Ocean freight consolidators and forwarders have taken comfort in less-than-container-load (LCL) volumes and services in the U.S. trans-Atlantic trades, despite the ongoing economic headwinds caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
In recent months, more American and European shippers have turned to LCL services as a cheaper alternative to air freight and a way to counter ocean carrier service disruptions involving full-container-load (FCL) transport.
“Owing to the higher FCL and airfreight charges, freight forwarders on trans-Atlantic routes are opting for LCL to meet their cargo delivery commitments,” said Marc Stoffelen, executive director for ocean freight consolidator ECU Worldwide.
“In addition, there are cargo capacity constraints at the moment and this situation is likely to continue,” Stoffelen said. “As a result, LCL volumes will remain stable in the coming months.”
Greg Scott, director of LCL ocean services for C.H. Robinson (Photo: Courtesy)
Ocean freight consolidators serve as carriers to forwarders by co-loading LCL shipments from shippers into single container loads for transport by ocean carriers to overseas destinations.
These service providers were less certain of the trans-Atlantic’s market outcome when in March and April shippers on both sides of the ocean found their international business suddenly constrained by COVID-19 government lockdowns, rapidly rising airfreight transport rates and ocean carriers cutting back on their services.
“LCL volumes certainly took a hit in both directions during the peak COVID-19 shutdown period from mid-March through April,” said Greg Scott, director of LCL ocean services for forwarder C.H. Robinson.
“For imports, we saw increased shipment counts moving but at lower-than-average volumes per house bill of lading,” Scott said. “With a higher dependency for airfreight to move via passenger aircraft on the trans-Atlantic, a shift to LCL made economic sense for those who could handle the transit differences. This was especially true when airfreight rates spiked to over $10 per kilogram.”
Not the strongest, but dependable
Compared to the trans-Pacific, the trans-Atlantic was not the dominant container market, but it has been dependable to ocean consolidators and forwarders over the years.
Prior to the worldwide COVID-19 outbreak, the LCL market in the trans-Atlantic operated in a predictable pattern.
Shipco Transport’s International Cargo Terminals facility at Elizabeth, New Jersey (Photo: Shipco Transport)
“2020 started strong and better than 2019,” said Niels Nielsen, executive vice president for freight consolidator Shipco Transport. “As European countries started to shut down in March going into April, we experienced a drop in demand. That drop lasted a relatively short period of time as we largely saw volume return during May into June.”
At this point, Nielsen said more shippers and their forwarders started switching from full-container loads to LCL services due to smaller customer orders and costly reductions in air cargo capacity.
Robert Sutton, freight consolidator Vanguard Logistics’ regional vice president of sales for the U.S. and Canada, echoed that market reaction in the trans-Atlantic. “Restricted capacity and the rate escalation with airfreight have made room for the middle lane between traditional air and traditional ocean LCL,” he said.
The traditional second-half-year surge in trans-Atlantic volumes occurs in August, followed by a decline in September and October. Freight volumes then surge again in November before declining again in December.
“Europe has always had very steady volumes through the calendar year,” Scott said. “Higher-value products have a more consistent seasonality to them. For example, automotive, chemical and consumer-retail verticals all move in predictable patterns on this trade.
“The difference in 2020 is that we have not seen that peak surge in volumes in July and August that you would normally expect,” he said. “COVID-19 uncertainty has kept those orders and higher inventory levels low, resulting in a lower late-summer surge.”
The eastbound trans-Atlantic trade, however, remains flat and the ocean carriers struggle to secure exports from North America. On the westbound trans-Atlantic leg, however, a rise in exports is underway from the European Union and Middle East to North America, but capacity is constrained by blank sailings placed on ocean carriers’ headhauls.
“From a demand perspective, that remains normal both ways,” said Carmen Gerace, chief transportation officer for forwarder BDP International’s non-vessel-operating common carrier BDP Transport. “With that being said, we have seen a good portion of our client base look to optimize [freight] spend through LCL optimization programs.”
“Rate levels on the trans-Atlantic have been stable and predictable and aren’t fluctuating as much as other trades, allowing shippers to plan their supply chain costs long term between LCL and FCL modes,” said Jens Rehder, Shipco’s vice president of U.S. LCL imports.
Direct and expedited LCL services
Freight consolidators acquire container space from multiple ocean carriers and then retail that capacity to forwarders who manage the logistics of goods shipments on behalf of shippers. These wholesalers pride themselves on providing scheduled, price-competitive LCL services, even in the face of curtailed sailings by ocean carriers and more expensive airfreight.
