

3. Leverage technology to your advantage. Utilize a transportation management system (TMS) to maximize inbound freight management. For example, leverage your TMS to implement an allowance program for freight costs and unloading expenses with your suppliers. In most cases, allowances are negotiated once or twice a year, and rarely take into account fluctuating costs and carrier rates. Oftentimes, market rates rise above negotiated rates. Kuebix TMS enables the creation of dynamic rate allowances to ensure savings on both TL and LTL shipments by calculating the best possible real-time vendor allowances based on actual carrier rates as demand dictates. Additionally, a TMS will also automate tracking, scheduling and door assigned, which will directly reduce your labor spend. Finally, if you cannot measure something it is hard to improve it. An effective TMS will capture every relevant piece of data and return reports, dashboards and scorecards that allow you to analyze your inbound freight program and identify opportunities for increased efficiency.

Ultimately, good inbound freight management facilitated by technology helps shippers achieve cost and productivity goals that very often get overlooked in the logistics space. By taking a step back and gaining a better understanding of your current inbound environment—then working with suppliers and carriers to come up with a plan of action to improve it—you’ll be able to leverage all of the market’s capacity, get the best rates, and gain better visibility over your end-to-end supply chain.
To learn more about optimizing your inbound read “The Art of the Inbound”.

Amazon Effect

Retailers vs. The Amazon Effect

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Consumers are enamored with Amazon and its superb treatment of its customers, providing customers with visibility to their orders from dock door to the final destination – all shipped within a timeframe that ranges from a few hours to a few days. Consumers expect every retailer they order from to have the same customer service capability. While this may not be fair, its reality, and retailers need to revamp their operations to comply.

E-Commerce businesses need to provide accurate, on-time delivery of customer orders to keep customer satisfaction and profits up, but successful shipments for the right price require a transportation management system (TMS) that integrates with e-commerce platforms. By integrating with a TMS, e-commerce businesses get complete control over carriers, rates and modes of transportation and can gain access to more quality carriers across all modes, offering the most competitive rates and opportunities for freight consolidation.

E-commerce platforms integrated with Kuebix TMS put world-class shipping power within the reach of any business, regardless of the size. E-commerce businesses have a one-stop transportation shop to choose any transportation mode and services at their fingertips when their e-commerce platform is integrated with a TMS, creating flexibility in deliveries, such as consolidation opportunities.

A TMS provides the ability to batch, rate, schedule, track and analyze orders for improved operations when serving customers, creating greater efficiencies and lowered costs. Using an e-commerce platform integrated with Kuebix TMS streamlines logistics operations to control costs, ensures delivery accuracy and speed, and enhances customer service.

Recently, Kuebix integrated with e-commerce platforms, Big Commerce and Shopify, allowing merchants to better serve customers. Real-time visibility across the entire supply chain from checkout cart to the end user’s door allows you to communicate estimated delivery times and supply alerts if a shipment will be delayed. Because Kuebix TMS supports all modes, including parcel, LTL and TL, e-commerce you can choose whether it is more profitable to ship heavier items via LTL than the traditional parcel method.

With an integrated TMS, e-commerce merchants are empowered to choose the best mode that best accommodates each shipment’s freight amount, weight and dimensions; distance to destination; delivery speed and priority; special handling requirements; and other direct-to-consumer variables. Kuebix TMS offers advanced analytics to monitor and influence issues at a granular level, allowing managers to quickly visualize freight spend savings or carrier performance.

Access to the most competitive rates from all transport modes boosts sales as more customers expect competitive pricing on shipments. Merchants are able to see their logistics operation as a profit center, rather than a cost center by saving on delivery costs. Kuebix TMS offers full tracking and visibility of your freight expense down to the SKU level across every mode and along every step of its journey.

Got an e-commerce shop? Look into how you can better price your transportation transactions so you don’t lose money and so that your customers will get their orders when they want them. Contact Kuebix today.

2018 Predictions

2018 Supply Chain Predictions

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In the book, The Living Supply Chain, the authors argue that, “Speeding up the supply chain is at the root of everything that is good: improved revenue, reduced working capital, higher profitability, and less obsolete inventory. Conversely, slowing down the supply chain is at the root of everything that is bad: working capital write-offs, reduced profitability, and slowing revenues.”

