Helping shippers benefit from freight market pendulum

IntelliTrans, a leader in global multi-modal solutions for optimising supply chain operations in bulk and break-bulk industries, helps shippers better manage the freight market pendulum swings with expansive tendering algorithms and artificial intelligence embedded in its transportation management system (TMS).

Shippers are experiencing the ebb and flow of the current freight market. Many carriers that took advantage of shippers will feel the pinch because shippers will reward those carriers that honoured contractual rates. But with IntelliTrans’ ever-expansive tendering algorithm, our customers benefit from changing market conditions without resorting to the “revenge” mentioned in a recent FreightWaves article, “Shippers’ Revenge is Coming for Truckload Carriers.”

“IntelliTrans believes in a partnership mindset between shippers and carriers,” said Ken Sherman, President, IntelliTrans. “Our optimisation engine allows shippers to partner with carriers to give them a committed volume, rewarding carriers that continue to work with a shipper. We help shippers manage relationships with carriers throughout all the up and down cycles.”

IntelliTrans TMS offers flexible tendering, fixed-rate offers (“Buy It Now”), and spot bidding. Many TMS technology uses sequential tendering, which means carriers are given a particular time slot to accept or decline the tender. If they don’t respond or miss their time slot for acceptance, the tender moves to the next carrier in line. With IntelliTrans, carriers don’t miss out on the opportunity to cover a load. Instead, the timeline expands to add the next carrier(s) in the process, not replace one carrier with another. Shippers get loads covered in a tight market at an even better price. On average, IntelliTrans shippers in the US save $112 per load through this uniquely differentiated tendering process.

The flexibility of the IntelliTrans tendering algorithm allows easy reconfiguration as market conditions change, allowing shippers to choose from the least cost carrier to service-based selection, dedicated fleet utilisation, to spot bidding to a fixed rate offer. These can be used in concert with each other and easily adjusted with no software development required. It allows shippers to conduct spot bidding in a highly automated fashion where spot bids from their carriers are evaluated based on configurable, market-driven thresholds and can be automatically accepted if desired. These thresholds can be set to move with current market pricing, so they don’t have to be constantly reset.

IntelliTrans recently partnered with Emerge, allowing customers to leverage their technology and carrier network. “This helps shippers succeed in all types of markets. With Emerge’s strong RFP platform, customers can take advantage of this technology to conduct bids now or at any time that makes sense,” adds Sherman. “They can then use our spot bid or fixed-rate offer tendering techniques to obtain load coverage from qualified carriers in Emerge’s network.”