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Visibility + AI-Based Capacity Matching Key to Customer Satisfaction
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Functional Applications - Remote Monitoring & Control Systems
Applicable Industries
- Transportation
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
- Logistics & Transportation
Use Cases
- Fleet Management
- Predictive Maintenance
- Real-Time Location System (RTLS)
Services
- Software Design & Engineering Services
- System Integration
The Challenge
Today’s volatile market has challenged 3PLs like Sunset to become more agile, simplify the load visibility workflow and find available capacity quickly. As Sunset continued to grow, its labor-intensive manual load tracking practices were unable to meet rising customer expectations for frequent status updates on the 30,000+ shipments moved by the organization per year. Similarly, with tightening capacity, load coverage became exceedingly difficult and time-intensive to manage with phone calls, emails, and load boards, compromising revenue opportunities and impeding growth. The company wanted to replace manual practices with technology to provide real-time freight visibility, strategic carrier sourcing, and automated capacity matching to boost productivity, unlock growth potential, and build stronger customer and carrier relationships.
About The Customer
As a third-party logistics (3PL) company, Sunset Transportation provides professional, reliable transportation solutions. Sunset serves customer needs with sophisticated systems and processes to support multimodal logistics and all sizes of freight spends while remaining committed to its roots with personalized, dependable service. The company is privately-owned and has been recognized with awards for its service. Sunset Transportation handles over 30,000 shipments annually and aims to elevate customer service, increase operational efficiency, and support growth through advanced technology solutions.
The Solution
In alignment with the five customer promises underpinning its success—savings, visibility through technology, data-driven decisions, continuous improvement, and relationships—Sunset implemented Descartes MacroPoint, a real-time freight visibility and automated capacity matching solution. Fully integrated with the company’s McLeod Transportation Management System (TMS), Descartes MacroPoint enables Sunset to view, analyze, predict, and communicate the status of any shipment in real-time, dramatically improving its ability to manage exceptions, minimize detention charges, and keep customers happy with frequent automated alerts and ETA notifications. The solution’s AI-driven capacity matching tool also automatically matches open customer loads with available forward-looking capacity in Sunset’s existing carrier network to help Sunset increase productivity, build stronger carrier relationships, and protect margins in competitive lanes. With visibility to capacity two to five days out, Sunset relies heavily on the Descartes solution for longer-term projects, bids, and loads with 48+ hours’ notice. In addition, Sunset expanded its carrier sourcing capabilities using the solution’s capacity co-op, an opt-in network to find capacity when trucks in a 3PLs existing carrier network are not available. Advanced visualization and algorithms unlock readily available capacity, enabling the company to better select carriers for upcoming loads from an expanded pool in a fraction of the time.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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