To “speed” up the supply chain is to invest in change and change will come with the digital transformation of the supply chain, which is the major focus for executives in 2018. Much change in the supply chain industry will be due to innovative technologies for digital transformations, along with the recent tax reforms, and the still-current driver shortage/capacity crunch. Digital transformation of the supply chain will change everything – for the better.

These are the innovative technologies that I predict companies must use to undergo this transformation within their supply chains:

Cloud-based technology deployments lower cost of ownership due to not having a large capital expenditure on hardware and upgrades. Cloud-based solutions are ideal for any size business because they can be scaled up as your business grows and are easier to set-up and manage.

Advanced Analytics will support real-time decision making based on data captured across the supply chain. With analytics, businesses can more effectively predict and fill demand. You can also manage relationships with carriers, suppliers and customers while improving processes. Using advanced analytics in a transportation management network to look at historical traffic patterns, you can plan a truck’s route that takes into account time delays for more accurate arrival times.

Tracking and Tracing of raw materials through manufacturing to the end customer must take on Amazon-like capabilities, meaning customers will know where their orders are at any one time, just like when you order from Amazon. With track & trace, you will get deep visibility to SKU-level information from first-mile to last-mile, including the tracking of costs to better monitor transport spend. Communications with customers will be proactive instead of reactive, alerting customers if their order will be late or when it will arrive.

Supply Chain Visibility will make data collected from end-to-end across the supply chain available to all stakeholders, giving them greater control and visibility into what is happening across the enterprise. You can uncover roadblocks within your supply chain that could lead to delays in shipping.

Blockchain will provide interconnectivity between ledgers of supply chain trading partners, enhancing traceability of transaction history. Automating the flow of information among trading partners provides transparency and boosts efficiencies. Blockchain works with cryptocurrency to determine payment amounts, allowing drivers to be paid as they complete parts of their journey. This completely removes the transport broker from the equation, giving drivers access to quicker settlement. However, blockchain is still a technology that needs further development before it can be proved useful to some businesses.

Artificial Intelligence initiatives require specialists who are hard to find, potentially stalling any projects. AI utilizes algorithms to detect patterns in vast volumes of data and interpret their meaning such as predicting whether a carrier will be on-time based on weather conditions and past performance.

Predictive Analytics, often combined with Artificial Intelligence, helps shippers understand, automate and optimize their supply chain processes to gain better efficiencies. Predictive analytics provides shippers with actionable intelligence to guide the decision-making process, helping you to reduce costs and optimize operations. Scorecards on carrier performance can alert shippers on which carriers can better meet their service obligations.

The Internet of Things (IoT) – More devices, from pallets to trucks will have sensors embedded to transmit status and performance data. This real-time information will be used for monitoring everything from equipment health to asset locations to order tracking and more. Advanced analytical systems use the data to uncover trends that lead to performance improvements and cost reductions.

Kuebix TMS is a game-changer for your business in 2018, regardless of the company size because Kuebix offers advanced applications to meet the needs of even the most complex supply chain operations. Kuebix TMS finds the best freight rates for all modes, books and tracks shipments, audits and manages transport finances and utilizes advanced analytics to measure and monitor trends and performance activities. Kuebix TMS offers full tracking and visibility of your freight expense down to the SKU level across every mode and along every step of its journey.

Kuebix Named to FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers

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Kuebix was named to the 2017 FL100+ awards by Food Logistics magazine! The FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list serves as a resource guide of software and technology providers whose products and services are critical for companies in the global food and beverage supply chain. Kuebix was selected for helping shippers increase efficiencies and visibility within their logistics operations, while decreasing costs.

“Kuebix gets food and beverage with clients in the grocery, manufacturing and distribution space, helping these businesses to improve efficiencies and lower prices for a competitive advantage. Whether helping food and beverage businesses to meet new government regulations with real-time track and trace or eliminated paper-based processes, any size business can more effectively manage their freight operations with Kuebix TMS,” said Dan Clark, President and Founder of Kuebix. “We are extremely proud to be selected for this prestigious award.”

