3PLs look to AI for supply chain efficiency

Third-party logistics providers (3PLs) NFI Industries and Transplace are bolstering their tech portfolios with partnerships that add artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities to their transportation and distribution activities, NFI said today.

NFI will team with Noodle.ai, a San Francisco firm which also announced a partnership with the Texas-based 3PL Transplace last month. That move could help Transplace deliver enhanced logistics services and technology to shippers by further integrating AI and machine learning technologies into its operations, Transplace said at the time.

"Enhancing our use of data science through AI and machine learning will enable our customers to make more strategic, data-driven decisions, and allow Transplace to further leverage its large network of shippers and carriers, to increase efficiency, reduce costs and improve service," Transplace CTO Jim French said in a Feb. 26 release. "These technologies will become an increasingly important part of our technology strategy as we explore additional applications to improve process automation and service predictions."

Cherry Hill, N.J.-based NFI hopes to gain similar benefits, bringing greater efficiency to its customers' supply chains by enhancing its service offerings with AI as well as automation, robotics, and predictive analytics, NFI CIO Gerard Darby said in a release.

Noodle.ai says its applications can improve tasks from fleet maintenance and fill rate to inventory allocation, in applications for companies throughput the consumer products, transportation, distribution, and manufacturing industries.

The partnerships come a year after Noodle.ai announced it had raised $35 million in venture funding from the investors Dell Technologies Capital and TPG Growth. Noodle.ai said then that the capital raised its fundraising total to $51 million and would help expand its suite of applications, helping industries predict the future and make better business decisions.

Love seeing our work with @NFIindustries in @RoboticBusiness https://t.co/9ysP0b7kKy

— Noodle.ai (@NoodleAI) March 6, 2019