DAT and FourKites Bring Supply Chain Visibility to North America’s Largest Freight Marketplace
The strategic partnership provides unparalleled end-to-end visibility that enables brokers to improve customer service and strengthen relationships with carriers
DAT Freight & Analytics, North America’s largest marketplace for truckload freight, and FourKites, the leading real-time supply chain visibility platform, today announced the next step in their strategic partnership that will bring real-time, end-to-end supply chain visibility to the DAT network. Integrating FourKites visibility into the DAT One Freight Management System will enable carriers on FourKites’ platform to make themselves instantly identifiable to 3PLs and brokers on the DAT network, creating the largest pool of “trackable” capacity on the spot market. Together, FourKites and DAT are streamlining visibility workflows that will eliminate countless hours of manual tracking and data collection calls that continue to plague the industry.
“We have seen the demand for real-time visibility and order status updates to consumers — from all those operating within the truckload freight industry — grow at an unprecedented rate,” said Claude Pumilia, DAT President and CEO. “Legacy visibility tools require extensive manual processes for carrier connectivity and do not provide the level of transparency into shipment status that today’s consumers both need and demand. By working together with carriers who are already part of FourKites, the world’s largest visibility platform, we are breaking down barriers to data-sharing and collaboration.”
Together, DAT and FourKites are providing an innovative solution to simplify delivery of automated tracking and carrier connectivity for brokers and shippers through the DAT One Freight Management System. Brokers and shippers will be able to request, initiate and monitor highly accurate load tracking from carriers directly in DAT One. To streamline visibility workflows, carriers can connect their electronic logging or GPS device to the FourKites platform to provide their customers with highly secure shipment tracking, leveraging FourKites’ Dynamic ETA® technology, which provides the market’s most accurate estimated times of arrival. The end result is stronger communication, improved appointment adherence and reduced truck dwell time.
“Supply chain visibility has swept the market over the last few years,” said Chad Boblett, Owner of Boblett Brothers Trucking. “Visibility is now absolutely critical to maintaining customer loyalty and winning new business. The faster both brokers and carriers adopt this technology, the better we can perform on each load from start to finish, including avoiding unexpected calls, delivering within highly accurate ETAs, communicating with customers and more.”
“Many LSPs are spending large amounts of resources to manually track for their customers, which is highly inefficient and prone to error,” said Mathew Elenjickal, FourKites founder and CEO. “Together with DAT, we are creating the largest network of tracked trucks in the industry, which will provide full visibility into North American brokered freight, empowering brokers and carriers to better meet rising customer demands. Armed with high-quality visibility data, they will be able to streamline operations, increase productivity and run a scalable and sustainable freight network.”
To learn more about the FourKites-DAT partnership, visit DAT at Booth #65216 in the West Wing of the Expo Center, or FourKites at Booth #64208 at the Mid-America Trucking Show (MATS), in Louisville, Kentucky, from March 24-26.
DAT Freight & Analytics operates the largest truckload freight marketplace in North America. Transportation brokers, carriers, shippers, news organizations and industry analysts rely on DAT for market trends and data insights derived from 249 million freight matches in 2020, and a database of $116 billion of market transactions. Related services include a comprehensive directory of companies with business history, credit, safety, insurance and company reviews; broker transportation management software; and carrier onboarding.
Founded in 1978, DAT is a wholly owned subsidiary of Roper Technologies (NYSE:ROP), a diversified technology company and constituent of the S&P 500, Fortune 500 and Russell 1000 indices.
FourKites is the #1 supply chain visibility platform in the world, extending visibility beyond transportation into yards, warehouses, stores and beyond. Tracking more than 2.5 million shipments daily across road, rail, ocean, air, parcel and courier, and reaching more than 185 countries, FourKites combines real-time data and powerful machine learning to help companies digitize their end-to-end supply chains. More than 1,000 of the world’s most recognized brands — including 9 of the top-10 CPG and 18 of the top-20 food and beverage companies — trust FourKites to transform their business and create more agile, efficient and sustainable supply chains. To learn more, visit https://www.fourkites.com/.
Supply chain planning (SCP) leaders working on transformation efforts are focused on two major high-impact technology trends, including composite AI and supply chain data governance, according to a study from Gartner, Inc.
"SCP leaders are in the process of developing transformation roadmaps that will prioritize delivering on advanced decision intelligence and automated decision making," Eva Dawkins, Director Analyst in Gartner’s Supply Chain practice, said in a release. "Composite AI, which is the combined application of different AI techniques to improve learning efficiency, will drive the optimization and automation of many planning activities at scale, while supply chain data governance is the foundational key for digital transformation.”
Their pursuit of those roadmaps is often complicated by frequent disruptions and the rapid pace of technological innovation. But Gartner says those leaders can accelerate the realized value of technology investments by facilitating a shift from IT-led to business-led digital leadership, with SCP leaders taking ownership of multidisciplinary teams to advance business operations, channels and products.
“A sound data governance strategy supports advanced technologies, such as composite AI, while also facilitating collaboration throughout the supply chain technology ecosystem,” said Dawkins. “Without attention to data governance, SCP leaders will likely struggle to achieve their expected ROI on key technology investments.”
