Ryan Transportation Joins Top 3PLs Adopting Qued’s AI-driven Automated Load Appointment Scheduling
Leading freight brokerage and logistics management firm employs new AI-enabled software to automate, streamline load appointment scheduling with thousands of trucking providers. Leverages Qued’s integration with McLeod TMS for fast ramp-up.
BROADLANDS, VA – May 16, 2024 – Ryan Transportation, a leading freight brokerage and logistics management firm, has gone live with Qued Inc.’s automated load appointment scheduling software, joining a growing list of top 50 third-party logistics providers leveraging Qued’s tools to significantly increase staff productivity and reduce errors and delays in scheduling and securing truck pickup appointments for shippers.
Earlier this year, Qued launched its SaaS-based smart AI workflow management software platform that transforms load appointment scheduling for 3PLs and carriers. Following an initial test period, Ryan Transportation last month fully implemented the automation tools within its McLeod transportation management system. Qued is a certified integration partner with McLeod Software.
“We are proud and excited to have Ryan Transportation join this third wave of leading 3PLs to adopt Qued’s AI-driven appointment scheduling platform,” said Prasad Gollapalli, Qued’s chief executive. “We welcome their confidence and support, and their continued feedback to improve and refine the platform’s functionality and value by eliminating error-prone and time-wasting manual tasks.”
For nationally-recognized Ryan, who this year was ranked No. 25 on the Transport Topics list of the top 100 freight brokerage firms, implementing Qued’s automation tools means far less manual data entry, faster, more accurate scheduling and appointment confirmation, increased customer confidence, improved carrier engagement and productivity gains for its team of brokers on the floor, noted Jeff Henderson, senior vice president, Ryan Transportation.
“Prior to having the automated system, it was pretty much a tedious manual task, where our brokers, for example, would have to log into a portal, access a third-party app, or even send an email to request an appointment, and then wait for a return,” he said.
Qued’s application replaces those manual steps, using AI-enabled software to streamline and accelerate the appointment scheduling process, added Connor Jumps, Ryan Transportation’s director of sales.
“Once the load is built in our system, a message is generated in Qued, which reaches out to the shipper’s or other party’s system,” he explained. “It then secures the appointment and returns a confirmation, which is automatically captured in our system.” That information is then circulated to Ryan’s carrier base for them to accept the load.
And with Qued already integrated with Ryan’s McLeod TMS, training was minimal and user adoption rapid. “Our team already knew their way around the screens in our operating system; using Qued required nothing more from a process perspective then clicking on a few extra boxes or doing something slightly different in screens they were already familiar with,” he noted.
Henderson added that “best of breed” third-party automation tools like Qued “absolutely fit into our larger technology strategy. We want our people focused on tasks and duties that are more complex and require intuitive skill, experience and response unique to the customer. So, we want to automate as much of the more manual, tedious workflow as we can. In that way they are more productive and have more time to focus on what drives the most value for our customers and carrier partners.”
“Ryan Transportation is demonstrating a strategic approach to technology that first and foremost is focused on customers and improving the quality and efficiency of its interactions with them,” observed Tom Curee, Qued’s president. “At the same time, it is helping its operations team be more productive and responsive. That’s a proven recipe for success and service differentiation in a highly competitive market.”
Ryan Transportation is a third-party logistics company specializing in freight brokerage services and managed transportation. Since 1986, Ryan Transportation has helped companies throughout North America take control of their shipping and improve their supply chains. Ryan Transportation is part of Shamrock Trading Corporation, the parent company for a family of brands in transportation services, finance and technology. Headquartered in Overland Park, KS, we have offices in multiple locations throughout the U.S. For more information, visit www.ryantrans.com.
ABOUT QUED -- Qued is a cloud-based AI enabled smart workflow automation platform that transforms load appointment scheduling for brokers, 3PLs and carriers into the future. It automates the entire process seamlessly, securing the ideal time slot to schedule loads - all types of loads; even multi-stop loads. No more juggling spreadsheets, a high volume of email, and a variety of portal logins. Carriers enjoy a smoother workflow, shippers gain increased visibility, and brokers build trust with on-time deliveries. Qued strengthens relationships by improving communications and transparency. No more missed appointments and frustrated customers – Qued’s intelligent platform delivers the efficiency and reliability you need, helping your business thrive. Let Qued’s real-time AI platform streamline your workflow and help build your business. Qued is a certified integration partner of McLeod Software. For more information about Qued, visit us at www.qued.com, or send us an email to contact.us@qued.com.
Media Contact: Gary Frantz, Qued, gary@qued.com, (925) 594-1434.
Congestion on U.S. highways is costing the trucking industry big, according to research from the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI), released today.
