The OptiYield Suite
Besides Driver&Load, Logistics.com's OptiYield suite for truckload carriers offers a number of optimization products, including:
Freight Selector
This optimizer looks at operational data to help make day-to-day decisions.
"It's the ability of a front-line person — against parameters again — to take a look at individual shipments and determine whether or not it makes sense to accept them that day," said Logistics.com's President John Lanigan.
Drop&Swap
This application finds opportunities for drivers to meet on the road, swap trailers and go in different directions.
"Drop&Swap takes snapshots of your network and all of your vehicles moving in the network at a point in time," Lanigan explained. "It has various attributes to consider, things like getting drivers home, getting loads delivered on time. It makes recommendations for live swaps between drivers to accomplish any number of tasks."
Profit Analyzer
Run at regular intervals, say monthly, this analysis tool helps management gauge efficiency and profitability.
"It looks at a snapshot of a historical period, how the network is operating, and attempts to provide feedback," said Lanigan.
For example, he explained, Profit Analyzer compares one period against another, thus showing changes in pricing on lanes or in regions.
"The client is alerted that there are changes in their system that they may want to dig into," said Lanigan. "Why did the price drop by a nickel a mile in this region? Why did utilization go down 20 miles a day in this region?"
Meanwhile, a product named OptiYield SuperSpin provides strategic planning for linehaul and transportation networks, while OptiYield Plan&Schedule helps with linehaul scheduling and domiciling decisions.
The OptiYield suite includes a module called Fuel&Route, which routes for optimum fuel buying. This is a freestanding product, which uses up-to-date fuel price information but no existing carrier technology otherwise. So, while Fuel&Route offers tangible fuel routing benefits, it is not an optimization product in the same sense as the other products mentioned here.
Editor's note: since HDT interviewed John Lanigan, Logistics.com introduced a companion application for Profit Analyzer. The new application, called Network Dashboard, helps dispatchers make minute-by-minute decisions — whether or not to accept a load, for example — based on a broad view of the carrier's operations that day.
Logistics.com provides Network Dashboard as an ASP (Application Service Provider) over the Internet. That means the customer fleet must be using the ASP version of Profit Analyzer.
Network Dashboard qualifies as optimization software by any definition.
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