Smaller fleets often lack access to locations-based tracking for their assets. At companies where this is an option, many drivers don’t like to feel like Big Brother is watching over them.  

Late last week, the Envase team published our latest State of Dray segment on the Let’s Talk Supply Chain Network. In the piece, we discussed track and trace technology from the standpoint of why shippers appreciate location data. The gist was that shippers aren’t asking carriers to share their whereabouts because they want to be creepy. Instead, today’s most progressive shippers and receivers are looking to optimize their working hours; it’s possible to have warehouse teams ready to receive the moment a truck arrives. There are also some shippers whose legal teams are asking for location data to limit their liability in the event of an accident.   

But the value of track and trace isn’t limited to shipper requirements.

Why Track and Trace is Beneficial for Carriers

Trucking companies today can gain tremendous benefits from implementing track and trace location data into their operation, including:  

Improved utilization of your office staff

How much time is your team spending on check calls? How often does someone in your office need to stop something productive (like responding to an RFP to increase business) to find out where a driver is? Leveraging track and trace eliminates a huge portion of this issue, helping office staff focus on the most important activities to the business.   

Better understanding of your operating expenses

Even though fuel costs have dropped a bit over the last few months, they’re still quite high, meaning drivers should be trying their best to maximize their miles per gallon (you could easily argue this is always true, but it’s more important when rates are low and costs are high).

Carriers that utilize track and trace across their fleet gain a rapid understanding of which drivers are proceeding in ways that cut costs, and which drivers are consistently hammer-down. Knowing this allows fleet leaders to address the issue and put drivers in a position to help the company succeed financially. Additionally, the drivers increasing the company’s costs are more likely to earn a speeding ticket or other moving violations. There’s a little bit of a “big brother is watching” component to this point, but the reality is pretty simple: drivers are less likely to bend the rules if they believe they’re in a position to get caught. Track & trace technology allows for safer driving, extended MPG, and less chance of a moving violation.   

Lower insurance premiums

This may be outside the box, and it goes beyond the note above (we agree that fewer moving violations will generally mean less costly insurance). At the Harbor Trucking Association’s annual DrayTech event, many insurance companies exhibiting and in attendance acknowledged that a carrier’s ability to produce a digital log of their movements could be considered in the underwriting process. Generally speaking, these insurance folks said they’d prefer data from an ELD solution, but as you may know, ELD requirements can vary by carrier type and state. Track and trace logs can suffice for these carriers to show their drivers’ safety.   

Track and Trace Technology Benefits You and Your Customers

Track & trace technologies can be the difference between winning and losing a bid with a premium shipper. But the benefits can go even further for carriers that make the data these solutions provide actionable — improving efficiency, cutting costs, and maximizing the value of each dollar they spend.  

Trends & Applications in Drayage

“Covid-19 has accelerated digital adoption for many companies… [before] it was unfathomable that you could dispatch a truck from your kitchen” Larry Cuddy, CEO, Envase Technologies. Check out the full article from IANA’s Intermodal Insights.

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Never Pay Retail Fuel Prices Again!

Phone the Envase Fuel Team at 603-217-2119 (Option 2) or email them at fuelteam@envasetechnologies.com for more information…

Contact the Fuel Team

 Envase and Firmament

With support from Firmament, Envase is excited to bring better and more accessible Dray-Tech to all the intermodal carriers doing their part to relieve pressure within the supply chain!

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Looking Back at 2021 and Ahead to 2022 in Intermodal Trucking

The global pandemic threw a spotlight on weaknesses in our global supply chains, ushered in a new era of how and where work gets done, and got North America’s aging infrastructure the attention it deserves.

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DM Maintenance

Effortlessly manage your fleet with a full-featured maintenance software solution. DM Maintenance can streamline your vehicle repair, inventory, and equipment management.

Envase Team Member Spotlight

Get to know Amanda Nott, Project Manager at Envase Technologies.

If you could have one superpower, what would it be?

Amanda: “I was recently given the nickname of ‘superwoman’ … and would certainly enjoy having her speed. Getting to and from school events, sports, work, and Starbucks would be a breeze!’

