Loadsmart has teamed up with Daimler Truck North America (DTNA) to improve its carrier customers experience by digitizing and redesigning the distribution, notification and acceptance of targeted loads. This includes an entire new experience for DTNA carrier customers to get notified and accept loads online, via Loadsmart’s web and mobile applications. The partnership also involves Loadsmart managing Daimler’s loads in the spot market as a freight broker.

A VIP experience

Rising costs, increased time pressure, the best possible utilization of capacity, and compliance with the law remain of concern to motor carriers. To help DTNA’s customers succeed commercially, the partnership enables carriers to permanently reduce operating costs as Loadsmart technology sends the most relevant business to each carrier based on advanced matching algorithms. A new, reimagined and redesigned user experience for Daimler partner carriers facilitates the interaction with the system and load-acceptance flow, with a one-click load-acceptance experience.

Loadsmart is also managing a substantial part of Daimler’s spot shipment needs. By leveraging Loadsmart’s instant pricing/booking capabilities, Daimler itself has improved its productivity, efficiency and security across the spot load value chain from start to finish.

Entering a digital era…

The Loadsmart platform leverages data and machine learning technology to provide shippers an instant pricing/ instant booking experience in which truckload shipments can be booked in a few seconds. It also analyzes thousands of data points to identify which carriers are best positioned to move each load, allowing them to accept targeted loads with one-click.

 

“To manufacture trucks, we need carriers to deliver components and parts to our plants,” said Lori Heino-Royer, director of business innovation at Daimler Trucks North America. “Offering a customized app to our contracted carriers gives them first access to our spot business and improves critical points in our supply chain.”

In addition, Felipe Capella, Co-founder, Loadsmart, explained, “Carriers and shippers are equally vital to our success. This partnership enables Daimler to support is customers post-truck sale by providing targeted business in a digitalized, easy-to-use platform. And as a shipper itself, Daimler takes advantage of our instant pricing/booking capabilities to move spot loads with ease and efficiency.”

 

… for dramatic improvements

DTNA reports that the beta test of the Loadsmart app resulted in dramatic improvements in the time to execute a spot shipment – going from five hours to just 18 minutes on average – and in load acceptance rates which increased over 50 percent. In addition, the beta period demonstrated that carriers received payments in two days instead of 30 days.

Loadsmart CEO Ricardo Salgado summarized the project results, “We saw Daimler Trucks North America’s participating fleet customers increased their average number of spot loads moved by more than 50 percent and improved their average time to accept, process and deliver a spot shipment by over 90 percent. Partnering with the largest truck OEM is core to Loadsmart’s vision on building the future of logistics by interconnecting all players in a powerful platform.”

The DTNA pilot program began in October 2017 and is currently available to the company’s select customers in the United States with plans for the company to expand it to Canada and Mexico later this year.

 

Access full DTNA’s Press Release here.

New York, NY, January 16, 2018 – Loadsmart, the logistics technology company specializing in full-truckload shipping, today announced that Joao Bosco is joining the company as chief technology officer. Bosco’s primary focus will be to further the platform’s AI capability.

Loadsmart relies on machine learning processes to enable shippers to instantly book a truck nationwide, and complex algorithms to, after shipper booking, identify the best truck positioned to move each load. As more data becomes available and volume increases, deep neural networks will positively impact the success of the right pricing and sourcing computational processes. They will also enhance Loadsmart’s internal computer generated tasks without the need for task-specific programming. Identifying potential issues before they actually happen, or are known, will be of great value in the logistics industry.

“The opportunity is enormous,” said Joao Bosco, chief technology officer, Loadsmart. “The size of the transportation and logistics industry, and fragmentation on both sides – shippers and carriers – create a huge potential for disruption with neural networks and other machine learning technologies. I am proud of joining the dream team.”

Felipe Capella, co-founder and chief product officer, Loadsmart, said, “Bosco is one of a kind. He is a successful entrepreneur, having built his company from scratch to a successful exit, and a talented manager, growing a tech team with the right culture. His many years of experience in big data and predictive AI attest to his tech capability. While his know-how will help Loadsmart improve its software development processes, he will also contribute significantly to our artificial intelligence and predictive models such as our Instant Pricing and Automated Sourcing features.”

