Overhaul Introduces Intelligence as a Service to Enhance Supply Chain Visibility and Risk Insights
Overhaul, an innovative software-based supply-chain solution provider, has launched Intelligence as a Service, designed to transform visibility, risk management, and compliance for global brands in a world of escalating supply-chain complexities.
AUSTIN, TEXAS — July 25, 2023 — Overhaul, a software-based supply-chain visibility, risk, compliance, and insurance solution for the world's leading brands, today announced the launch of its Intelligence as a Service offering. With three levels of actionable insights right down to an individual shipment in transit, Intelligence as a Service provides timely, accurate cargo security intelligence to protect cargo and stay ahead of threats.
Intelligence as a Service is the culmination of Overhaul’s law enforcement connections, global data sources, and team expertise. The product offers everything from weekly intelligence notes and bulletins to local crime risk assessments and law enforcement response.
"Overhaul’s data and connections run deep, and it just made sense to bring together our resources to better support our customers,” said Barry Conlon, CEO and Founder of Overhaul. "We’re a differentiator in the space, and no one else has this level of insight, both in terms of global reach and granularity. Intelligence as a Service is set to make it easier for our customers to identify and manage risk anywhere and at any time.”
“Intelligence as a Service is offering wider visibility into global patterns and pinpoint visibility into company-specific risks,” said Joe Ryan, Vice President of Intelligence and Response at Overhaul. “This makes it easier for companies to understand the risks involved in where they’re shipping, as well as how they’re shipping. They can then take actions to mitigate risks involving driver noncompliance, dangerous routes, or whatever else they may see.”
Overhaul’s intelligence isn’t only useful for handling risk; it can also keep customers compliant with government programs such as Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) and Authorised Economic Operator (AEO). Additionally, Overhaul’s data extends across the globe, providing real-time insights into countries such as Brazil and Mexico. As nearshoring continues to play a popular role in supply chain operations, this information will be especially valuable.
“Security is just the first part of our intelligence,” said Ronald Greene, Senior Vice President at Overhaul. “An understanding of threats and how to solve them leads to new opportunities. When you avoid delays, you have more time to spend on other business needs. When you prevent a theft, you prevent the costs associated with that theft, and that money can go toward its intended purpose. With Intelligence as a Service, we’re making business as usual the norm by highlighting abnormalities and how to solve them.”
Already, Overhaul has shared several of its Intelligence as a Service offerings with the public, including its Mexico and Brazil cargo theft reports. These reports were made possible by Overhaul’s recent acquisition of SensiGuard, which consequently made Overhaul the world’s largest in-transit supply chain cargo security provider.
About Overhaul
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, Overhaul is the only device-agnostic supply chain visibility and risk management software company. As the global leader in in-transit supply chain risk management, Overhaul transforms real-time visibility into risk management, compliance, and insurance solutions for its partners. Its software-based approach offers high configurability and efficient time-to-value to supply-chain organizations without heavy tech. Overhaul is a trusted provider for Fortune 100 companies moving freight globally across industries, such as pharmaceutical and healthcare, technology, logistics, and food and beverage. Customers include Microsoft, Bristol Myers Squibb, and many others. For more information, visit over-haul.com, and follow them on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
The San Francisco tech startup Vooma has raised $16 million in venture funding for its artificial intelligence (AI) platform designed for freight brokers and carriers, the company said today.
The backing came from a $13 million boost in “series A” funding led by Craft Ventures, which followed an earlier seed round of $3.6 million led by Index Ventures with participation from angel investors including founders and executives from major logistics and technology companies such as Motive, Project44, Ryder, and Uber Freight.
Founded in 2023, the firm has built “Vooma Agents,” which it calls a multi-channel AI platform for logistics. The system uses various agents to operate across email, text and voice channels, allowing for automation in workflows that were previously unaddressable by existing systems. According to Vooma, its platform lets logistics companies scale up their operations by reducing time spent on tedious and manual work and creating space to solve real logistical challenges, while also investing in critical relationships.
The company’s solutions include: Vooma Quote, which identifies quotes and drafts email responses, Vooma Build, a data-entry assistant for load building, and Vooma Voice, which can make and receive calls for brokers and carriers. Additional options are: Vooma Insights and the future releases of Vooma Agent and Vooma Schedule.
“The United States moves approximately 11.5 billion tons of truckloads annually, and moving freight from point A to B requires hundreds of touchpoints between shippers, brokers and carriers,” Vooma co-founder, who is the former CEO of ASG LogisTech, said in a release. “By introducing AI that fits naturally into existing systems, workflows and communication channels used across the industry, we are meaningfully reducing the tasks people dislike and freeing up their time and headspace for more meaningful and complex challenges.”
The Dutch ship building company Concordia Damen has worked with four partner firms to build two specialized vessels that will serve the offshore wind industry by transporting large, and ever growing, wind turbine components, the company said today.