“Our business was handled without delay throughout COVID,” said Chris Wilson, president of freight consolidator CaroTrans Global. “Our U.S. team did an exceptional job the past six months, and I think it actually provided us an opportunity to improve certain aspects of our business.”
The biggest challenge for consolidators in the trans-Atlantic is navigating blank sailing announcements from ocean carriers.
The trans-Atlantic has much shorter transits between the U.S. East Coast and European ports, compared to the American West Coast ports serving the trans-Pacific market.
Michael Troy II, chief development officer for Troy Container Line (Photo: Courtesy)
“When a [trans-Atlantic] client experiences a seven-day delay due to a blank sailing, it puts a lot of pressure on a supply chain that could be set up for only 12 days on the water,” explained Michael Troy II, chief development officer for consolidator Troy Container Line. “The demand for us has increased due to our clients’ need to find reliable weekly sailings within our mix of carriers.”
Recent actions by the ocean carriers have encouraged consolidators like Troy Container Line to launch additional direct services from various East Coast gateways, such as Chicago, New York and Atlanta, so they are not hindered by the blank sailings. “If one gateway is not offering the transit needed or has a blank sailing, we can still find a solution in other ports,” Troy said.
Some consolidators, such as ECU Worldwide and Shipco, are introducing so-called “expedited” or “express” LCL services to trans-Atlantic shippers and forwarders, a service concept that was launched earlier in the trans-Pacific to counter ocean carrier blank sailings and costly airfreight transport.
Although expedited LCL services are three to four times more expensive per cubic meter of freight than traditional LCL, they offer airfreight shippers that are currently pinched for capacity and seeing higher-than-normal air transport rates due to the coronavirus pandemic a rate that is two-thirds or three-fourths cheaper, if extra days can be allowed in the transit.
“As with the trans-Pacific express offerings, we use carriers with the fastest transit times; we offer late gates at origin CFS [container freight station] and we have dedicated drop-off lanes at the CFS to expedite that process,” said Christine Solorzano, Shipco’s vice president of U.S. LCL exports. “We guarantee top stowage on the vessel to facilitate earlier availability.”
Solorzano believes the trend toward expedited LCL will continue. “They will most likely become a standard, even as we move out of this current situation,” she said.
“This service is essential to those businesses who couldn’t get the capacity or didn’t need to purchase airfreight rates as a result of the passenger travel,” C.H. Robinson’s Scott said. “Cargo from Southern and Central Europe could take advantage of these services via Europe’s extensive LTL [less-than-truckload] network to the main loading ports.”
Deutsche Post DHL Group (OTCMKTS: DPSGY) has stepped up its commitment to recruit, retain and promote women in its management ranks by announcing a new policy that provides three months of maternity leave at 100% pay for its North American supply chain unit.
The policy takes effect Jan. 1 and will also apply to adoptive parents, the company said.
Meredith Singletary, senior human resources director for DHL Supply Chain, North America (Photo: Courtesy)
“We firmly believe that the introduction of this maternity leave update is a sizable step in the right direction and positions us as an attractive employer not only among logistics peers but in the U.S. market overall,” Meredith Singletary, senior human resources director for DHL Supply Chain in North America, told American Shipper.
DHL in the U.S. has sought to increase the number of women in management roles for more than a decade.
In 2013, DHL Supply Chain’s U.S. operation formed regional Women in Logistics groups. These groups started out as informal gatherings to discuss issues relevant to women in the workplace and extend community outreach, Singletary said.
DHL Supply Chain now has nine North American Women in Logistics groups of about 100 to 120 employees each. The groups also meet at a national level to “identify obstacles and opportunities to career development for our female associates and to share best practices,” Singletary said, noting that the maternity leave policy came from one of those meetings.
“We have to acknowledge that there are a number of European markets that offer more extensive paid maternity leave programs,” she said. “At the same time, every market has a different structure, labor market dynamic, including variance of overall compensation and benefits, and regulatory environment.”
Shippers help drive change for DHL’s female workers
Singletary said DHL Supply Chain North America included best practices for its new U.S. maternity leave policy based on input from its shipper customers.
“Customers increasingly hold us to account on our diversity and inclusion policies and performance during the bid process, so it is also something we recognize as a competitive advantage,” she said.
DHL has in place policies that allow for short-term disability leave or paid vacation for employees who need time for different reasons during the prenatal period.
Singletary said DHL has also implemented attendance policies that provide more workplace flexibility for the company’s hourly workers to take time out to attend personal activities, such as doctor appointments, parent-teacher conferences, school performances and checking on elderly relatives, without the need to draw down vacation days or seek formal approval beyond notifying their supervisors.