If you think back to this time in 2020, what’s happened over the past two years would only have made sense in a movie. Lockdowns, panic buying, empty streets, things were pretty grim and surreal. And when cargo finally arrived at ports and warehouses, it still had to be delivered. The trucking industry was hard hit, but at the same time people woke up to how essential it was and how fragile our global supply chain is.

But all these challenges brought new opportunities and much needed attention to the entire trucking industry. As 2022 begins, we can look back at the past two years as the kick in the pants we needed to make some real changes to how things get done.

The global pandemic threw a spotlight on weaknesses in our global supply chains, ushered in a new era of how and where work gets done, and got North America’s aging infrastructure the attention it deserves.

While 2020 could only be described as chaotic, and in 2021 things started to get to something more like normal, though not quite, there’s a lot to reflect on from the past two years and a lot to look forward to in this one.

Working from home is the new normal—and so is cloud-based software

For hundreds of years people have gone into offices for work. It was just how it was done. Anything else was just…wrong. Then in 2020 everyone was forced to figure out how working from home would work, and it turned out, a lot of people like it. Businesses saw productivity increase and employees found flexible work hours helped them manage their time better.

Overnight people learned how to use Zoom, Slack, and Teams. Google Drive, Dropbox, and OneDrive became the new shared drives. Everyone was working online, and hundreds of businesses realized they needed their critical software systems accessible from anywhere. If your TMS only worked when you were in your office, you needed to adapt or close up shop.

In the trucking and freight industries, this translated to companies switching to cloud-based, SaaS solutions for scheduling, invoicing, and dispatching. Having a TMS in the cloud went from a nice to have option to a competitive advantage. Putting your TMS in the cloud meant no one needed to be tied to a desk to run their businesses. Work from home (hello comfy slippers and sweats)? No problem. Land a new contract or book a load from the road—even right at the terminal? You got it.

Where working in the cloud was for hip tech startups a few years ago, now most businesses are wondering why did they ever do it any other way? No hassles with upgrades. No extra computers or servers needed. More getting work done and less getting IT to fix something before you can even start. In 2020 cloud-based TMS solutions were just catching on. In 2021 they became the new normal. In 2022, cloud-based software is going to push even farther into businesses giving small businesses the tools and agility to take on even the biggest competitors.

Ports and supply chains are still an issue

A hallmark of 2021 was the unending backlog at ports. In 2020 supply chains dried up, in 2021 they came roaring back, but there weren’t enough containers to transport goods and there weren’t enough truckers to carry the containers. New pandemic rules made it harder to get loads going and you can only get so many trucks into and out of a port.

The port congestion crisis hit hard in 2021, but looks like it will continue well into 2022. As new rules for greening ports—like the rolling ban on trucks older than 10 years at the Port of Vancouver—or vaccine mandates imposed on truckers; ports and supply chains will continue to feel the pressure.

In the U.S. and Canada, we are short tens of thousands of commercial truck drivers. Making the problems at ports even worse with over-worked and over-taxed drivers trying to play catch up. New dynamic routing and pick up solutions might well prove to be the way trucking companies can do more with less. If you can use technology to get the most out of all your drivers and still give them the time off they need to recharge, then you have an easy way to make the most out of the situation.

The port situation isn’t going to resolve any time soon, but getting smart about how loads are booked and planned, can start making a dent in things.

Aging infrastructure finally gets attention

After decades of neglect, roads, highways, and bridges are finally getting the attention they deserve. We detailed the $1.2 trillion infrastructure package in a previous post, but as work starts on repairing roads and bridges, the trucking industry will finally have better roads to travel and trains faster corridors to get goods across the continent.

These are long term projects. It will be five or more years before we see real changes to transport infrastructure, but there is one part of the bill that will have an immediate impact this year: driver training.

Focus on workforce development

A key part of the Infrastructure plan is helping get more people behind the wheel of trucks. The current driver shortage has been years, decades, in the making, and there will be no quick fixes. However with money set up for more training programs and changes to regulations to allow younger drivers work interstate routes, things are looking brighter.

This infographic outlines some of the challenges the industry faces to find and keep truckers:

Investing in technology is the new competitive advantage

2022 has started off with a reply of the beginning of the pandemic, but the end is in sight. For the trucking industry this will mean getting up, dusting off, and getting down to work. But the world has changed. How and where people get work done has changed. To meet this challenge and be successful in 2022 and beyond, trucking companies need to invest and update how they do things.