The first ship, Rotra Horizon, launched yesterday at Jiangsu Zhenjiang Shipyard, and its sister ship, Rotra Futura, is expected to be delivered to client Amasus in 2025. The project involved a five-way collaboration between Concordia Damen and Amasus, deugro Danmark, Siemens Gamesa, and DEKC Maritime.
The design of the 550-foot Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon builds on the previous vessels Rotra Mare and Rotra Vente, which were also developed by Concordia Damen, and have been operating since 2016. However, the new vessels are equipped for the latest generation of wind turbine components, which are becoming larger and heavier. They can handle that increased load with a Roll-On/Roll-Off (RO/RO) design, specialized ramps, and three Liebherr cranes, allowing turbine blades to be stowed in three tiers, providing greater flexibility in loading methods and cargo configurations.
“For the Rotra Futura and Rotra Horizon, we, along with our partners, have focused extensively on energy savings and an environmentally friendly design,” Concordia Damen Managing Director Chris Kornet said in a release. “The aerodynamic and hydro-optimized hull design, combined with a special low-resistance coating, contributes to lower fuel consumption. Furthermore, the vessels are equipped with an advanced Wärtsilä main engine, which consumes 15 percent less fuel and has a smaller CO₂ emission footprint than current standards.”
Roadrunner CEO Chris Jamroz made the move through Prospero Staff Capital, a private equity vehicle that he co-leads with the investor Ted Kellner, buying the stake from Elliott Investment Management L.P.
Kellner, the founder and partner of Fiduciary Management Inc. with over $17 billion in assets under management, and currently CEO of T&M Partners and Chairman of Fiduciary Real Estate Development, is a long-term investor in Roadrunner. Prospero Staff Capital is part of LyonIX Holdings, Jamroz’ investment company with holdings in transportation and logistics, real estate, infrastructure, and cyber security.
"After comprehensively unwinding the prior management's roll-up strategy to get to a pure-play LTL network, Roadrunner now stands as a premium long-haul carrier," Jamroz said in a release. "Today marks the beginning of our growth phase, driven by new capital, strategic investments, and acquisitions. We're committed to organic expansion, as well as pursuing focused and opportunistic M&A to strengthen our market position."
Specifically, loaded import volume rose 11.2% in October 2024, compared to October 2023, as port operators processed 81,498 TEUs (twenty-foot containers), versus 73,281 TEUs in 2023, the port said today.
“Overall, the Port’s loaded import cargo is trending towards its pre-pandemic level,” Port of Oakland Maritime Director Bryan Brandes said in a release. “This steady increase in import volume in 2024 is an encouraging trend. We are also seeing a rise in US agricultural exports through Oakland. Thanks to refrigerated warehousing on Port property near the maritime terminals and convenient truck and rail access, we are well-positioned to continue to grow ag export cargo volume through the Oakland Seaport.”
Looking deeper into its October statistics, loaded exports declined 3.4%, registering 66,649 TEUs in October 2024, compared to 68,974 TEUs in October 2023. Despite that slight decline, the category has grown 6.7% between January and October 2024 compared to the same period last year.
In fact, Oakland’s exports have been declining over the past decade, a long-term trend that is largely due to the reduction in demand for recycled paper exports. However, agricultural exports have made up for some of the export losses from paper, the port said.
For the fourth quarter, empty exports bumped up 30.6%. Port operators processed 29,750 TEUs in October 2024, compared to 22,775 TEUs in October 2023. And empty imports increased 15.3%, with 15,682 TEUs transiting Port facilities in October 2024, in contrast to 13,597 TEUs in October 2023.
A growing number of organizations are identifying ways to use GenAI to streamline their operations and accelerate innovation, using that new automation and efficiency to cut costs, carry out tasks faster and more accurately, and foster the creation of new products and services for additional revenue streams. That was the conclusion from ISG’s “2024 ISG Provider Lens global Generative AI Services” report.
The most rapid development of enterprise GenAI projects today is happening on text-based applications, primarily due to relatively simple interfaces, rapid ROI, and broad usefulness. Companies have been especially aggressive in implementing chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs), which can provide personalized assistance, customer support, and automated communication on a massive scale, ISG said.
However, most organizations have yet to tap GenAI’s potential for applications based on images, audio, video and data, the report says. Multimodal GenAI is still evolving toward mainstream adoption, but use cases are rapidly emerging, and with ongoing advances in neural networks and deep learning, they are expected to become highly integrated and sophisticated soon.
Future GenAI projects will also be more customized, as the sector sees a major shift from fine-tuning of LLMs to smaller models that serve specific industries, such as healthcare, finance, and manufacturing, ISG says. Enterprises and service providers increasingly recognize that customized, domain-specific AI models offer significant advantages in terms of cost, scalability, and performance. Customized GenAI can also deliver on demands like the need for privacy and security, specialization of tasks, and integration of AI into existing operations.