Prior to Loadsmart, Bosco co-founded Chaordic Systems, a company focused on big data and predictive analytics counting some of Latin America’s biggest e-commerce companies as its customers. Acting as the company’s CTO, he grew the company’s tech team from zero to more than 100 developers and data scientists, earning Chaordic Systems the Best Place to Work award several times. He eventually sold the company to Linx, a public software management company out of Sao Paulo.

Bosco has a bachelor and Masters in Computer Science. He was featured in several articles, including the cover of the leading Brazilian business magazine Revista Exame.

Following on from an amazing 2017, Felipe Capella, Chief Product Officer and Loadsmart’s Co-founder, mentions the top 4 technology trends that will be the kings of 2018 in the brokerage of truckload shipping:

• Data Sharing and Open Access
  Logistics industry players have traditionally been very protective of their data. Freight brokers are the epitome of this trend, siloing all information and creating close environments for software use. In 2018 we will see more openness, with many companies in different businesses sharing data for mutual benefit. While initially this initiative will be to better understand market dynamics, it will provide a more efficient service to end clients in the long run. Software will also become more open to utilization across different platforms and fear of IP replication will give space to the distribution benefits of openness.

• APIs replace EDIs
  EDIs have to die. Information is exchanged between computers like a fax machine: as a specific event, not on an ongoing basis. This delay causes multiple operational challenges, increasing the chance of missed status changes and precluding the automation of manual-intense processes such as calls and emails. Companies that want to embrace automation and integration with tech partners have to build proper APIs that are easy to use and easy to maintain.

• Instant Pricing/Booking
  Instant and on-demand features will start claiming a bigger portion of the industry. Traditional shippers are starting to move towards a more connected and immediate electronic and digitized response to their spot and contracted business needs. Speed, reliability and just-in-time are needs that modern shippers have, which will make instant truck booking an essential technology.

• Deep Neural Networks: beyond pricing and sourcing
  Loadsmart relies on machine learning processes and complex algorithms to allow instantly booking of a truck and to identify the best truck positioned to move each load after the booking the shipment. As more data becomes available and volume increases, deep neural networks will claim a bigger part of the success on the right pricing and sourcing computational-processes. But more importantly, these neuron-mimicking flows will also change repetitive human responsibilities to computer generated tasks (without the need for task-specific programming). Identifying potential issues before they actually happen – or are known – will be of great value in the logistics industry.

Do you agree? What trends do you see for 2018?

Trucking is one of the nation’s largest workforces, employing more than 3.5 million drivers. In 2017, trucks transported 10 billion tons of freight, which equals 70% of all domestic freight tonnage. And it’s only to be expected to increase in 2018. Needless to say, we have exciting times ahead of us.

Before we jump into 2018, let’s take a moment to review our year and some of our amazing accomplishments – none of which would have been possible without our customers and the Loadsmart team.

Loadsmart’s revenue grew by 150% in 2017 which was the culmination of a number of factors. We on-boarded Anheuser-Busch and Albertsons / Safeway among other Fortune 500 companies by offering instant rates for around 900,000 lanes.

Technology wise we made great strides as we enhanced our machine learning pricing algorithm in August to version 2.0. We also re-wrote all Instant Loads infrastructure – allowing carriers to accept loads with one click – and launched the Instant Loads app for Android and iOS: carriers now have visibility on all available loads and can book them from their mobile devices. Last but not least, we put our Pricing API to use and are conducting integration pilots with several leading companies. Watch this space in 2018!

Another significant update was the launch of a Human Trafficking Tip line on our truck-driver mobile app, enabling  users to connect with The National Human Trafficking Hotline to provide tips, seek services, request help or alert authorities.

No need to say all these developments had a positive effect on the team and the company. We doubled our engineering team and implemented a new brand look & feel in September.

Last but not least, we received two amazing industry accolades. The team won the Bronze Stevie Award for Most Innovative Tech Company of the Year – Up to 100 Employees, and we ended the year with a bang, winning the DOGA Design Award for User Interaction Design – underscoring our very belief that great unity of design and technology is the path to introduce technology in well-established industries.