The British logistics robot vendor Dexory this week said it has raised $80 million in venture funding to support an expansion of its artificial intelligence (AI) powered features, grow its global team, and accelerate the deployment of its autonomous robots.
A “significant focus” continues to be on expanding across the U.S. market, where Dexory is live with customers in seven states and last month opened a U.S. headquarters in Nashville. The Series B will also enhance development and production facilities at its UK headquarters, the firm said.
The “series B” funding round was led by DTCP, with participation from Latitude Ventures, Wave-X and Bootstrap Europe, along with existing investors Atomico, Lakestar, Capnamic, and several angels from the logistics industry. With the close of the round, Dexory has now raised $120 million over the past three years.
Dexory says its product, DexoryView, provides real-time visibility across warehouses of any size through its autonomous mobile robots and AI. The rolling bots use sensor and image data and continuous data collection to perform rapid warehouse scans and create digital twins of warehouse spaces, allowing for optimized performance and future scenario simulations.
Originally announced in September, the move will allow Deutsche Bahn to “fully focus on restructuring the rail infrastructure in Germany and providing climate-friendly passenger and freight transport operations in Germany and Europe,” Werner Gatzer, Chairman of the DB Supervisory Board, said in a release.
For its purchase price, DSV gains an organization with around 72,700 employees at over 1,850 locations. The new owner says it plans to investment around one billion euros in coming years to promote additional growth in German operations. Together, DSV and Schenker will have a combined workforce of approximately 147,000 employees in more than 90 countries, earning pro forma revenue of approximately $43.3 billion (based on 2023 numbers), DSV said.
After removing that unit, Deutsche Bahn retains its core business called the “Systemverbund Bahn,” which includes passenger transport activities in Germany, rail freight activities, operational service units, and railroad infrastructure companies. The DB Group, headquartered in Berlin, employs around 340,000 people.
“We have set clear goals to structurally modernize Deutsche Bahn in the areas of infrastructure, operations and profitability and focus on the core business. The proceeds from the sale will significantly reduce DB’s debt and thus make an important contribution to the financial stability of the DB Group. At the same time, DB Schenker will gain a strong strategic owner in DSV,” Deutsche Bahn CEO Richard Lutz said in a release.
Transportation industry veteran Anne Reinke will become president & CEO of trade group the Intermodal Association of North America (IANA) at the end of the year, stepping into the position from her previous post leading third party logistics (3PL) trade group the Transportation Intermediaries Association (TIA), both organizations said today.
Meanwhile, TIA today announced that insider Christopher Burroughs would fill Reinke’s shoes as president & CEO. Burroughs has been with TIA for 13 years, most recently as its vice president of Government Affairs for the past six years, during which time he oversaw all legislative and regulatory efforts before Congress and the federal agencies.
Before her four years leading TIA, Reinke spent two years as Deputy Assistant Secretary with the U.S. Department of Transportation and 16 years with CSX Corporation.
Serious inland flooding and widespread power outages are likely to sweep across Florida and other Southeast states in coming days with the arrival of Hurricane Helene, which is now predicted to make landfall Thursday evening along Florida’s northwest coast as a major hurricane, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
While the most catastrophic landfall impact is expected in the sparsely-population Big Bend area of Florida, it’s not only sea-front cities that are at risk. Since Helene is an “unusually large storm,” its flooding, rainfall, and high winds won’t be limited only to the Gulf Coast, but are expected to travel hundreds of miles inland, the weather service said. Heavy rainfall is expected to begin in the region even before the storm comes ashore, and the wet conditions will continue to move northward into the southern Appalachians region through Friday, dumping storm total rainfall amounts of up to 18 inches. Specifically, the major flood risk includes the urban areas around Tallahassee, metro Atlanta, and western North Carolina.
In addition to its human toll, the storm could exert serious business impacts, according to the supply chain mapping and monitoring firm Resilinc. Those will be largely triggered by significant flooding, which could halt oil operations, force mandatory evacuations, restrict ports, and disrupt air traffic.
While the storm’s track is currently forecast to miss the critical ports of Miami and New Orleans, it could still hurt operations throughout the Southeast agricultural belt, which produces products like soybeans, cotton, peanuts, corn, and tobacco, according to Everstream Analytics.
That widespread footprint could also hinder supply chain and logistics flows along stretches of interstate highways I-10 and I-75 and on regional rail lines operated by Norfolk Southern and CSX. And Hurricane Helene could also likely impact business operations by unleashing power outages, deep flooding, and wind damage in northern Florida portions of Georgia, Everstream Analytics said.
Before the storm had even touched Florida soil, recovery efforts were already being launched by humanitarian aid group the American Logistics Aid Network (ALAN). In a statement on Wednesday, the group said it is urging residents in the storm's path across the Southeast to heed evacuation notices and safety advisories, and reminding members of the logistics community that their post-storm help could be needed soon. The group will continue to update its Disaster Micro-Site with Hurricane Helene resources and with requests for donated logistics assistance, most of which will start arriving within 24 to 72 hours after the storm’s initial landfall, ALAN said.