apps, global positioning systems (GPSs), and
electronic logging devices (ELDs), supply chain
practitioners can quickly determine a shipment’s
precise location and its delivery status.
But the possibilities go well beyond tracking.
“It’s not just improved productivity, but true
decision-making,” Wooden said. “With embed-
ded analytics, you can take empty miles out of
the supply chain, work with people in certain
lanes, make sure containers are full, and general-
ly help the world be a better place.”
For example, embedded analytics could help
a TMS automatically book space on a preferred
carrier in the Atlanta–Tampa (Fla.) lane, then
revert to a second choice if the first carrier doesn’t
have the needed capacity, she said. Or it could
allow the system to suggest efficiency enhance-
ments—such as showing that a carrier would save money
by making multiple stops along its delivery route, instead of
scheduling multiple trips with partially filled trucks.
That’s not to say that only automated systems can make
such determinations. People working in manual transportation operations make similar kinds of judgments all the
time. The benefit to using a TMS to handle basic decisions
is that it frees up human specialists for more nuanced decision-making, according to Wooden. An automated TMS
would not replace human employees, but enable them to
concentrate on more advanced tasks, she said.
CLEAN DATA REQUIRED
Wooden is not alone in her assessment. Adding embedded
analytics or “machine learning” capabilities to logistics software will reinforce, not replace, the supply chain workforce,
agrees Eric Gilmore, CEO of Turvo, a collaborative logistics
platform provider.
“The value of machine learning is to augment human
intelligence and make people super-human,” Gilmore said.
He cautioned, however, that this requires a certain amount
of database maintenance and upkeep on the user’s part.
Adding artificial intelligence to a TMS will not produce
decent results unless the software is working with accurate,
recent data, he warned. Most businesses keep databases full
of unstructured information, including duplicate entries
that can cause database chaos.
“You need good ‘data hygiene,’” Gilmore said. “You real-
ly have to feel that data is strategic to your business, and you
need data scientists to cleanse it. You can’t even talk about
making a machine smart if you don’t do that first. It’s like
the old saying: ‘Garbage in, garbage out.’”
Companies are now starting to realize that they can’t
manage warehouses full of inventory without hiring data
scientists to manage databases full of information, accord-
ing to Jim Vrtis, chief technology officer of New Plymouth,
Idaho-based trucking loadboard provider Truckstop.com.
“Data is the fuel for a good algorithm, which drives
machine learning,” Vrtis said. “We’re past the time when it
was just important to store the data in a database. We now
have to understand it and leverage the information to make
better decisions.”
That’s where data specialists can help. “A good data sci-
entist can draw conclusions from the data that are impact-
ful and actionable,” said Vrtis. “It’s almost like the gold
rush. People say, ‘I have a lot of data; now I need to hire a
data scientist to come analyze it, so I can find the gold and
make money.’”
A NEED FOR CREATIVE SOLUTIONS
The best TMS platforms allow users to be creative and
flexible in making better decisions and saving money, said
Mitch Weseley, CEO of Shelton, Conn.-based TMS provider 3Gtms.
That need is particularly important in light of changes in
the TMS customer base, Weseley said. Twenty years ago, big
shippers dominated the market, accounting for the majority of TMS sales. Today, however, most of the demand
comes from small and mid-sized shippers and third-party
logistics service providers (3PLs), he said.
“Creativity is so important. Both shippers and 3PLs have
more levers they can pull nowadays,” Weseley said. “You
can’t look at all the options and manually figure it out.
So a TMS frees people up to do the things that can’t be
automated.”
With tools like improved algorithms, robust data-
base-building capabilities, and embedded analytics, soft-
ware providers can help TMS users reach new levels of
creativity, industry experts said.
“Those things empower today’s [practitioner] to handle
more freight, be more efficient, be more productive, and
grow the business,” Truckstop.com’s Vrtis said. “They can
spend less time connecting the dots and begin to take a tac-
tical approach to freight matching and to improving service
levels. I think it’s going to be really fun to see.”
Powered by embedded analytics, technology could soon
help solve many of the problems that vex the logistics indus-
try today. “This journey is at Day Zero in terms of what’s
possible in building intelligent software that makes the
human smarter,” Turvo’s Gilmore said. “And supply chain
is the most fascinating application for these techniques.”
