InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

February 12, 2001

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Logistics.com Hosts App

Challenger chooses vendor-turned-ASP to manage its fleet

By Jennifer Maselli   (jmaselli@cmp.com)

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ransportation services provider Challenger Motor Freight Inc. is taking the first steps toward outsourcing in its 25-year history. The company's goal is to create the most-efficient logistics plans for its fleet of 650 trucks and 1,800 trailers without expanding its current four-person IT staff, and it's turned to a newly minted application service provider for help.

"Our current method for freight planning allows for subjectivity prior to objectivity," says Dan Einwechter, Challenger's president and founder. For example, handlers at the company considered only their assigned geographic areas rather than the whole country when picking drivers for jobs, then chose the person in that location they thought would best handle a task. But the most appropriate driver for a job actually might be someone at the helm of another truck somewhere else in the country. "We wanted a software package that could weigh all the options and create objective plans first," he says. "Then our own staff can bring subjectivity to the picture after that."

Evelyn Gaete, director of information systems for Challenger, agreed but knew her small IT staff couldn't implement and maintain the software necessary to support it. One-year-old Logistics.com Inc. added a hosted version of its logistics software product to its lineup this month and is filling the bill. The vendor offers the OptiYield suite of software for transport providers. The suite includes Load Analyzer, for making recommendations to solicit and accept freight, analyze available freight loads, and forecast demand; Fuel & Route, for trip planning and cost control; Freight Selector, an interface to online exchanges that lets transport providers respond to exchange loads and online load tenders; and Profit Analyzer.

Logistics has partnered with an integration company to meld the OptiYield applications with Challenger's existing billing and enterprise resource planning systems. Load Analyzer is expected to be running in April.

Logistics also offers two other hosted packages that are aimed at shippers. OptiManage provides order and shipment management, load consolidation, and transport provider selection, and OptiBid is an online procurement tool.

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