The same old way won’t attract new drivers, help you make the most out of the drivers you have, or build your business. All of these things from the past two years—working from home, port congestion, driver shortages—all have a similar solution: investing in newer technology takes the strain off your company. Older TMS systems, or the paper-pen-spreadsheet system don’t let you see opportunities. New technologies leverage AI and machine learning to find better routes, locate new opportunities, and let you get more work done with the same number of people.

Find out how Envase can help kick your business into high gear and make 2022 the beginning of something great for your business. 

Roads and bridges in desperate need of repair

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers’ report on America’s critical infrastructure, 42% of bridges are over 50 years old and 46,000 are structurally deficient. 1,720,00 miles of road (43% of the 4 million miles of road in the U.S.) are in poor or mediocre condition. If you want trucks to quickly and smoothly transverse these highways carrying goods, they have to travel on good roads.

In May, 2021 a critical bridge between Arkansas and Tennessee was closed because of cracks in the support beams. Closing the bridge added over an hour to what would have been an eight minute trip. By the time the bridge was reopened, the closure cost truckers over $200 million. This single example underscores the importance of the $550 billion in total infrastructure spending with $110 billion earmarked for roads, highways, and bridges.

“The prioritization of our nation’s fundamental transportation network will mitigate many of the supply chain challenges businesses are experiencing today,” National Retail Federation President and CEO Matthew Shay

As these monies begin to flow and projects get underway, the neglected road system will start to improve. But the law goes far beyond just roads and bridges, this infrastructure spending will bring in a raft of initiatives to revitalize the trucking industry and the economy as a whole.

“The $1 trillion infrastructure spending bill … has the potential to continue to serve not only as a backup to raise, but also extend the runway of this healthy rate environment for those [carriers] such as Daseke,” CEO Jonathan Shepko

Money for training and expanding the workforce

We know drivers are in short supply. The trucking industry is vital to the economy and global supply chains. To help encourage more young people and women to enter the industry, there are new apprenticeship programs and money to expand the workforce.

Money electric vehicles

As part of the infrastructure bill there are provisions for improving and expanding the EV charging across the country. While not directly related to large truck hauling now, this infrastructure is expected to encourage short and medium haul trucks as the industry begins to shift away from fossil fuels.

Nothing will happen overnight, but it’s a start

While we’re all excited about the new money for infrastructure, keep in mind that some of this money will be spread out over years. For example, the public transit industry is looking at investments and grants for the next five years. Also roads and bridges can’t be built in a few months or even years.

While exciting and a once-in-a-generation level of investment, we will have to be patient as road, bridge, EV charging, training programs, even rural broadband investments take shape over the next several years.

But as President Biden said when signing the bill into law:

“This law makes the most significant investment in roads and bridges in the past 70 years,” Biden said during the bill signing at the White House. “What that means is you’re going to be safer, and you’re going to get there faster and we’re going to have a whole hell of a lot … less pollution in the air.”

We have a lot to look forward to and the chance to have great reliable transportation infrastructure for generations to come.

Oh tech acronyms. We hear them all the time, and most of the time we nod along while in the back of your mind you’re thinking “what the heck are they talking about?!?”. In this tech talk post, we’re going to explain—in plain english—what Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) is, what it does to help your business, and how you’re probably using it everyday and don’t even know it.

Stop Being an Information Middleman

You know in the movies when someone says “I’ll have my people talk to your people to work out the details?”. One person tells their assistant to call someone else’s assistant to work out whatever it is that needs doing.

Simple, fast, and efficient.

That, for all intents and purposes, is what EDI is. It’s a way for two computer systems to exchange information and get something done for you that you were doing manually before.

EDI Basics has some handy images of life before EDI and life after EDI to illustrate how things work at a high level.

Let’s take the scenario for a customer paying you for hauling a load. First, you go into your invoicing system and generate an invoice. You fax, email, or mail the invoice to the customer. Then the customer receives the invoice and inputs it into their accounting system to pay you.

We’ve done this thousands of times. And we know what can go wrong. The fax gets lost. The email is missed or goes to junk. The invoice is entered into the customer’s accounting system wrong. Or there is a delay in processing it because people are out or on vacation.

