Upping the Game in Trucking with Track & Trace

The demand for real-time supply chain visibility is going through the roof right now, which means it’s no longer enough for shippers to know when orders left their loading docks and then cross their fingers in the hopes that those goods get to the right place at the right time—and in the right condition.

“Organizations have increasing demands for real-time, or at least near-real-time, visibility into their orders, multimodal shipments, and inventory across a network of business partners, both stationary and in transit,” says Bart De Muynck, Gartner’s research vice president for transportation technology. “This visibility might apply for both upstream—from brand owners to their suppliers, contract manufacturers, and service providers—and downstream—from brand owners to their DCs, distributors, service providers—and ultimately customers.”

More and more of those upstream and downstream stakeholders are asking questions like: Where is my order/shipment? Is it scheduled according to plan or is there a disruption? What’s an accurate estimated time of arrival (ETA)? What are both the current and past locations and statuses of this shipment? To get accurate answers to those and other questions, a growing number of shippers are now adopting new and/or enhancing existing trucking track and trace capabilities.

A verification risk management capability, traceability allows business partners, authorities, and ultimately consumers to manage and respond to risks—both potential risks and those that have already occurred—in a responsive and documented way. “It provides the ability to verify the history of movements and transactional relationships of an item—component, substance, or product,” says De Muynck, “along the transactional flow throughout all stages of the supply chain.”

Working in tandem, tracking and tracing give shippers real-time windows as their freight moves over the road. The technology also helps them verify the history of movements and handoffs and determine freight origins and conditions in a business world where accountability and real-time visibility are both paramount.

Over the next few pages, we’ll look at the current state of track and trace for trucking, discuss how it’s being put to work in the supply chain, and show how technology vendors are upping the game by developing new solutions to visibility problems.

Demand is blowing up

Real-time freight tracking is becoming a “must have” for shippers that are answering to a customer base that wants accurate insights into its shipments on a 24/7 basis. This reality is pushing more carriers and transportation providers to up their track and trace games.

“The need for real-time visibility has blown up over the last two years,” says De Muynck. And while the technology has long been a point of interest for third-party logistics firms (3PLs) and freight brokers—both of which utilize platforms like MacroPoint—it’s now also become a focal point for individual shippers.

De Muynck says that the interest in trucking track and trace is largely being driven by companies like Amazon, which offer high levels of visibility into individual customer orders. “People started saying: ‘Hey, if we as consumers can order a $10 product and know when it’s shipped, where it’s at, and when it’s going to be delivered, then why aren’t we doing this with truckloads of high-value goods, healthcare products and other items?’”

Other key drivers of the trucking track and track movements include the electronic logging device (ELD) mandate, which went into effect in December and is focused on creating a safer work environment for drivers and making it easier and faster to accurately track, manage, and share records of driver duty status. Previously, shippers used electronic data interchange (EDI) to get shipment updates, De Muynck explains. But with most trucks now required to use ELDs, that provides yet another place to pull data from (i.e., information about exactly where a truck is on the road at any given time).

“By combining the information in a transportation management system [TMS] or an enterprise resource planning [ERP] system, an ELD can help shippers locate a driver with a specific order and know where a product is,” says De Muynck. “That’s why we started to see companies like TenFour, FourKites and TransVoyant building their solutions around real-time visibility.”

More visibility, please

The ELD mandate, which went into effect in December, is also challenging shippers in new ways. For example, Philip Poulidis, senior vice president and general manger at BlackBerry Radar, says it has put a “huge squeeze” on smaller fleet owners to electronically log drive time. “They can’t cheat the system anymore,” he says, “and that puts a squeeze on their profitability.”

To offset this challenge, smaller fleet operators are seeking ways to track their assets and then report back to their customers. An unused trailer sitting out in the yard for a week, for example, can probably either be sold or returned to the leasing company. One private fleet operator Poulidis worked with recently was able to increase its fleet utilization by 10% by implementing a track and trace solution.

Track and trace also affects individual drivers that can no longer fudge their drive-time numbers. Time spent looking around a yard for a vehicle, for instance, can directly impact an individual driver’s ability to get out onto the road and underway on time. “If they have to find the right one by looking up the asset numbers,” says Poulidis, “it can be a lot like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

Using a track and trace system, drivers can receive a “link” via mobile phone that, when opened, takes them to a map of an exact trailer. “Even 15 minutes to 20 minutes saved in the yard can be a big deal for a driver,” says Poulidis, “and that data goes right into the ELD and doesn’t affect their driving time.”

Tackling fires head-on

Customers and other stakeholders may be pushing for higher levels of visibility of their freight, but a large number of shippers still rely on a combination of phone calls, e-mails, and EDI for track and trace. Project44 is one company that wants to change that by building a niche for itself in the truckload or less-than-truckload (LTL) tracking arena.

“We help companies think beyond just tracking a truck, or when it leaves the dock and then when it gets delivered,” says Ally Lynch vice president of marketing. For example, once shippers can accurately track their truckload or LTL shipments, they also need, or already have, good visibility across the full shipment workflow. “It’s not just about having the information; it’s about making the data actionable and usable in your business.”

The problem is that when information comes via e-mail or EDI, it’s not “real time enough” for today’s shippers, Lynch points out. “If the information is being batched one or two times a day, by the time you get it, it’s already out of date.”

Estimating that about 70% of shipments have some type of exception that could interfere with a timely delivery, Lynch says that having accurate and updated data at all times puts the power in the shipper’s hands.

For example, if there is a forest fire in a specific region, and if the truck is going to be delayed as a result, then what can be done to mitigate or avoid this problem? And, how can a shipper make sure that inventory is on the shelf for the consumer regardless of what issues are occurring in the supply chain?

“If the information is coming to the company with a latency in it, then it can’t make actionable decisions about that load or inventory,” adds Lynch, “and get it where it needs to go.”

Enhanced tracking capabilities

Steve Banker, vice president of supply chain management at ARC Advisory Group, says the real-time truck data and the visibility solutions that are on the market are all solid steps in the right direction for an industry that once relied on advance ship notices via EDI or online portals to track down their shipments—often after the fact, or once the goods had already arrived at the dock.

Banker sees vendors investing “real money” in the track and trace space, and points to trends like the “Uberization of freight”—application-based technologies that make the most use of empty truck space—as another key driver of this trend. “As these Uber-type companies continue to evolve,” says Banker, noting that in most cases those firms would be freight brokers versus technology providers, “their goal is to provide the same level of visibility that someone gets when they use Uber.”

Banker also expects to see more shippers implementing visibility solutions in the future, and sees TMS playing a role in this evolution. “Trucking track and trace is a hot space right now because the old way of getting visibility wasn’t good or accurate enough,” says Banker. “It’s just going to continue growing.”

De Muynck agrees and says real-time visibility has become a “need to have” for all shippers. “Shippers need to understand when a truck’s going to arrive and then work to schedule those deliveries so there’s no additional wait time or customer penalties for early or late deliveries,” says De Muynck. “These and other benefits give shippers a lot of incentive to justify the investment in these solutions.”