Again, a big shoutout to all our customers, partners and the Loadsmart team. We’re very grateful and look forward to an even more exciting 2018!

 

On November 15, the Loadsmart team, together with Eggs Design, attended the DOGA Award for Design and Architecture ceremony in Oslo following our win for interaction design. The celebration was a culmination of a close collaboration between technology and design from day one.

The Jury’s verdict:
This solution has many positive aspects, not least in terms of the environment. By optimizing truck logistics, it becomes possible to distribute freight more efficiently, while at the same time minimizing the problem of empty trucks that pollute unnecessarily. This is a good example of how good interaction design can renew and streamline previously inefficient processes and act as a positive force for change.
The interface is simple and intuitive, thorough, and solid and can also point to very good results in terms of both economy and efficiency.

We couldn’t be prouder. Creating a user experience from scratch, including brand and interface development, required excellence across many design disciplines. The award underscores our belief that great unity of design and technology is the path to introduce technology in well established industries. It enabled us to innovate and spearhead a logistics revolution. Optimizing for design improved product adoption, more efficient workflows and created user loyalty.

Today, Loadsmart offers instant rates for around 900,000 lanes and operates in the entire U.S. and is moving thousands of loads for companies like Anheuser-Busch, Safeway and Albertson’s.

From all of us at Loadsmart, we’re excited about the future!

Click here to access our full Press Release.

The 13th edition of Python Brazil, the largest Python programming language conference in Brazil, will be held from October 6-11 in Belo Horizonte (MG). With a week long program encompassed by lectures, tutorials and programming sprints, PyBrazil is garnering attention from large companies such as Facebook and the Python Software Corporation. Among their supporters, you’ll also find organizations like the Pyladies, who we are proud to sponsor for this event.

The PyLadies’ mission is to instigate more women to enter the tech and computing industry. They strive to show women there are no limits to their intellectual capacity and that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to; from coding to developing an embedded system. This year, 8 members of this organization will be leading multiple activities as speakers and have started a campaign to raise funds for 18 members who applied for financial support to cover the conference’s expenses. These women will not only gain technical knowledge, but will be able to extend this knowledge with their local communities and continue to share their experiences.

At Loadsmart, we are happy to support their efforts and become a prime sponsor by donating to their cause and opening doors for such a great opportunity to learn, network and advance in their careers. We wish these ladies tremendous success.

Loadsmart is advancing its technology platform to automate how companies move shipments across the country by leveraging artificial intelligence. To move a full trailer of commodity across the country, instead of contacting traditional freight brokers via email or phone calls to arrange for trucking services, companies like Safeway can rely on an automated platform that provides the service with a one-click experience. Integrations may allow this one-click experience from customer’s own internal system.

Loadsmart is building an AI-powered system that automatically prices every shipment based on multiple sources of information (real time supply and demand of trucks and loads, weather, seasonality, warehouse hours, etc), so clients have on-demand access to trucking service with real time pricing. Loadsmart’s system then identifies the right transportation company – among a couple hundred thousands – to fulfill that service. In the future, with the adoption of autonomous trucks, every step of the chain will be connected, intelligent and automated.

Loadsmart is now looking into blockchain technology and how that fits the Loadsmart’s automated shipment cycle. Blockchain technology could bring more transparency to the over-the-road logistics ownership chain (producer – truck – warehouse), and introduce smart contracts to the freight brokerage industry. The first will allow anyone that is part of a product supply chain to trace a specific product source, when it exchanged hands and who was part of that exchange. The second leverages the reliability of blockchain technology to conduct automated payments between the parties, eliminating time-consuming document checks and manual information exchange.

We believe that most of the operational tasks of current freight brokers can be automated via AI engineering (pricing, carrier sourcing, truck geolocation), and the ones that rely on middlemen transaction balances and checks (ie payment to carriers contingent on a physical proof of delivery) could potentially be solved by blockchain.

 

Felipe Capella is co-founder and Chief Product Officer.

We are proud to work with our Shipper partners to improve the platform via technology, data and machine learning. The result is better speed, efficiency and shipment cost. In Q4 2016, Safeway/Albertsons’ usage of Loadsmart has grown more than 100% month over month. Anheuser-Busch is the latest retail giant to join the platform.

