How FourKites solves systemic LTL arrival time challenges

As more carriers rely upon less-than-truckload shipments to deliver a broadening spectrum of freight – including critical goods related to the COVID-19 pandemic – demand is rising for reliable precision tools that accurately pinpoint LTL delivery times.

In fact, essential healthcare equipment, front-line protective gear and high-value, limited-shelf-life pharmaceuticals are among the many goods moving today via LTL. At the same time, the rise of e-commerce puts pressure on shippers to provide superior supply chain transparency and best possible ETAs.

FourKites, the leading real-time supply chain visibility platform, building upon its proven expertise in delivering the freight industry’s most accurate estimated times of arrival, is once again raising the bar in supply chain management with Dynamic ETA for LTL, furnishing end-to-end tracking and ETAs with up to six times the accuracy previously available.

Predictability meets growing need

After several years of development, FourKites’ industry-first Dynamic ETA for LTL solution could not have arrived at a more propitious time.

Earlier in the year, many companies scrambled to meet demand for critical goods related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Although supply chain disruptions have retreated from headlines, the pandemic continues to propel marketplace volatility, driving a significant increase in LTL freight – a mode that can be far more cost-effective for palletized products. In fact, FourKites reported a 182 percent jump in LTL shipments in the first quarter of 2020 compared with a year earlier.

Given the increased reliance on LTL, the ability to provide highly accurate estimated arrival times is bringing much-needed predictability to a sector that has historically been plagued by uncertainty, according to Priya Rajagopalan, chief product officer of FourKites. Rajagopalan explains that delivery times for inherently complex LTL shipments have long been notoriously unreliable, with even rough “day-of” estimates often being missed.

Land O’Lakes sees breakthrough

The latest FourKites offering has been deployed by Arden Hills, Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes in two of its three business units – crop inputs and animal feeds – which rely heavily upon LTL for getting relatively small orders to rural destinations.

One of the technology’s early adopters, Dustin Braun, senior director of logistics for Land O’Lakes, describes FourKites’ Dynamic ETA for LTL as a genuine industry breakthrough.

According to Braun, the company’s use of the solution has enabled their operations team to proactively manage through disruptions, which are increasing in frequency and magnitude. The predictive analytics and visibility allows them to improve the overall customer experience while reducing internal workload.

Customer satisfaction gets a boost

Shippers and receivers, as well as carriers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs), can expect to derive a number of benefits from the accurate delivery times for LTL loads.

As Braun points out, shippers such as Land O’Lakes are now better able to manage their resources by not playing the “telephone game” with customers and carriers.

Instead, the visibility provided by Dynamic ETA for LTL allows Land O’Lakes and its customers to gain access to real-time delivery estimates, thus generating greater efficiencies for the company’s operations teams.

Power of data harnessed

FourKites’ comprehensive solutions span all modes of freight transport and are powered by real-time data – comprising information from the world’s largest network of shippers, carriers, brokers and 3PLs – and industry-leading machine learning innovation. Dynamic ETA for LTL is the firm’s latest innovation, available globally, including throughout North America, Latin America and Europe.

The scale of real-time freight transit data captured by FourKites is unrivaled. In the last year alone, FourKites has tracked more than 3.2 billion miles of LTL freight and millions of individual loads, encompassing 96 percent of the LTL market. The company’s data science team then applied proprietary machine learning to analyze those loads together with hundreds of load attributes, from shipper and carrier behaviors to geographic and seasonal vicissitudes, with models consistently reviewed and regularly updated to reflect the latest learnings from the data.

All told, the system looked at more than 1.3 trillion combinations to generate a robust and accurate LTL ETA model that offers unprecedented accuracy and granularity when it comes to LTL freight movements.

Industry-best LTL ETAs offered

As the world’s preeminent aggregator of real-time supply chain data, FourKites is uniquely qualified to stitch together the most meaningful applicable data to derive industry-best LTL ETAs.

Armed with highly accurate and granular LTL tracking, shippers are now empowered to move goods with greater speed and confidence, and at reduced cost, driving customer satisfaction in the process.

Vivek Vaid, chief technology officer of FourKites, notes that, with Dynamic ETA for LTL, 80 percent of initial projected arrival times fall within just two hours of actual arrival. That is a remarkable six times the predictive accuracy of the prior industry standard.

Visibility, collaboration enjoyed

As circumstances are constantly evolving along the supply chain, FourKites’ Dynamic ETA for LTL makes relevant adjustments and promptly communicates changes so that customers and partners are in a better position to proactively address issues.

The platform brings total end-to-end transparency to LTL loads so that all parties – from shippers to carriers to managers at receiving docks and beyond – have real-time visibility into shipments and thus are well-positioned to benefit from optimal collaboration.

Furthermore, as soon as an LTL load is created, FourKites automatically generates a PRO number (short for progressive rotating order number) that it adds to the platform to reduce the need for manually searching for said number and matching it to a piece of freight. Proof of delivery (POD) and other pertinent documentation is furnished electronically and made instantly accessible to all parties, thereby saving time and reducing potential losses.

Certainty rises amid uncertainty

FourKites’ Rajagopalan notes that, while LTL shipments are often considerably more cost-effective than their full-truckload (FTL) counterparts, they’ve also acquired an infamous reputation for erratic ETAs – propagated by poor data, siloed workflows and a host of other inefficiencies. FourKites’ revolutionary Dynamic ETA for LTL changes everything now, at the most opportune of times.

Greater use of LTL shipments, as facilitated by Dynamic ETA for LTL and a suite of complementary FourKites offerings, will be integral to meeting escalating demand for prompt, reliable delivery of emergency goods, e-commerce orders and more – all without the need to wait for full truckloads to be assembled prior to shipping.

Through its vanguard application of data science, FourKites is once again transforming a vital sector of the supply chain, to the benefit of all stakeholders, delivering previously unachievable certainty in an era plagued by global uncertainty.