Ben Ames has spent 20 years as a journalist since starting out as a daily newspaper reporter in Pennsylvania in 1995. From 1999 forward, he has focused on business and technology reporting for a number of trade journals, beginning when he joined Design News and Modern Materials Handling magazines. Ames is author of the trail guide "Hiking Massachusetts" and is a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism.
A software vendor called "project44" has introduced a program it says will dramatically improve the speed of data exchanges among shippers, less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers, and third-party logistics providers (3PLs) from the technology that has existed for decades.
In an effort to "walk the walk," the Chicago-based vendor is inviting companies to participate in free tests of the speed of their data-interchange connections. Project44 will run a 72-hour health scan to evaluate more than 15 key technical capabilities of the companies' application programming interface—better known in the IT trade as APIs—which are add-ons to transportation management system (TMS) platforms now in widespread use. The scans will grade the effectiveness of each user's ability to provide fast and accurate rate quotes, automate pickup requests from shippers and 3PLs, provide clear tracking codes, and confirm delivery with real-time documentation, project44 said.
Armed with that information, carriers can decide whether their current networks meet their needs and find out how they compare to other carriers and industry averages in the ongoing effort to reduce billing errors, provide increased visibility to customers, and ultimately increase profits, the company said.
The web-enabled tool is the latest step of a rapid rollout that has seen project44 link its APIs to the TMS platforms of firms such as MercuryGate International Inc. and McLeod Software Corp. The tool performs in much the same manner as an engine that supports online travel booking sites like Kayak and Travelocity.
Like adding nitrous oxide to a drag racer's fuel line, linking a nimble API to a lumbering TMS allows it to produce faster, more accurate price quotes than through the standard electronic data interchange (EDI) approach, according to Jett McCandless, project44's cofounder. McCandless has made a name for himself by applying new technologies to a business that has not been known as a first-mover in adopting new IT tools.
Created in 1948, EDI is a one-way communication standard that requires users to communicate in batches that are processed every 15 to 45 minutes. In a world where shippers and 3PLs are constantly trying to match rates with carriers, that slow pace of conversation forces users to rely on static rate tables compiled once a year or, at best, on a seasonal basis, McCandless said.
In contrast, an API-based communication system automates that exchange, allowing users to generate dynamic price quotes that can vary from day to day, reflecting the complexities of the modern transportation industry.
"It's like having a fax machine, and then upgrading to email, text, and social media," McCandless said. "Imagine how successful text messaging would be if it took 30 minutes to get each response? You'd never get anything done."
EXPERT SAYS API MUST COEXIST WITH EDI
Though supplementing TMS platforms with APIs is a crucial ingredient in generating quick price quotes, it can't solve every challenge alone, said Danny Slaton, EVP and COO of SMC3 Inc., a transportation pricing software provider that has been providing LTL pricing content for 85 years.
SMC3 integrates its web service APIs with supply chain software providers to support its products, such as "CzarLite," "Bid$ense," and "RateWare," which combine to support end-to-end predictability in shipper and 3PL-carrier relationships, the Peachtree City, Ga.-based company said.
However, Slaton draws a distinction between transactional APIs, which are effective at simple tasks like collecting a price estimate for a single shipment from a carrier's website, and analytical APIs, which can handle complex jobs such as pricing 100,000 shipments over five different carriers. That is why companies have used the EDI standard for decades, and continue to do so, Slaton said.
"EDI is used by large carriers and 3PLs because it is integrated into ERP and TMS systems," Slaton said. "Processes in the B2B sphere are very slow to evolve, and in the supply chain they are even slower; they will be there for some time."
Over the years, industry users have standardized about a hundred EDI sets for supply chain applications—generating such calculations as the bill of lading, merchandise return, shipment status, pickup manifest, inspection reports, and motor carrier load tender—but most API interfaces cover only five or six variables.
"There's going to be a long term of coexistence between EDI and API," Slaton said. "Any time you launch something like this, it's really a relationship play; what's really important is your infrastructure."
SMC3 will follow that strategy when it releases its next product in the third quarter of 2016, launching an industry platform capable of integrating the content of its own APIs with other providers' APIs. The combination will allow users to orchestrate a series of supply chain events as a unified package, including for example a rate quote, points of service routing, shipment booking, and proof of delivery.
ACCURATE SHIPPING DATA REQUIRES A WIDE NETWORK
While project44 and SMC3 might disagree on the means of sharing shipping data, they both agree that a rating system is only as powerful as its network.
Project44 is also driving its growth by integrating its API with a rising number of TMS providers. The company is reaching out both to 3PLs with proprietary TMS platforms and to major providers such as Oracle Corp., SAP SE, and JDA Software Group Inc., McCandless said.
As the network of participating transportation firms expands, the value of embellishing a TMS with an API will grow accordingly, he said.
"APIs are only as good as the trucking companies they are connected to," McCandless said. "It's already significantly better than EDI, but we've only been in the industry for two years, so we are nowhere near our potential yet."
Project44 plans to release a "significant" 2.0 release of its freight API in January 2016, according to McCandless.