The group found that traffic congestion on U.S. highways added $108.8 billion in costs to the trucking industry in 2022, a record high. The information comes from ATRI’s Cost of Congestion study, which is part of the organization’s ongoing highway performance measurement research.
Total hours of congestion fell slightly compared to 2021 due to softening freight market conditions, but the cost of operating a truck increased at a much higher rate, according to the research. As a result, the overall cost of congestion increased by 15% year-over-year—a level equivalent to more than 430,000 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for one work year and an average cost of $7,588 for every registered combination truck.
The analysis also identified metropolitan delays and related impacts, showing that the top 10 most-congested states each experienced added costs of more than $8 billion. That list was led by Texas, at $9.17 billion in added costs; California, at $8.77 billion; and Florida, $8.44 billion. Rounding out the top 10 list were New York, Georgia, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Combined, the top 10 states account for more than half of the trucking industry’s congestion costs nationwide—52%, according to the research.
The metro areas with the highest congestion costs include New York City, $6.68 billion; Miami, $3.2 billion; and Chicago, $3.14 billion.
ATRI’s analysis also found that the trucking industry wasted more than 6.4 billion gallons of diesel fuel in 2022 due to congestion, resulting in additional fuel costs of $32.1 billion.
ATRI used a combination of data sources, including its truck GPS database and Operational Costs study benchmarks, to calculate the impacts of trucking delays on major U.S. roadways.
There’s a photo from 1971 that John Kent, professor of supply chain management at the University of Arkansas, likes to show. It’s of a shaggy-haired 18-year-old named Glenn Cowan grinning at three-time world table tennis champion Zhuang Zedong, while holding a silk tapestry Zhuang had just given him. Cowan was a member of the U.S. table tennis team who participated in the 1971 World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. Story has it that one morning, he overslept and missed his bus to the tournament and had to hitch a ride with the Chinese national team and met and connected with Zhuang.
Cowan and Zhuang’s interaction led to an invitation for the U.S. team to visit China. At the time, the two countries were just beginning to emerge from a 20-year period of decidedly frosty relations, strict travel bans, and trade restrictions. The highly publicized trip signaled a willingness on both sides to renew relations and launched the term “pingpong diplomacy.”
Kent, who is a senior fellow at the George H. W. Bush Foundation for U.S.-China Relations, believes the photograph is a good reminder that some 50-odd years ago, the economies of the United States and China were not as tightly interwoven as they are today. At the time, the Nixon administration was looking to form closer political and economic ties between the two countries in hopes of reducing chances of future conflict (and to weaken alliances among Communist countries).
The signals coming out of Washington and Beijing are now, of course, much different than they were in the early 1970s. Instead of advocating for better relations, political rhetoric focuses on the need for the U.S. to “decouple” from China. Both Republicans and Democrats have warned that the U.S. economy is too dependent on goods manufactured in China. They see this dependency as a threat to economic strength, American jobs, supply chain resiliency, and national security.
Supply chain professionals, however, know that extricating ourselves from our reliance on Chinese manufacturing is easier said than done. Many pundits push for a “China + 1” strategy, where companies diversify their manufacturing and sourcing options beyond China. But in reality, that “plus one” is often a Chinese company operating in a different country or a non-Chinese manufacturer that is still heavily dependent on material or subcomponents made in China.
This is the problem when supply chain decisions are made on a global scale without input from supply chain professionals. In an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Kent argues that, “The discussions on supply chains mainly take place between government officials who typically bring many other competing issues and agendas to the table. Corporate entities—the individuals and companies directly impacted by supply chains—tend to be under-represented in the conversation.”
Kent is a proponent of what he calls “supply chain diplomacy,” where experts from academia and industry from the U.S. and China work collaboratively to create better, more efficient global supply chains. Take, for example, the “Peace Beans” project that Kent is involved with. This project, jointly formed by Zhejiang University and the Bush China Foundation, proposes balancing supply chains by exporting soybeans from Arkansas to tofu producers in China’s Yunnan province, and, in return, importing coffee beans grown in Yunnan to coffee roasters in Arkansas. Kent believes the operation could even use the same transportation equipment.
The benefits of working collaboratively—instead of continuing to build friction in the supply chain through tariffs and adversarial relationships—are numerous, according to Kent and his colleagues. They believe it would be much better if the two major world economies worked together on issues like global inflation, climate change, and artificial intelligence.
And such relations could play a significant role in strengthening world peace, particularly in light of ongoing tensions over Taiwan. Because, as Kent writes, “The 19th-century idea that ‘When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will’ is as true today as ever. Perhaps more so.”