“New developments and innovations in the software and technology sector are making sizeable impacts on the global food supply chain,” notes Lara L. Sowinski, editorial director for Food Logistics and its sister publication, Supply & Demand Chain Executive. “The result is a greater visibility, improved regulatory compliance, enhanced shelf life for perishables, and the emergence of a more proactive and nimble food supply chain that benefits both the food industry and its logistics partners, as well as the end consumer.”

For a number of its grocery clients, Kuebix streamlines inbound and outbound freight activities resulting in the reduction of LTL deliveries per week. These companies also use Kuebix TMS for online scheduling, a process that was previously handled manually. The retailers can now give their suppliers specific delivery time frames via Kuebix’s cloud-based, interconnected solution, streamlining the scheduling process and providing tracking information that wasn’t previously available. Kuebix provides insights into the value of lane rates and the value of pickups, allowing these clients to make better informed decisions on managing their transport operations.

Companies on this year’s 2017 FL100+ Top Software and Technology Providers list will be profiled in the November/December 2017 issue of Food Logistics, as well as online at www.foodlogistics.com.

The ELD Mandate Adds to Truck Driver Shortage Woes

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Did you know that many truck drivers have said that they would rather quit the industry than use an ELD device? In April of this year, Overdrive did a survey of its readers that showed 70% of truck drivers were opposed to the ELD mandate. The magazine goes on to speculate what the marketplace would look like without these truckers, “Assume the 71 percent of independents who say they’d quit actually do, and apply that to carriers in the for-hire population with one to five trucks. This would equate to an overall loss of about 260,000 trucks, according to data mined by RigDig Business Intelligence, Randall-Reilly Business Media’s equipment- and business-data analysis unit. That would remove more than 10 percent of the industry’s capacity. When the 71 percent is applied to carriers with up to 15 trucks, it leads to a capacity reduction of more than 27 percent, or about 709,000 trucks.”

The American Trucking Association (ATA) expects the driver shortage to grow to 239,000 by 2022, primarily due to retirement and increased driver demand. Combine this with the notion that many drivers will quit when the ELD mandate becomes live next month and the ATA has seen double digit gains in the annualized turnover rate for both small and large truckload fleets, jumping 16 percentage points to 90%, the highest it has been since Q4 2015. For smaller carriers with less than $30M annual revenues, the turnover rate grew by 19 percentage points to 85%, the highest since Q1 2016. This news cements the acceleration of the driver shortage, making it an ever-critical challenge to be solved.

At Kuebix, we believe that the best approach to solving the driver shortage is for shippers to implement a four-part plan that focuses on young age groups to ensure a steady flow of skilled and energized individuals that see the profession in a new light. The plan to mitigate the driver shortage includes:

· Embracing Robust Technology – As younger age groups spend lots of time online and with their smartphones, using mobile device apps to track vehicle location and to update the driving experience should be a key focus for shippers. Virtual reality is being used by many transportation companies to train drivers. This age group also seeks tech-savvy employers that continue to apply technology to address transportation management challenges in the form of social media and disruptive technology, along with pursuing startups that use advanced tech to drive their business forward.

· Recruiting the Recruited – Tackling the driver shortage by opening the profession up to those with actual truck driving experience who find it difficult to move from a trucker in the armed forces and/or driving chops in war zones is another way to increase the number of drivers. The most attractive aspects of recruiting the recruited is the fact that drivers from the services are already experienced, which should lighten the load substantially from a training and education standpoint.

· Tapping into the STEM pipeline – As the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) curricula gains greater adoption from grade school on up, graduates learn problem-solving skills that can be used in transportation, along with other industries. By sponsoring STEM events, corporations can open the doors to their future workforce by showing students career paths to follow in the transportation industry.