There are a lot of places things can go wrong when you rely on people to connect the data dots for you.

We’ve all seen it happen. And beyond the time it took to create, send, and record that invoice (on both sides of the equation), now you have to follow up with the customer. Not a great use of anyone’s time.

EDI makes the whole process smooth, efficient, and painless.

It goes something like this:

You’ve set up with your customer how your systems can talk to their systems. When you generate an invoice and send it, the information is automatically entered into their accounting system. You get confirmation the information is sent and you’re done.

There is no one creating invoices to email on one side or a person receiving and entering the invoice on the other. It’s all automatic.

If the systems can do it, the entire work order, booking, invoicing, and payment can be handled this way. Customers book loads with you, you see and approve them, log them into the TMS, and then invoice your customer.

Every step of the way, people know what’s going on. Load booked and accepted. Driver dispatched. Load delivered. Invoice generated. Invoice received. Payment sent. Done.

So how does it all work?

The Nuts and Bolts of EDI

When you send an email, computers across the internet talk to each other to get your email where it’s supposed to go. This works because all email systems have a standardized language they work with. Each part of your email is sent a certain way each time. The to, from, subject, and message are all noted a certain way so all email servers know what do to with it.

It wasn’t always this way. Thirty-odd years ago you might have to have three or four email addresses because systems didn’t have a system to talk with each other.

The nuts and bolts—really the ones and zeros—of EDI works the same way. And it happens all the time in every business and industry you can think of. In fact when you log into your bank and pay a bill electronically, that works because of EDI.

Here’s why.

Like the email example, it all comes down to agreeing on how to describe things, connect computers, and say what needs to be done.

There are several standard for how data can be formatted and sent. Some of the most common are ANSI, EDIFACT, TRADACOMS, and ebXML. You don’t need to worry about what these are, what’s important is the role they play. EDI standards make sure there is absolutely no confusion what a piece of data is or what it means.

For example, how do you format the date? There are a lot of ways to do it, which can lead to confusion like: 02/03/2021. To some people that’s February 3rd, 2021, to other people it’s March 2nd, 2021. Which is it? Are you writing the date as month/day/year or day/month/year? EDI standards take the guesswork out. When data is sent from computer to computer the two systems already know how dates work and how they are written.

No confusion. No invoices mistakenly marked due a month later than they are supposed to be.

EDI Data Files and Translators

The magic of EDI happens in two–three steps. Let’s take the invoicing a customer example to start with.

Your TMS (transportation management system) tells you a load has been delivered to its destination by your driver and the load has been accepted by the customer. You need to invoice the customer (and pay the driver). In your TMS you click to invoice your customer. Assuming you have automatic connections set up via EDI here’s what happens next.

The invoice data is sent to an EDI translator module to generate a data file to sent to your customer. The data is either sent directly to your customer’s systems or via an EDI Network Provider—think of it like drayage for data.

On your customer’s side, the data file is received and goes through their EDI translator to match your data up with their data. The translators make sure all the information you sent is standardized and your data fields like date, work order number, invoice amount, will match up on the other side.

If you’ve ever imported data into Excel, it’s the same process, just automated.

Envase Makes EDI Easy

Envase is here to make your life easier and help you grow your business. We do that by helping you automate your day-to-day work as much as possible. From automated work orders to delivery tracking, invoicing to payroll—and even EDI. Envase TMS and the Envase family of solutions put you in control of your data and your business.

When you don’t have to worry about how your business is running, you can focus on one thing—growing and building your business for the future.

If you’d like to learn more how Envase TMS tackles EDI, get in touch for a free demo.

Picture this, you’re chatting with a potential new client. Maybe it’s something informal like a backyard barbecue or an official “business meeting”, but you’re talking about how your company could help them with their intermodal transport needs.

You talk about your fleet of trucks. You describe the areas you cover. Your unbeatable on time performance. Everything that makes you the right trucking partner for them.

Then comes the big question: “This sounds great, I have a shipment coming in on Wednesday, could you handle it? And how much would it cost?”

In the past you’d probably answer like this:

“Let me call you tomorrow from the office. I need to check on what trucks I have available and I can give you a quote then.”

