Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/846064
commercial carrier journal | july 2017 41 P&S TRANSPORTATION Birmingham, Ala. Scott Smith, executive vice president. e company first appeared in the CCJ Top 250 in 2010 at No. 222 with 405 trucks and drivers. By 2016, it had climbed to No. 104. Today, the flatbed carrier operates more than 2,400 trucks and serves cus- tomers primarily in the oil and natural gas, building materials and steel indus- tries. e rapid growth of its data since 2010 has been far more substantial than its equipment count. e data at P&S has expanded from 10 gigabytes to 240, but Paredes says the data's qual- ity is more important than the volume and has become a major focus. e company's fast growth impacted data quality as new technologies such as vehicle telematics and customer relation- ship management systems were added. Seven years ago, no one could have predicted what technologies P&S would need for the growing company to begin mapping out a strategy for how it would all fit together. e technology department has tried to train people to enter data properly into its various systems, but "people just wanted to get things done," Paredes says. "We weren't able to get people to care enough to change their ways fast enough for it to matter." About three months ago, P&S imple- P&S Transportation connects staff, business intelligence to deliver results BY AARON HUFF H igh-tech companies such as Google, Tesla, Uber and Amazon have billions in cash, the brightest engineers in the world — and big data. ey and a number of well-funded startups are pursuing opportunities in the transpor- tation and logistics industry on a large scale. Motor carriers may not be competing for freight against these titans yet — except for perhaps Uber and its brokerage business — but that will change, especially when autono- mous trucks hit the road and are linked to their big data and supply chain intelligence. Mauricio Paredes, vice president of technology for P&S Transportation, tells em- ployees at the Birmingham, Ala.-based company that they also will be able to solve big problems with data and technology. Everyone at P&S has been empowered to make strategic decisions regardless of industry experience or job tenure. A load planner may have a gut feeling that a par- ticular make or model of one of the fleet's trucks is the one that's best suited for flatbed loads of steel pipe. By dragging and dropping some data fields into a report palette, he or she will be able to prove that instinct — or disprove it, as the case may be — at the speed of thought. Employees also might send an update to a truck to optimize its engine and transmission for a specific type of load. Such possibilities are within reach, Paredes says, but everyone has to do their part and use the technology the company already has to get there. "We want the entire company to be more data-driven, see the value of data and understand how every little thing they enter into the system matters," he says. The path to big data P&S Transportation was founded in 2004 by Robbie Pike, chief executive officer, and The flatbed hauler empowers employees of all departments and levels of seniority to use big data to make strategic decisions on the company's behalf.