CLI Newsletter, June-July 2022

Short Hauls

CLI Client CXI Growing Quickly

CXI Trucking, based in Melrose Park, Illinois, is a privately held, asset-based LTL and truckload service provider that was experiencing rapid growth. With the help of CLI’s FACTS, they were able to achieve this growth without needing additional administrative staff while at the same time reducing operations costs. Read all about it in the latest case study.

Frontier Supply Chain and Tax Airfreight Join CLI Roster of Clients

CLI is pleased to welcome two new clients to its ranks. Frontier Supply Chain Solutions, located in Winnipeg, MB, is a leading provider of supply chain solutions between Canada and the United States. Service is important to Frontier and the FACTS solution will make it even easier for them to support their clients.

Tax Airfreight is an asset-based transportation company, employing nearly 500 staff with 7 facilities in the Midwest area (Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and Upper Michigan). Headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, Tax-Air is a leading provider of logistics and transportation services and has been a trusted partner in the freight-forwarding industry for 40 years.

Welcome Frontier and Tax Airfreight!

Carrier Logistics and LandAir featured in a Fleet Owner article on “The Impact of Automated Route Planning”

Featured Articles

Carrier Logistics Rings in 50 Years in Style

Packed house helps celebrate golden anniversary in NYC

Clients, partners, prospects and staff packed the historic Long Acre Tavern in Times Square on May 19 to help celebrate Carrier Logistics turning 50 years old. Good food was enjoyed, the drinks flowed and the conversations continued late into the evening at this stellar networking event.

Among the many highlights was a presentation from Geoffrey Muessig, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at PITT OHIO. Muessig candidly shared his view of the landscape of the LTL industry today and highlighted opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. His presentation, entitled, How to reduce structural LTL costs to obtain best-in-class pricing terms, ran the gamut from the basics of labelling and packaging to the strategic plan of engaging with clients to help solve problems.

CLI also made a special donation to the advocacy charity, Autism Speaks. Ed Russo, manager of field development for NY, was on hand to accept the check. This continues CLI’s commitment to “doing well by doing good” as the company donates to charities every quarter as part of the Ken Weinberg Memorial Fund.

After a special anniversary cake was served and a champagne toast made, the official program came to a close, but participants enjoyed continued networking in the city that never sleeps.

On Friday morning, there was a session focused on the latest version of FACTS, CLI’s signature software system. FACTS Version12 What’s New, What’s Improved, What’s Changed gave attendees a sneak peek at the benefits and functionality in this newly-released version.

Thank you to partners, sponsors and all who attended and made this event such a memorable one.

Yard Management System

CLI Yard Management System, a trailer inventory system designed to improve efficiency in operations for asset-based LTL trucking companies, is now available.

With the CLI Yard Management System, LTL carriers can manage the yard operations at their terminals, dispatch trailer switches to yard personnel, and maintain full visibility of each trailer at that terminal’s facility. The software includes a mobile app that dispatches trailer move assignments, including dock door and yard slot locations, to yard personnel. Once a move assigned in the app is completed, the system immediately notifies a supervisor that the trailer is available to be loaded or unloaded.

“Yards are largely black holes of information, managed with clipboards and cell phone calls, which hampers efficiency,” said John Cesario, VP of operations at CLI. “With today’s supply chain issues, enhancing the productivity of yard operations and providing full visibility of each trailer’s location is more important than ever. CLI’s new Yard Management System provides LTL carriers a computerized, organized solution, and coordinates cross-dock activity with required yard moves. The result is that LTL carriers immediately improve efficiency across their facilities and operations.”

The new CLI Yard Management System is available with the company’s FACTS freight management software. It can be deployed as a stand-alone module integrated with FACTS as well as coupled with CLI’s Dock Management System and Dock Management Board.

“Traditionally, yard operations have not been automated or computerized among asset-based LTL carriers, and with that creates inefficiency and lack of visibility,” said Cesario. “Our unique Yard Management System is designed to provide efficiency-boosting execution tools, reduce the incidence of lost or delayed trailers, and measure yard productivity. It was developed because we had inquiries from several customers about this capability and because we saw a need in the market that CLI was perfectly positioned to address.”

Contact CLI for more info on this exciting new module.

In this article, DDC’s freight billing and data processing subject matter experts dig into what you can achieve with immediate access and how to make it a reality.

Why does timely data access matter?
Your team is hard at work with dock operations and logistics planning, but if they’re dealing with outdated or delayed information, they can’t do their jobs efficiently.

At best, they’ll need to jump through hoops to track down the latest data, moving between multiple software platforms and manually contacting people in the field to locate freight. At worst, they’ll have very limited access to business intelligence, and will therefore only be able to make educated guesses as they plan.

