CCJ

April 2018

Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal

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34 commercial carrier journal | april 2018 T hree weeks into his new job as chief executive of Omnitracs, Ray Greer sat for lunch in late February with trucking media and analysts during the company's Outlook user conference in Nashville, Tenn. Before joining the mobile fleet man- agement technology provider, Greer was president of third-party logistics company BNSF Logistics, which recently certified 40,000 carriers in its network for electronic logging device compliance. Most BNSF carriers are using ELD prod- ucts from Omnitracs. At BNSF, Greer saw the opportunity to leverage data from ELD applica- tions to gain visibility of shipment status and to locate load capacity more quickly and efficiently. During the Nashville meeting, Greer expressed interest in Omnitracs offering new freight-matching technologies for 3PLs, freight brokers and carriers. To do this, the company wants to accumulate more data and plans to acquire compa- nies as needed. "The Holy Grail of trucking is match- technology ing carriers with shippers," he said. "It is going to be fun, and I'm excited about how we are going to tap that market." Thirty years ago, Qualcomm pioneered satellite tracking and mobile communications in the trucking industry. In 2013, the company now known as Om- nitracs – a name given to Qual- comm's growing fleet manage- ment technology subsidiary – was purchased from Qualcomm by private equity firm Vista. Carriers that use Omnitracs' mobile hardware and software systems, which include the XRS and MCP platforms, can satisfy the load-tracking requirements of their shipper, 3PL and freight broker customers by sharing information through Virtual Load View. The application secures carrier location information and relays any shipment de- tails that carriers agree to share with trusted customers. Omnitracs plans to bring new capabilities to market by leveraging its route planning and optimization applications with Virtual Load View and other technologies. If a driver in Texas is empty with six hours remaining on his hours-of-service duty status, "we need to present loads (to the driver) that he can do in six hours," Greer said. The loads would be coming from the carrier's transportation management soft- ware system or from a shipper, 3PL or freight broker using Omnitracs' technology "in the middle" of the freight-matching process. "We will change the way carriers think about getting their next load." The same routing optimization technologies are being applied to identify platoon- ELD LEVERAGE: Data can provide visibility of shipment status and load capacity quickly and efficiently. FREIGHT MATCHING: Omnitracs is interested in new technologies for 3PLs, freight brokers and carriers. FIRST, MIDDLE AND FINAL MILE: Work has focused on converging tech- nologies for all types of operations. MAKING THE LATEST TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS WORK FOR YOUR FLEET BY AARON HUFF 'The Holy Grail' of trucking Omnitracs executives discuss freight matching, unified tech Navigation and other cloud- based applications in the new Omnitracs One platform are device-agnostic. Kevin Haugh, Omnitracs' chief product and strategy officer, discusses the applications in the new Omnitracs One platform.

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