· Recasting the Profession – Sitting back and waiting for the driver shortage to solve itself is not an aggressive enough solution that will end the issue quickly. The industry needs to get more determined, go on the offense and purse the above-mentioned opportunities. Think like the youth of today and reach them where they live, offer the tech they use, catch them at an early age and make sure they’re well aware that driving is much more than just steering a vehicle. Be at high school (and trade school) career fairs, be on campus just like college recruiters are and where members of the armed forces are concerned – be there for them when they need your support the most.

Plus, shippers need to be more creative and think of new ways to gain efficiencies and reduce costs. Technology like the Kuebix TMS can help by giving shippers high levels of visibility across their entire transportation networks—and connectivity among all partners. Cloud-based Transportation Management Systems (TMS) are helping companies connect in one place to less-than-truckload, truckload, and parcel carriers; receive real-time LTL quotes using direct carrier rates; and request and receive spot quotes using a single shipment management interface. Technology can help put a dent in the driver shortage challenge, while improving transportation operations – that’s a win-win for all parties involved.

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How to use Data to Build a Stronger Carrier Relationship

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Strong partnerships between carriers and shippers are important for the most efficient and effective freight operation. When shippers and carriers work together as a team, respecting one another’s time and business objectives – a win-win partnership is created that leads to continuous improvement in logistics efficiency and customer service.

How can shippers and carriers improve their relationship? Shippers should provide accurate weight and size measurements of their freight, file claims quickly, not keep drivers waiting at their warehouse and fulfill promises of consistent loads. Carriers must negotiate fairly with shippers, adhere to routing guide compliance, pickup shipments on time, invoice shippers accurately and provide a consistent level of exceptional service.

How can this be done?

The answer is technology that can help manage the carrier and shipper relationship by capturing all transactional information and using this data to foster accountability. The Kuebix Transportation Management Systems (TMS) capture data across every shipping event to provide visibility into true levels of service and efficiency. The accurate and timely data from the TMS can be used to monitor and validate communications and interactions between shippers and carriers, but Kuebix takes this one step farther.

Kuebix Carrier Relationship Manager uses this information to deliver Freight Intelligence to easily analyze the performance of carriers in the form of carrier scorecards. Typical analysis can be performed on:

  • • Carrier rate benchmarking by lane
  • • Carrier responsiveness
  • • Load acceptance rate
  • • Claims percentage by shipment – how many damages occur and by which carrier
  • • Rate exception percent
  • • On-time performance
  • • Invoice and freight bill accuracy and solving inaccuracies
  • • Driver performance
  • • Reliability of equipment and processes
  • • Documentation – accuracy, availability, etc.

Leverage this feature to work with your carriers with a set of metrics and facts rather than anecdotes. Carriers will appreciate the fact-based approach to performance monitoring, resulting in stronger relationships and improved service levels.

Keep the logistics team more organized with all contact information, schedules and tasks kept in one location. The new functionality will relieve admin of countless hours of chasing paperwork and tracking communications, while keeping carriers accountable. Carriers will benefit from clearly defined goals, while shippers will benefit from improved performance and service levels.

Kuebix Carrier Relationship Manager is a new, standard feature of Kuebix Business Pro TMS, a full-service transportation management system that features unlimited shipment management, advanced analytics, carrier scorecards, financial management with freight rate invoice and claims control, and much more. Kuebix Business Pro is available for a free 14-day trial.

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Why A Free TMS is A Really Good Thing

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Some people have questioned why Kuebix is offering a free TMS and whether the free version is worth their while. The answer is a resounding, “Yes, a free TMS is really a good thing!”

When comparing apples to apples, i.e. free TMS to free TMS, it is apparent that Kuebix Shipper wins over others. Even when comparing apples to oranges, i.e. free TMS to “not free” TMS, Kuebix outshines the competition. Here’s why:

  1. Excellent Customer Service – but don’t take our word for it: “With Kuebix, we can quickly view all our carrier rates side by side and choose the best rate for our shipments. Kuebix is extremely easy to use and the customer support is exceptional.” R.L. Bunting at Chesapeake Spice
  2. UNLIMITED Shipments – Yes, you read that correctly. Some of our competition limits their shipments on paid versions and keep charging you more as your volume increases, but we don’t. Why would you pay when Kuebix has unlimited shipments for free?
  3. Supports All Transportation Modes – Some TMS vendors limit their offering to LTL shipments only. Kuebix, on the other hand, supports all modes – LTL, TL and Parcel – (even with our free version) so you can connect to all your carriers, letting you ship the way you want for the optimal cost.
  4. Multiple Users, Stored Data and So Much More – Kuebix Shipper is a single-user system, allowing any shipper to begin using the core functionality of a TMS – rate, book and track – for free. For business that want to add more users, access shipment data, and so much more, simply upgrade to Kuebix Business Pro for just $99/month.
  5. Scalability – Kuebix Shipper can be scaled up to our enterprise edition as your business grows. The Kuebix TMS uses the same software core – and as your business grows, you can easily add new functionality, without having to learn a whole new system. Our modular solution scales all the way up to the enterprise level with Premier Applications, Integrations and Managed Services to meet the needs of any supply chain.

Most importantly, the free TMS supports our vision, of a global community where all members gain value from membership. We have removed the barrier of cost to let all shippers get started with a powerful TMS and take control of their freight operations. This is similar to how the widespread adoption of affordable smart phones changed the way we communicate and interact. A TMS that is available to any size business and budget will have the same impact on the shipping world, moving it into the collaborative digital era.

A global community of shippers and service providers will help to match demand with capacity, allowing trucks to fill more efficiently.With collaboration across the community, fleets and drivers move more continuously, shippers get faster access to available capacity, and load consolidation becomes something that’s easy to accomplish.  All of this improves the bottom line – giving value to everyone in the community.

Now that is worth its weight in gold, even if it doesn’t cost you a thing.

We Reached 1000 and Counting

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New users that is. And more are still being added.

Shippers are so excited about Kuebix Shipper – the world’s first free multimodal Transportation Management System (TMS) software – that we have been rapidly adding them to our worldwide shipping community. We’ve gotten over 1000 new shippers in the first weeks since our announcement.

With Kuebix Shipper, you are able to choose the mode, speed, service level and cost you need to ship orders. Previously the ability to use a TMS was prohibited for small to medium-sized businesses. Now any size business can benefit from a TMS with Kuebix Shipper.

Not only do shippers have the ability to rate, book, track and manage their TL, LTL and parcel shipments, they also gain the benefit of the community.

Why is a global shipping community important?

A large global community of shippers and service providers facilitates matching demand with capacity across supply chains, helping to fill trucks better and more efficiently. With collaboration across the community, shippers can schedule backhaul transactions, foster continuous moves and consolidate loads – giving value to everyone in the community. No longer seen as a cost center, transportation operations gain the respect of the C-Suite.

Shippers focused on reducing freight spend can take advantage of this community for immediate results. They will save thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars on freight spend through communal collaboration, along with garnering much-needed capacity during the holiday season and beyond. Shippers can collaborate with others across supply chains to cash in on lower rates resulting in increased supply chain efficiency.

Shippers are spending millions on freight and losing hundreds of thousands of dollars in the process due to inefficiencies, non-optimal mode selection and discrepancies. Kuebix Shipper is changing all that by being available to all businesses for no charge – giving them visibility into their freight operations – and lowering their overall transportation spend.

The Future of Freight: Why We Launched a Free Transportation Management System (TMS)

The Future of Freight: Why We Launched a Free Transportation Management System (TMS)

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In October of 2017, Kuebix launched its free transportation management system (TMS), Kuebix Free Shipper. This platform offers unlimited rating, booking and tracking of TL, LTL, and parcel freight. It was the first step in the evolution of transportation management systems.

Why it’s Important

In the past, it was common practice to manage freight with spreadsheets and other manual processes or outsource to third-party logistics providers, both of which soaked up vast amounts of valuable time and money. With Kuebix Free Shipper, businesses of any size have the opportunity to streamline operations with a single cloud-based platform, removing room for potential miscommunication and monotonous tasks.