The New York-based industrial artificial intelligence (AI) provider Augury has raised $75 million for its process optimization tools for manufacturers, in a deal that values the company at more than $1 billion, the firm said today.
According to Augury, its goal is deliver a new generation of AI solutions that provide the accuracy and reliability manufacturers need to make AI a trusted partner in every phase of the manufacturing process.
The “series F” venture capital round was led by Lightrock, with participation from several of Augury’s existing investors; Insight Partners, Eclipse, and Qumra Capital as well as Schneider Electric Ventures and Qualcomm Ventures. In addition to securing the new funding, Augury also said it has added Elan Greenberg as Chief Operating Officer.
“Augury is at the forefront of digitalizing equipment maintenance with AI-driven solutions that enhance cost efficiency, sustainability performance, and energy savings,” Ashish (Ash) Puri, Partner at Lightrock, said in a release. “Their predictive maintenance technology, boasting 99.9% failure detection accuracy and a 5-20x ROI when deployed at scale, significantly reduces downtime and energy consumption for its blue-chip clients globally, offering a compelling value proposition.”
The money supports the firm’s approach of "Hybrid Autonomous Mobile Robotics (Hybrid AMRs)," which integrate the intelligence of "Autonomous Mobile Robots (AMRs)" with the precision and structure of "Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs)."
According to Anscer, it supports the acceleration to Industry 4.0 by ensuring that its autonomous solutions seamlessly integrate with customers’ existing infrastructures to help transform material handling and warehouse automation.
Leading the new U.S. office will be Mark Messina, who was named this week as Anscer’s Managing Director & CEO, Americas. He has been tasked with leading the firm’s expansion by bringing its automation solutions to industries such as manufacturing, logistics, retail, food & beverage, and third-party logistics (3PL).
Supply chains continue to deal with a growing volume of returns following the holiday peak season, and 2024 was no exception. Recent survey data from product information management technology company Akeneo showed that 65% of shoppers made holiday returns this year, with most reporting that their experience played a large role in their reason for doing so.
The survey—which included information from more than 1,000 U.S. consumers gathered in January—provides insight into the main reasons consumers return products, generational differences in return and online shopping behaviors, and the steadily growing influence that sustainability has on consumers.
Among the results, 62% of consumers said that having more accurate product information upfront would reduce their likelihood of making a return, and 59% said they had made a return specifically because the online product description was misleading or inaccurate.
And when it comes to making those returns, 65% of respondents said they would prefer to return in-store, if possible, followed by 22% who said they prefer to ship products back.
“This indicates that consumers are gravitating toward the most sustainable option by reducing additional shipping,” the survey authors said in a statement announcing the findings, adding that 68% of respondents said they are aware of the environmental impact of returns, and 39% said the environmental impact factors into their decision to make a return or exchange.
The authors also said that investing in the product experience and providing reliable product data can help brands reduce returns, increase loyalty, and provide the best customer experience possible alongside profitability.
When asked what products they return the most, 60% of respondents said clothing items. Sizing issues were the number one reason for those returns (58%) followed by conflicting or lack of customer reviews (35%). In addition, 34% cited misleading product images and 29% pointed to inaccurate product information online as reasons for returning items.
More than 60% of respondents said that having more reliable information would reduce the likelihood of making a return.
“Whether customers are shopping directly from a brand website or on the hundreds of e-commerce marketplaces available today [such as Amazon, Walmart, etc.] the product experience must remain consistent, complete and accurate to instill brand trust and loyalty,” the authors said.
When you get the chance to automate your distribution center, take it.
That's exactly what leaders at interior design house
Thibaut Design did when they relocated operations from two New Jersey distribution centers (DCs) into a single facility in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2019. Moving to an "empty shell of a building," as Thibaut's Michael Fechter describes it, was the perfect time to switch from a manual picking system to an automated one—in this case, one that would be driven by voice-directed technology.
"We were 100% paper-based picking in New Jersey," Fechter, the company's vice president of distribution and technology, explained in a
case study published by Voxware last year. "We knew there was a need for automation, and when we moved to Charlotte, we wanted to implement that technology."
Fechter cites Voxware's promise of simple and easy integration, configuration, use, and training as some of the key reasons Thibaut's leaders chose the system. Since implementing the voice technology, the company has streamlined its fulfillment process and can onboard and cross-train warehouse employees in a fraction of the time it used to take back in New Jersey.
And the results speak for themselves.
"We've seen incredible gains [from a] productivity standpoint," Fechter reports. "A 50% increase from pre-implementation to today."
THE NEED FOR SPEED
Thibaut was founded in 1886 and is the oldest operating wallpaper company in the United States, according to Fechter. The company works with a global network of designers, shipping samples of wallpaper and fabrics around the world.
For the design house's warehouse associates, picking, packing, and shipping thousands of samples every day was a cumbersome, labor-intensive process—and one that was prone to inaccuracy. With its paper-based picking system, mispicks were common—Fechter cites a 2% to 5% mispick rate—which necessitated stationing an extra associate at each pack station to check that orders were accurate before they left the facility.
