We were called upon by a solution provider that develops powerful cloud-based broker, carrier, and shipper TMS’ that target small to midsize customers. They came to Trimble MAPS because they required a trusted leader of accurate, industry standard truck mileage and travel times to be integrated within their platform. They also needed development options that allowed for transformative and scalable growth for the businesses they serve.
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Specific Business Challenges
During the discovery phase, we found that they also needed to build out their solution with functionality that would continually monitor the movement of freight throughout their platform. Some key components were that they wanted their solution to provide precise, dynamic ETAS, automatically provide exception alerts to their customers, and provide highly accurate, real time visibility of trip and shipment status to their ecosystem of broker, shipper, and carrier customers.
Solutions: Trip Management, Location, and Routing APIs
Although they started by interfacing our stateless location and routing APIs (where dispatch generates a trip plan and receives a drive time and ETA based on historical data), our stateful trip management APIs were best suited to their requirements (where dispatch generates a trip plan that continuously monitors real-time events and alerts the back office with updated drive times and ETAs). This gave their customers the ability to persistently monitor trip status and to provide dynamic visibility of granular travel times and ETAs per shipment, manage exceptions to the route plan and delivery time window, and increase their operational efficiency.
Result: Single Source of Truth for Accurate Reporting
Our trip management APIs now provide them with the unique identifier for all freight movement through their TMS platform. It also provides them with a single source of truth for all associated travel time and ETA calculation and exception reporting across their entire ecosystem. This will support improved freight matching and automation of certain planning and dispatch functions.
Through a consultative approach, we were able to find a solution that met their current and forecasted needs as a cutting-edge TMS provider. They are now able to differentiate from other tech providers by giving their end-user trip monitoring, visibility of travel times and ETAs, and help streamline communications between stakeholders - all by using flexible and scalable APIs.
There are numerous ways to utilize a commercial vehicle specific development platform - learn more about trip management and our platform today. Watch our webinar below for more insights into business innovation.