Bart De Muynck, Vice President of transportation technology research at Gartner, says that “Transportation management systems (TMS) have become the ‘must have’ for companies that – working under the pressure of e-commerce and omni-channel – need to move beyond clipboards, spreadsheets, and phone calls.”[1]

Though transportation management systems have been around for some time, the implementation and ownership costs typically associated with TMSs have been too high for small and midsize companies. Kuebix Free Shipper removes the cost barrier for those companies that only need a base TMS. Companies looking for advanced functionality can take advantage of Kuebix’s modular and premier features with an upgrade to Kuebix Business Pro or Kuebix Enterprise. The TMS adjusts seamlessly to fit the needs of any size business so that logistics operations can be performed at peak efficiency.

Free TMS Features

Regardless of budget or company size, Kuebix Free Shipper allows users to:

  • • View and negotiate LTL, TL, and Parcel rates and transit times
  • • Get spot quotes for volume freight
  • • create, book and manage shipments
  • • Access and print BOLs and shipping labels
  • • Receive real-time tracking updates on shipments, providing more accurate information to pass onto customers

Improving supply chain visibility and efficiency is made easy through the adoption of Kuebix Free Shipper. Companies who experience growth and find that they need more advanced features can upgrade at any time rather than jumping ship and searching for another TMS platform to manage their logistics operations. Kuebix TMS has the unique flexibility to fit the mold of any company at any stage of their growth.

What Customers Say About Kuebix’s Free TMS

 

Marc Orlando, Logistics Manager at hardware and software manufacturer, Bizerba, says that “Kuebix has allowed us to create a marketplace for our business with our carriers and help us better manage the day-to-day logistics operations with real-time information in ways we were not able to do previously.”

Through the implementation of the TMS, Bizerba was able to improve visibility across its supply chain and improve their operations through the insight they obtained as a result of this change. Additionally, having shippers and carriers utilizing the same platform has improved communication between everyone involved in the shipping process.

Gunner Kennels, a dog kennel manufacturing company, used a 3PL to manage their freight prior to partnering with Kuebix. Brandon Beasley, Vice President of Operations at Gunner Kennels, says that they “realized we were wasting a lot of money by using a 3PL to manage our transportation operations. We knew that if we had contracted rates directly with carriers, we could save a lot of money.”

Transparency throughout the supply chain is vital in terms of ensuring that your company is getting the best rates. Gunner Kennels realized that sacrificing visibility and trusting an outside party to handle their operations was no longer worth the cost. They wanted to have more direct involvement in their transportation operations to ensure that they were saving as much money as they could. By implementing Kuebix, Gunner Kennels was able to part ways with their restrictive 3PL and make this vision possible.

Our Goal

Kuebix has set out to eliminate the price barrier that traditionally excluded small to midsize businesses and establish a community of shippers by making transportation management systems more widely accessible throughout the supply chain. With Kuebix Free Shipper, the amount of time and effort it takes to compare rates and set up shipments is drastically reduced. Users have access to all their negotiated and spot rates to compare and choose the rate that best fits their shipping needs.

Kuebix is challenging the way shippers traditionally think about transportation management systems and ensuring that these digital advantages are not reserved only for larger companies. Establishing and maintaining this all-inclusive platform not only allows companies to save time and money, but also collaborate through visibility across their supply chains.

Benefits of Scale

By offering a free TMS that shippers can easily add modular or premier applications to with the choice to upgrade, Kuebix is creating a community like no other in the industry. Kuebix’s Shipping Community has brought together 16,000+ shippers of all sizes and with all different business needs.

Every shipper that uses Kuebix TMS expands the Kuebix Shipping Community and the community is connected to a vast network or carriers, brokers, freight forwarders and carrier marketplaces creating an ecosystem that generates efficiency for all stakeholders. This ecosystem of supply chain professionals is formed by all shippers, brokers, suppliers, and carriers actively using the cloud-based platform, therefore creating more opportunities with scale. Key among these opportunities is the chance to match available freight with available capacity. The larger the community, the bigger the potential benefits through greater collaboration. The community continues to grow as we add new, valuable features like Kuebix Community Load Match for our users.

[1] https://www.logisticsmgmt.com/article/2019_transportation_management_systems_tms_market_update_keeping_pace_with