Joseph Klikas, chief experience officer at The Custom Companies, Inc., explains: “All it takes is one driver to miskey a zip code, and that could cost you thousands. You tend to overlook that information just because you don’t have the confidence level that you’d like.”

What can you achieve with instantaneous data access?
Ensuring that your teams have access to accurate, real-time data has numerous benefits, including:

• Prepared agility and proactive planning for disruptions
• Accelerated cashflow with reduced DSO
• Higher valuation as a strategic partner with competitive advantage
• Profitable visibility that empowers you to make decisions that grow revenue
• Better customer experience that results in repeat and expanded business

How to enable immediate data access
Enabling timely data access largely comes down to technology: Which platform(s) are you using to collect, transmit, and access your data, and what does that process look like?

If you’re leveraging a number of disparate platforms and data capture services and/or have to wait several hours for data to become available, it may be time to explore other options.

One way DDC’s carrier partners are decreasing the length of time between data input and data access is by mobilizing the BOL (Bills of Lading) scanning process. Rather than waiting to scan BOLs in the terminal or requiring drivers to manually key data, you can leverage intelligent image capture technology that empowers drivers to capture BOL images in-cab, automatically crops and enhances the images for maximum readability, and gets the data into your systems as soon as possible.

Timely access to accurate data reduces uncertainty, increases visibility, and empowers your team to make better-informed decisions. The best way to achieve this is to leverage freight technology that reduces the delay between capture and access.

With features like intelligent mobile BOL capture, driver tracking, GPS tagging, and automated alerts, DDC Sync helps carriers access to data on average a minimum of six hours sooner for fully optimized freight operations.

The Custom Companies, Inc. has greatly benefitted from this lead time improvement. “Prior to DDC Sync, our operations team would create a load optimization plan based only on destination zip code and tonnage from the driver at the time of pickup,” Klikas says. “Now we can make more efficient and profitable routing decisions.”

To see how The Custom Companies, Inc. achieved measurable improvements in operational efficiency in real life, watch this recent FreightWaves webinar on-demand, entitled: “Mobile BOL Capture Put to the Test.”

Latest Version of FACTS Now Available

In addition to its range of management tools, the latest edition of FACTS, version 12 now available, features several new optimization and automation capabilities.

Key features and new functionality designed for FACTS V12 include:

• A P&D optimization model to dynamically route deliveries.
• An extended LOC-AI for freight pick-up operations that adds the ability to include detailed information on addresses for each shipment. This capability, first introduced last year for delivery locations, is fully integrated into FACTS shipment entry and rating modules.
• Real time pick-up rerouting suggestions.
• AR risk evaluation using AI and analytics for generating an exact current risk measurement for each account.
• Proactive and automated appointment scheduling for last mile residential deliveries; historical transactions that include notifications via text or email to customers.
• Automated fuel cost updates and fuel surcharge pricing integration.
• Translation solutions to send messages in Spanish and overcome language barriers between dock workers and supervisors as more workflow is driven by digital communication.

“FACTS has always handled transactional processing extraordinarily well,” Kevin Linardic, CTO at Carrier Logistics “With V12 we’re applying AI and analytics technologies to further automate and optimize the ability to put the right information in front of the right person at the right time. Those features will help solve immediate tactical problems and address long term issues, resulting in improved productivity, less management time and lower costs.”

For more information on FACTS vs 12 contact sales.

Employee Spotlight:
John Cesario named Vice President, Operations

CLI announced that John Cesario has been promoted to vice president, operations.

Cesario has served at CLI as the company’s senior transportation consultant for the past eight years. In his new role, as the company continues to add functionality and further complexity to its FACTS solution, he will be responsible for the software development roadmap including enhancements to many operational areas such as dispatch and routing. Additionally, he will spearhead the planning and deployment of customer support and training activities.

“CLI already offers an incredible product for LTL carriers and I’ve been proud to have been able to train and advise our customers on how to utilize the software to optimize their processes and operations,” Cesario said. “Now, I’m not only able to continue in that role. I am also looking forward to helping build on the technology that CLI offers to drive productivity and lower costs for our clients.”

Cesario joined CLI in July 2014 after spending 11 years at CXI Trucking where he held the positions of warehouse manager and general manager. Earlier, Cesario served in the United States Marine Corps.

“John Cesario is the ideal person for the responsibilities of vice president operations at CLI,” said Ben Wiesen, president of Carrier Logistics. “He brings nearly 20 years of experience from both the client-side and software-side to a role that will be central to our growth and ongoing development of our highly advanced, in-depth solution for managing the business of an LTL trucking company.”

TIP OF THE MONTH:
Using the Map Button in Shipment Details