Three powerhouses in the freight hauling sector will join forces to create a technology standard for shipment appointment scheduling, saying the move could ease friction among carriers, brokers, and shippers, according to Convoy, J.B. Hunt Transport Inc., and Uber Freight.
The partners today unveiled a Scheduling Standards Consortium (SSC) that they say will create application programming interfaces (APIs) that will establish the freight industry’s first formal set of appointment scheduling standards. Initial SSC standards and documentation, starting with full truckload freight, will be available as early as the first quarter of 2023, they announced.
That move could help improve communications between users like transportation management system (TMS) and digital freight matching (DFM) platforms, which today have no standard way to exchange information. If successful, the SSC would improve resiliency in the movement of goods by making it easier to book and manage appointments, optimize processes for drivers, shippers and receivers, and drive operational efficiencies across the supply chain, they said.
“One of the most complicated and consequential things about being efficient in freight is setting up pickup and drop-off appointments. Every year the industry sets approximately 1.5 billion appointments, and scheduling inefficiencies slow everything down and create a lot of waste,” Dan Lewis, Convoy’s CEO and co-founder, said in a release. “Scheduling is a tech problem at the end of the day. When all the trucks are plugged into a digital network, the industry can better orchestrate freight needs with data-informed systems. A Standard API-based approach allows companies to access the latest data and make smart decisions to increase efficiency, reduce empty miles and waste, lower costs, and improve service outcomes.”
The SSC’s objectives are to define an API standard for sharing scheduling information, implement those standardized interfaces to enable integrations in existing systems, and advocate for the standard across the industry. To reach those goals, the group aims to sign on other brokers and third-party logistics service providers (3PLs), TMS providers, and warehouse management system (WMS) vendors.
“Technology has ushered in a new era for transportation – new players, new apps, new platforms, new services. Yet, our industry remains extremely fragmented,” Spencer Frazier, executive vice president of sales and marketing at J.B. Hunt, said in a release. “We want to change that, starting today with the three of us and hopefully many more providers in the coming months. We want to create an open exchange of data so that the numerous TMS and digital freight platforms can communicate at a level where we can help one another when needed. The voice of our customers is clear—collaboration will drive progress. Our challenge is to make the systems they use daily work together to generate greater value and efficiency for their supply chains.”
The initiative is the latest effort to accelerate supply chain operations by improving data exchange between business partners, following related concepts like the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Freight Logistics Optimization Works (FLOW), and a Digital LTL Council that seeks to create less than truckload (LTL) standards in electronic bill of lading (EBOL), shipment visibility and tracking, and freight exception handling.
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