Loadsmart’s technology enables the  adoption of modern and more sophisticated supply chain management strategies. This “just-in-time” approach directly contributes to lean production and cost reduction, as well as making its operations more efficient and responsive to customers.

“We are true believers in creating shared value. We currently provide shippers instant bookable spot pricing for their truckload shipments, and we address carriers by offering them relevant business. We invest heavily in our proprietary carrier sourcing algorithm, and our aim is to provide the most suitable and targeted load for every carrier we work with. It has to be a win-win situation for both shippers and carriers,” said Diego Urrutia, Chief Commercial Officer of Loadsmart.

We continue to expand our team with a focus on data science, engineering and design, to build not incremental features but truly transformation solutions for the industry.

Click here to access our full press release.

Felipe Capella is co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Loadsmart

Loadsmart featured in Frost & Sullivan report on startups disrupting the global connected truck market. After creating an exhaustive list of startups in the global connected truck market, Frost & Sullivan compiled research on a list of the top 20 performing companies—and Loadsmart is one of the companies that is included in this carefully curated list.

The study features startups from all over the world, and includes fleet management solutions, digital freight brokering, video safety and autonomous trucks as the major markets considered for analysis.

As the report mentions, this industry presents a $245 billion opportunity, with startups creating a 20 to 30 percent reduction in R&D spending as well as three to five years of reduction in time-to-market. And with more than 35 million trucks globally being connected by 2020, it’s more imperative than ever to continue to disrupt the freight industry.

The inclusion in this report comes after we announced our Quote & Book API for full truckloads shipments. Thanks to our team, we are now able to experiment, develop and launch products faster and more efficiently.

Our goal is to rethink the way a truckload shipment is booked, how a carrier is sourced and how the freight gets moved—and this report is proof of the desire for disruption in an otherwise incumbent, traditional industry.

You can check out the abstract for the report for yourself, as well as some key listed stats on startups disrupting the global connected truck market.

Interested in booking a truck in seconds? Visit us here.

 

Felipe Capella is co-founder and Chief Product Officer.

We are announcing today the launching of our Truckload Quote & Book API (beta). The API will allow third party companies to leverage Loadsmarts’ unique instant pricing/booking feature inside their own platforms. That means that companies developing enterprise softwares could allow their users to check with one click real-time truckload shipping prices without leaving their platforms. And if they like the quote? They can go ahead and book a 53’ long truckload instantly.

That should streamline the process of reaching out to brokers, getting quotes, exchanging information and producing documents to secure capacity for a FTL shipment.

You should take advantage of our Truckload Quoting API when:

• Companies use your software to manage their day-to-day business. You want to facilitate their lives including truckload shipping automation (quoting and booking a truck on your platform).
• Companies use your website to quote and book logistics services like LTL. You want to provide a full online experience for FTL as well.
• You are neither of the above, but you are looking to complement your solution allowing your clients to quote a full truckload shipment without leaving your platform.

The new API will help Loadsmart distribute its FTL product to a big number of shippers without relying on human salesforce.

This and other new features are a product of our expansion on engineering, data science and design teams. We are now able  to experiment, develop and launch products faster and more efficiently.  Besides developing new transformational features, team is also focusing on improving our pricing and sourcing algorithms, building integrations with different partners and automating even more operational tasks.

Our goal is to completely rethink the way a truckload shipment is booked, how a carrier is sourced and how the freight gets moved.

We are very excited about being part of an industry that will rapidly change in the upcoming months and years. Loadsmart’s instant pricing and booking will push the industry to start adopting similar solutions; cloud software services for carriers will be bundled together into a more robust and comprehensive offering for the benefit of underserved small and medium-sized carriers; API integrations are substituting EDIs; autonomous trucks are arriving soon.

In practice is means streamlined booking and on-time trucks for shippers; better loads, comprehensive cloud solutions and loading and unloading efficiency for carriers; visibility and predictability for warehouses. We can’t wait to bring it on.

Interested in integrating? Email us at api@loadsmart.com.

Check our full PR release here.

Felipe Capella is co-founder and Chief Product Officer.