Or

“Of course I can do it!” And (scribbling on whatever paper is handy) you rough out an estimate.

The first answer loses the momentum of the deal. What if there is a crisis at the office tomorrow? Or you’re already booked in meetings until lunch? Do you have to talk to one of your other employees to see if you can do the job and run an estimate?

Lost time means lost opportunities. You might not get back to this potential new customer until the afternoon—or later—and they might have someone else to do the job. “Oh sorry, I needed to get this booked right away, I found someone already. I’ll call you next time.”In the second answer you might be completely wrong. You might not have a truck available that day. You might have underbid on the estimate because you miscalculated or forgot to ask an important (and costly) detail. But now you’re stuck with that estimate and you’re going to make less money, or worse, lose money on.

Now Imagine with Envase

Same situation, same conversation, but now as an Envase customer you have everything you need on your laptop or your phone to give this answer:

“Okay, let me open Envase and see what I can do. Yep, I have trucks available that day. Okay tell me about the shipment? Right, got it. Here’s a quote, let me email it to you now. You can agree electronically and we’ll confirm all the details tomorrow.”

That’s smart hustling. With Envase you always know your capacity. You can generate quotes that make sure you cover all the bases. You can see immediately how much you’ll make from the run, so if you want to offer a first time customer discount, there’s no guesswork.

Envase Puts Your Business at Your Fingertips

When you want to get business done you need accurate information at your fingertips. When you need to make a decision, you need answers. When your best client calls fuming that a shipment is late, and you’re not right at your desk, how are you going to answer?

Could you look up any shipment and know where it is?

Could you tell your client there is a backlog at the port and all the trucks are late leaving because you can see exactly where a truck is?

Or could you tell your client, the driver logged and delivered the shipment as promised and send a log with locations and time?

Think of the time you save running around asking people in the office for status updates, when you can see right for yourself what’s going on in real time.

This is the Power of Envase

Envase gives you all the tools you need to hustle more business and keep the business you have with powerful TMS tools designed just for the intermodal drayage business.

Get up to the minute updates on everything in your business. Know when everything is going smoothly, and when there is a crisis brewing. Nip issues in the bud proactively, keeping your clients in the loop with unexpected delays or issues.

In business there are two things that will make or break you. Cultivating relationships and having the right data to make decisions. We can’t help you with the first part, but we’ve got your back on the data.

Get in touch with us so we can show you how Envase will grow your business.

Ships loaded high with rectangular containers. Giant cranes lowering containers in stacks or onto waiting trailers. Containers moving seamlessly from ship to port to truck to warehouse. This is how we picture cargo moving in today’s interconnected economy.

But it wasn’t always like that. Until the middle of the twentieth century, ships were loaded with a mish mash of crates, containers, and other freight. Stevedores on the docks would unload ships with cranes and cargo nets. It could take days or weeks for a single ship to unload. And days or weeks to load it back up for the return journey. That was until Malcom McLean had an idea while he was waiting for his truck to be unloaded at the docks.

Malcom McLean was in the trucking business. He had a small fleet of trucks and carried loads of tobacco and cotton to the docks for his customers. Trucking was a small, family business. With only a few truck Malcom couldn’t waste hours waiting at the docks.

But in the 1930s, waiting at the docks was what trucking and shipping was all about. But in 1937 Malcom got an idea. Why not load a ship with standard sized, durable containers that can be filled away from the port and then just stacked onto a ship like giant blocks?

Loading ships with nets and crates. Trying to get as much cargo securely loaded onto a ship took a long time when everything is odd-sized. But like all great ideas, critics laughed at Malcom’s idea.

It was completely impracticable. You’d need to have special trailers for trucks to carry removable containers. You’d need ships designed with wide-open holds to load 20 foot containers. You’d need the containers themselves. Who’s going to do all that?

Malcom didn’t listen to his critics.

The Container Era

After World War Two, Malcom bought two oil tankers and refit them to carry containers. And on April 26th, 1956 the SS Ideal-X left New Jersey for Houston with a full load of cargo.

And the container era was born.

It would take a decade for all the pieces to come together to change the entire shipping industry, but it’s fair to say global commerce as we know it might not have been possible without the invention of standardize containers and containerizing cargo.

