Articles

Technology

Working Alongside Robots: No Longer Science Fiction

Working alongside robots in warehouses is the way of the present, rather than the way of the future. The recent ProMat and Automate conferences, in Chicago, featured robotics and automated materials handling equipment. “Solve for X,” the theme of the conference, emphasized the need for manufacturers, warehousing and third-party logistics companies to embrace change to […]

Read More

Advice for Transportation Departments on Gaining Corporate IT Buy-in for TMS Solutions

Q: What pushback should transportation leaders anticipate from IT when proposing a TMS implementation? A: Corporate IT departments are frequently ambivalent about cooperating; sometimes even actively working to undercut the proposed initiative because there’s a perception that any new enterprise software deployment adds significantly to IT’s workload during implementation, integration, and thereafter with respect to […]

Read More
Ocean Freight Visibility on the Horizon?

Ocean Freight Visibility on the Horizon?

Inbound Logistics attended the Digital Difference event in NYC where Maersk unveiled its partnership with Microsoft. What does that mean for ocean shippers? The possibilities are exciting. In the works… Connected vessels: Ships “talk” to each other to improve performance and make shippers’ supply chains more predictable. Actionable data: Shippers can see exactly where their […]

Read More

Latest Logistics Technology 

• FR8 Revolution, a developer of cloud-based tools for freight transportation, launched the FR8Star Heavy Haul Marketplace at fr8star.com. FR8Star’s marketplace includes a rate calculator for pricing oversize/overweight loads. Shippers of these loads can get pricing estimates and shipping routes, and request quotes directly from carriers. Shippers and carriers complete their contract directly through the […]

Read More

Can Exception Management be Automated?

Q: Managing exceptions in freight settlement is, by definition, a manual process even when a shipper has a transportation management system (TMS) and freight payment/audit solution in place. Why can’t exception management be automated? A: The truth is, it can be, and to a surprisingly high degree. Significant exceptions such as large discrepancies in rates […]

Read More