All that has changed since implementing Voxware's Voice Management Suite (VMS) at the Charlotte DC. The system automates the workflow and guides associates through the picking process via a headset, using voice commands. The hands-free, eyes-free solution allows workers to focus on locating and selecting the right item, with no paper-based lists to check or written instructions to follow.
Thibaut also uses the tech provider's analytics tool, VoxPilot, to monitor work progress, check orders, and keep track of incoming work—managers can see what orders are open, what's in process, and what's completed for the day, for example. And it uses VoxTempo, the system's natural language voice recognition (NLVR) solution, to streamline training. The intuitive app whittles training time down to minutes and gets associates up and working fast—and Thibaut hitting minimum productivity targets within hours, according to Fechter.
EXPECTED RESULTS REALIZED
Key benefits of the project include a reduction in mispicks—which have dropped to zero—and the elimination of those extra quality-control measures Thibaut needed in the New Jersey DCs.
"We've gotten to the point where we don't even measure mispicks today—because there are none," Fechter said in the case study. "Having an extra person at a pack station to [check] every order before we pack [it]—that's been eliminated. Not only is the pick right the first time, but [the order] also gets packed and shipped faster than ever before."
The system has increased inventory accuracy as well. According to Fechter, it's now "well over 99.9%."
IT projects can be daunting, especially when the project involves upgrading a warehouse management system (WMS) to support an expansive network of warehousing and logistics facilities. Global third-party logistics service provider (3PL) CJ Logistics experienced this first-hand recently, embarking on a WMS selection process that would both upgrade performance and enhance security for its U.S. business network.
The company was operating on three different platforms across more than 35 warehouse facilities and wanted to pare that down to help standardize operations, optimize costs, and make it easier to scale the business, according to CIO Sean Moore.
Moore and his team started the WMS selection process in late 2023, working with supply chain consulting firm Alpine Supply Chain Solutions to identify challenges, needs, and goals, and then to select and implement the new WMS. Roughly a year later, the 3PL was up and running on a system from Körber Supply Chain—and planning for growth.
SECURING A NEW SOLUTION
Leaders from both companies explain that a robust WMS is crucial for a 3PL's success, as it acts as a centralized platform that allows seamless coordination of activities such as inventory management, order fulfillment, and transportation planning. The right solution allows the company to optimize warehouse operations by automating tasks, managing inventory levels, and ensuring efficient space utilization while helping to boost order processing volumes, reduce errors, and cut operational costs.
CJ Logistics had another key criterion: ensuring data security for its wide and varied array of clients, many of whom rely on the 3PL to fill e-commerce orders for consumers. Those clients wanted assurance that consumers' personally identifying information—including names, addresses, and phone numbers—was protected against cybersecurity breeches when flowing through the 3PL's system. For CJ Logistics, that meant finding a WMS provider whose software was certified to the appropriate security standards.
"That's becoming [an assurance] that our customers want to see," Moore explains, adding that many customers wanted to know that CJ Logistics' systems were SOC 2 compliant, meaning they had met a standard developed by the American Institute of CPAs for protecting sensitive customer data from unauthorized access, security incidents, and other vulnerabilities. "Everybody wants that level of security. So you want to make sure the system is secure … and not susceptible to ransomware.
"It was a critical requirement for us."
That security requirement was a key consideration during all phases of the WMS selection process, according to Michael Wohlwend, managing principal at Alpine Supply Chain Solutions.
"It was in the RFP [request for proposal], then in demo, [and] then once we got to the vendor of choice, we had a deep-dive discovery call to understand what [security] they have in place and their plan moving forward," he explains.
Ultimately, CJ Logistics implemented Körber's Warehouse Advantage, a cloud-based system designed for multiclient operations that supports all of the 3PL's needs, including its security requirements.
GOING LIVE
When it came time to implement the software, Moore and his team chose to start with a brand-new cold chain facility that the 3PL was building in Gainesville, Georgia. The 270,000-square-foot facility opened this past November and immediately went live running on the Körber WMS.
Moore and Wohlwend explain that both the nature of the cold chain business and the greenfield construction made the facility the perfect place to launch the new software: CJ Logistics would be adding customers at a staggered rate, expanding its cold storage presence in the Southeast and capitalizing on the location's proximity to major highways and railways. The facility is also adjacent to the future Northeast Georgia Inland Port, which will provide a direct link to the Port of Savannah.
"We signed a 15-year lease for the building," Moore says. "When you sign a long-term lease … you want your future-state software in place. That was one of the key [reasons] we started there.
"Also, this facility was going to bring on one customer after another at a metered rate. So [there was] some risk reduction as well."
Wohlwend adds: "The facility plus risk reduction plus the new business [element]—all made it a good starting point."
The early benefits of the WMS include ease of use and easy onboarding of clients, according to Moore, who says the plan is to convert additional CJ Logistics facilities to the new system in 2025.
"The software is very easy to use … our employees are saying they really like the user interface and that you can find information very easily," Moore says, touting the partnership with Alpine and Körber as key to making the project a success. "We are on deck to add at least four facilities at a minimum [this year]."