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Trucking Internet Use Will Grow

The internet will change the way we do business. We’ve been hearing that for some time now, but trucking software entrepreneur Tom Weisz, founder and president of TMW Systems, said it again during his company’s user group meeting in September. In comments to Heavy Duty Trucking, Weisz predicted the World Wide Web will become the carrier for much of the data that currently moves through electronic data interchange (EDI).
“The challenge is to figure out how it is going to happen,’’ Weisz said.
Meanwhile, at least one new product demonstrated at TMW’s gathering in Cleveland was opening new windows of opportunity on the web. DataNet Inc. of Raleigh, NC, introduced WebLink, a system to allow any carriers running TMW software to offer authorized customers up-to-the-minute load status information through a carrier web page. Carrier customers with Internet access can call up a carrier’s web page, identify themselves, then retrieve authorized load and shipment status information from the carrier’s existing TMW database. That could be a list of loaded trailers at a customer’s warehouse, at the carrier’s terminal or on the road — whatever information the carrier wants to make available.
Sam Whitfield, who heads up the WebLink project for DataNet, said tight WebLink security will prevent shippers (or anyone else) from browsing other data on the carrier’s system.
Marketing and sales colleagues had been asking for just such a system, said carrier people attending the demonstration, but for small to medium-sized carriers without major computer power, it has been out of the question.
Load status is only the beginning, said Whitfield. Web-based software for small carriers will eventually allow them to match what only big carriers now offer, he said, including online quotes, direct order entry and more.
WebLink, which will be shipping soon, is expected to cost approximately $15,000.