Hyster-Yale Materials Handling today announced its plans to fulfill the domestic manufacturing requirements of the Build America, Buy America (BABA) Act for certain portions of its lineup of forklift trucks and container handling equipment.
That means the Greenville, North Carolina-based company now plans to expand its existing American manufacturing with a targeted set of high-capacity models, including electric options, that align with the needs of infrastructure projects subject to BABA requirements. The company’s plans include determining the optimal production location in the United States, strategically expanding sourcing agreements to meet local material requirements, and further developing electric power options for high-capacity equipment.
As a part of the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the BABA Act aims to increase the use of American-made materials in federally funded infrastructure projects across the U.S., Hyster-Yale says. It was enacted as part of a broader effort to boost domestic manufacturing and economic growth, and mandates that federal dollars allocated to infrastructure – such as roads, bridges, ports and public transit systems – must prioritize materials produced in the USA, including critical items like steel, iron and various construction materials.
Hyster-Yale’s footprint in the U.S. is spread across 10 locations, including three manufacturing facilities.
“Our leadership is fully invested in meeting the needs of businesses that require BABA-compliant material handling solutions,” Tony Salgado, Hyster-Yale’s chief operating officer, said in a release. “We are working to partner with our key domestic suppliers, as well as identifying how best to leverage our own American manufacturing footprint to deliver a competitive solution for our customers and stakeholders. But beyond mere compliance, and in line with the many areas of our business where we are evolving to better support our customers, our commitment remains steadfast. We are dedicated to delivering industry-leading standards in design, durability and performance — qualities that have become synonymous with our brands worldwide and that our customers have come to rely on and expect.”
In a separate move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also gave its approval for the state to advance its Heavy-Duty Omnibus Rule, which is crafted to significantly reduce smog-forming nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions from new heavy-duty, diesel-powered trucks.
Both rules are intended to deliver health benefits to California citizens affected by vehicle pollution, according to the environmental group Earthjustice. If the state gets federal approval for the final steps to become law, the rules mean that cars on the road in California will largely be zero-emissions a generation from now in the 2050s, accounting for the average vehicle lifespan of vehicles with internal combustion engine (ICE) power sold before that 2035 date.
“This might read like checking a bureaucratic box, but EPA’s approval is a critical step forward in protecting our lungs from pollution and our wallets from the expenses of combustion fuels,” Paul Cort, director of Earthjustice’s Right To Zero campaign, said in a release. “The gradual shift in car sales to zero-emissions models will cut smog and household costs while growing California’s clean energy workforce. Cutting truck pollution will help clear our skies of smog. EPA should now approve the remaining authorization requests from California to allow the state to clean its air and protect its residents.”
However, the truck drivers' industry group Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA) pushed back against the federal decision allowing the Omnibus Low-NOx rule to advance. "The Omnibus Low-NOx waiver for California calls into question the policymaking process under the Biden administration's EPA. Purposefully injecting uncertainty into a $588 billion American industry is bad for our economy and makes no meaningful progress towards purported environmental goals," (OOIDA) President Todd Spencer said in a release. "EPA's credibility outside of radical environmental circles would have been better served by working with regulated industries rather than ramming through last-minute special interest favors. We look forward to working with the Trump administration's EPA in good faith towards achievable environmental outcomes.”
Editor's note:This article was revised on December 18 to add reaction from OOIDA.
Global trade will see a moderate rebound in 2025, likely growing by 3.6% in volume terms, helped by companies restocking and households renewing purchases of durable goods while reducing spending on services, according to a forecast from trade credit insurer Allianz Trade.
The end of the year for 2024 will also likely be supported by companies rushing to ship goods in anticipation of the higher tariffs likely to be imposed by the coming Trump administration, and other potential disruptions in the coming quarters, the report said.
However, that tailwind for global trade will likely shift to a headwind once the effects of a renewed but contained trade war are felt from the second half of 2025 and in full in 2026. As a result, Allianz Trade has throttled back its predictions, saying that global trade in volume will grow by 2.8% in 2025 (reduced by 0.2 percentage points vs. its previous forecast) and 2.3% in 2026 (reduced by 0.5 percentage points).
The same logic applies to Allianz Trade’s forecast for export prices in U.S. dollars, which the firm has now revised downward to predict growth reaching 2.3% in 2025 (reduced by 1.7 percentage points) and 4.1% in 2026 (reduced by 0.8 percentage points).
In the meantime, the rush to frontload imports into the U.S. is giving freight carriers an early Christmas present. According to Allianz Trade, data released last week showed Chinese exports rising by a robust 6.7% y/y in November. And imports of some consumer goods that have been threatened with a likely 25% tariff under the new Trump administration have outperformed even more, growing by nearly 20% y/y on average between July and September.