Before Malcom’s innovation it cost $5.86 a ton to unload a ship. With containers that cost plummeted to $0.16. Sixteen cents. With lower shipping costs, companies around the world could afford to get their products to markets previously beyond their reach.

The tide did not change until the older ports witnessed the financial resurgence of port cities that had adopted containerization. His business got an additional boost when the Port of Oakland, California, invested $600,000 to build a new container-ship facility in the early 1960s, believing that the new facility would “revolutionize trade with Asia.” The Truck Driver Who Reinvented Shipping – HBS Working KnowledgeThis infographic from FrieghtOS has all the highlights of Malcom’s inspiration to creating an entire industry to launching his world-wide shipping empire.

Intermodal trucking is born

From the birth of the container industry came the intermodal trucking industry. With so much cargo on containers arriving at ports, you needed short-haul trucks to move those containers to the next step in the chain. Port to truck to train. Port to truck to warehouse. Drivers could carry containers to and from the port a few times a day.

Now, you have to keep track of those containers, drivers, and jobs. It’s no easy feat. And this is where Envase founder Larry Cuddy and Malcom McLean intersect. Larry worked in the drayage business and saw how inefficient tracking everything on paper was. Orders, invoices, proposals, estimates, drivers—everything was on paper. Larry wanted a computerized Transportation Management System (TMS) he could use for his drayage business.

But nothing met his needs. Drayage works differently than long-haul trucking or shipping. He could’ve done what everyone else did—just shoe horn something in and make it work. But that shoe didn’t fit and he wouldn’t wear it. Like Malcom, Larry saw a huge opportunity to, again, revolutionize the shipping (and drayage) business. Larry would build his own TMS tailor-made to drayage.

And he did just that. You can learn more about Larry’s story here.

Learn How Envase Grows Your Drayage Business

Larry Cuddy built Envase to be the best-of-breed TMS for drayage in the world. And in just a couple years it’s gone from inspiration to a world leader in drayage software. Hundreds of companies and carriers use Envase to manage and grow their business.

If you’re still managing your business on paper and spreadsheets, learn how Envase brings your entire business into one, easy-to-use system designed especially for the needs of drayage and intermodal trucking businesses.

Contact us for a demo and see how Envase will help you grow your business.

Tailwind Enterprise and Unlimited users can now gain greater visibility into their assets by connecting their orders with Samsara’s platform. With live GPS tracking and ELD solutions, Tailwind’s integration with Samsara will help you streamline your business and accurately manage your fleet.

What is an ELD?  

An Electronic Logging Device (ELD) is device that connects directly to a vehicle’s control module, recording hours of service and engine status. ELDs are now required by mandate in USA and Canada, replacing traditional paper logs.

The benefits of ELDs include automatic monitoring of hours of service, improving driver safety, and reducing paperwork for the office. Tracking hours of service is only one of the many features offered by Samsara — under their connected platform, fleet managers gain a real-time view into their entire fleet. 

Real-Time Visibility into Your Fleet 

Samsara’s portal and camera helps users gain accurate information on their fleet and use data from vehicles to make better business decisions. With Samsara, users can improve their fleet operations with features such as:  

• Accurate, to-the-second GPS tracking on loads 
• Monitoring road conditions through the live camera feed   
• Maintaining the condition of assets with temperature and humidity sensors  
• Ensuring safety and compliance with speed alerts and fuel sensors 
• Comparing vehicle metrics with industry benchmarks 

Improving the Customer Experience 

With Samsara, dispatchers will be able to provide live updates when they share the Helicopter View feature with their customers. The Helicopter View displays the accurate location of a moving vehicle on a map, providing the customer with the satisfaction of knowing where their shipments are.

Integrating Tailwind with Samsara 

With this new integration, information from your orders will flow seamlessly from one app to the other. Tailwind users can now send direct messages to the Samsara app, making communication with drivers effortless.   

When completing an order on Tailwind, it is as simple as pressing the \”Update Samsara\” button to push this order into the driver\’s Samsara app. Once a driver receives their route, they can record their arrival/departures manually or automatically by setting up geofencing. Users will also be able to view the last location of their equipment using Samsara’s real-time GPS tracking.