Transportation management system (TMS) provider MercuryGate International Inc. has acquired logistics optimization software vendor Cheetah Software Systems, saying today that the combined platforms could help retailers meet sky-high consumer demands for fast delivery of online orders.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Cary, North Carolina-based MercuryGate says it will merge its last mile, parcel, and less-than-truckload (LTL) solution with Cheetah’s capability of providing real-time, automated fleet management.
“A seismic shift has occurred in e-commerce where adoption of digital business models is exploding and customer expectations are skyrocketing,” MercuryGate President & CEO Joe Juliano said in a release. “Consumers now make their online purchases based on speed of delivery, changing the transportation chain to a pull model from the historical push model. For the transportation industry the ability to build and dispatch an optimized route plan is just the start. With the addition of Cheetah’s autonomous and adaptive logistics capabilities to MercuryGate’s TMS, our customers with assets can capitalize on real-time visibility.”
Westlake Village, California-based Cheetah says its system both plans delivery routes and also predicts accurate arrival times by adapting to changing operational conditions such as traffic, weather, accidents, customer cancellations, new stop-insertions, and driver exceptions.
“Global e-commerce, sophisticated supply chains and interconnected logistics networks result in numerous smaller transactions that are more time-critical,” said Cheetah Founder and CEO Bobby Darroll. “Many organizations in the retail, food and healthcare industries whose deliveries can be life-critical must move more orders in a shorter timeframe to more customers at a lower cost, while adapting to frequently changing conditions automatically.”
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