Real-Time Delivery Tracking Pays Dividends

By Brian Albright, Integrated Solutions magazine

For freight delivery companies, information is power. Central Freight Lines (CFL) is leveraging real-time fleet data generated by an online transportation management solution to control costs and improve service. CFL is an LTL (less-than-truckload) carrier with 40,000 active shippers, nearly 700 drivers, and 52 terminals across the United States. The company originally served the overnight shipping market, but has grown into a regional carrier, with its trucks making multipoint stops over several days. The company's IT systems, however, had not grown with it. CFL's customers wanted real-time information about freight deliveries, but the company's existing systems were not able to generate data that rapidly. "There was a period of several years where there had been no development of our core business software," says Mark Stein, director of operations services at CFL. "We made some changes to the system so we could provide delivery information, but our customers did not want to wait for us to manually process that data at the end of the day."