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Maybe your company employs a team of brokers to secure transportation after filling out order forms. 

Suppose your vehicle is not operating at peak performance. Naturally, you would start looking under the hood, but due to the complexity of modern engines the cause will not likely be visible.

Shipping capacity is the last thing millions of Texans have on their minds as residents begin rebuilding following the devastation caused by Hurricane Harvey. After making landfall August 25, 2017, the Category 4 storm soaked areas in and around Houston with 50-plus inches of rain. Lives were lost; homes flooded; businesses and their equipment destroyed. As flood waters recede, experts predict recovery and rebuilding costs will top $150 billion.

It takes a lot of paper to manage a trucking, brokerage or logistics operation.

There are order intake forms:

• Bills of lading
• Proof of delivery
• Invoices and other financial documents
• Scale tickets and lumper receipts
• Driver settlement
• License
• Motor vehicle records
• Medical and training details
• Equipment specification and maintenance records
• Customer information, and much more.

When it comes to transportation software, you might be a power user. But there’s always more to learn about how to use technology to enhance your company’s profits. And there’s no better way to gain that knowledge than by networking with experts and industry peers at a user conference.

Top 10 Countdown: Why to attend in.sight 2017

By Brian Lavelle and Carman Geres

Complexity kills cash flow.

As cyber criminals get more sophisticated, cybersecurity has evolved to put more walls between them and valuable user data. Leading strategies include encryption and multi-factor authentication (MFA) – which takes the traditional username/password approach to digital security and adds authentication factors like thumbprint, face and voice recognition, PIN numbers and trusted device authentication.

Trucking companies that haul intermodal loads are like jugglers. Think of all the balls you need to keep in the air: rail schedules, port schedules, shippers’ requirements, government mandates, container movements, equipment maintenance, customer billing, driver payments. You might be handling both single- and multi-container moves, full containers and less-than-containerload (LCL) freight. You can’t afford to let anything drop.

You have a standing fleet maintenance operation, fully equipped and fully staffed.

You have a major investment in that operation and it costs you money to run it.

So, let me ask you this:

When there’s a slowdown, do you lay off trained techs to reduce overhead?

Or, do you bring in for-hire business to increase profits?

I think I know the answer.

TMS software is an invaluable asset for running a successful transportation business. A transportation company is an intricate machine and keeping all the parts running smoothly takes tremendous coordination. Dispatchers, fleet managers, drivers and account reps, plus commercial carriers and other trading partners, have to make well-informed decisions, anticipate problems before they arise and attend to the details of every shipment.