“In many ways, it may seem like a relatively minor change, but it reflects a major shift in approach within our industry, particularly with regard to frontline workers, and is another policy change that can support pregnant women and mothers in our business,” she said.
30% female leadership by 2025
DHL has committed to increase the number of women in its management ranks to 30% by 2025. While the new maternity leave policy is expected to help achieve this goal, the company has initiated other human resources programs to bring more women on board.
DHL Supply Chain has increased its presence on U.S. college campuses in recent years to recruit women for internships and entry-level management positions. Since the COVID-19 outbreak, the company said it has continued this effort by using the online Handshake platform.
Earlier this year, DHL Supply Chain started its “100 Years 100 Women Campaign” to involve both women and men to create an inclusive work environment.
“If we really want to create a sustained change, it comes down to culture and ensuring everyone is on board, including our male colleagues,” Singletary said.
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Paper documents still dominate much of the labor-intensive less-than-containerload (LCL) pickup and delivery process at U.S. container freight stations (CFSes), but the coronavirus pandemic and state government social distancing measures to prevent its spread are hastening the drive to create a totally paperless and contactless environment.
Shipco Transport and its CFS subsidiary International Container Terminals (ICT), which had prior to COVID-19 implemented a warehouse management application to electronically receive LCL export cargo, realized they still had much more to do to protect their workers from the deadly virus.
Thorkild Hove, senior vice president of International Container Terminals (ICT) (Photo: Courtesy)
“COVID-19 accelerated the need for us to think outside the box,” Thorkild Hove, ICT’s senior vice president, told American Shipper. “With the pandemic surging, we identified that there were too many touch points and close interactions [and] that something needed to be done.”
Before the virus, a truck driver arriving at an ICT facility to pick up an LCL import presented two papers — a delivery order and an ICT pickup receipt. The ICT CFS office staff processed the paperwork and provided the driver with two copies of each service invoice to give to the warehouse staff.
Using the documents, the ICT warehouse staff pulled the cargo and loaded the truck. Once loaded, they would hand their copy back to the driver for signature and this document was then taken back to the front office for filing.
For an export delivery, the driver handed the office staff printed copies of the truck bill of lading, which was then manually processed into the ICT system. The office would print the dock receipts and labels, which the driver gave to the warehouse staff. The warehouse workers unloaded the cargo, signed two copies of the paperwork and gave one copy back to the driver. The warehouse used the paper dock receipts and labels to process the cargo through Shipco’s warehouse management app, Hove explained.
When state governments began imposing COVID-19 social distancing measures in late February and early March, ICT asked its customers to email their documentation for cargo pickups and drop-offs.
“ICT can now pre-enter all this information in our system,” Hove said. “The only thing the driver has to do is present his or her ID at the gate and reference the cargo pickup or delivery.”
For truckers that lack access to email or are not initially aware of ICT’s new process, the company has installed a scanner outside the office clerk’s window.
While this rapidly implemented requirement minimized most contact points in ICT’s facilities, Hove said there were still data processing aspects, especially at the dock level, which needed automating.
ICT researched many different systems over the past several months. One of the trucking companies calling its facilities recommended using Vector Systems.
“Vector was most responsive from the beginning,” Hove said. “They were keen to explore what they could do for ICT, considering our quest to make it safer from a COVID-19 health perspective to deliver and pick up freight.”
Vector is a cloud-based application that allows users to upload documents from email and make them visible on a smartphone or tablet. Time-stamped notations and comments can be added to the shipment record, including attaching photos of the cargo as it is received for export or prepared for trucker pickup.
“All electronic documentation can be shared instantly with our customers and truck drivers,” said Michael Tiernan, ICT’s vice president of operations. “This is a game-changer for our industry, which has relied on antiquated paper-based systems for too many years.”
Preparing less-than-containerload shipments at ICT’s Elizabeth, New Jersey, container freight station. (Photo: Shipco Transport)
ICT declined to reveal how much it invested in the Vector application.
So far, the system has been rolled out at ICT’s Atlanta CFS, with its facilities in Long Beach, California; Miami; and Elizabeth, New Jersey, to follow in the weeks ahead.
“Our ultimate goal is to have a fully integrated system that can start from truckers and the dispatcher setting up a reservation online,” Hove said. “Drivers arriving at our gate can then go straight to a preassigned door to pick up or drop off their LCL freight.”
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Russian airline AirBridgeCargo (ABC), a subsidiary of Volga-Dnepr Group, took delivery this week of its first purpose-built Boeing 777 freighter.
The plane is a small, but welcome, addition of freighter capacity to a transport market characterized by limited supply because of the withdrawal of passenger flights due to the coronavirus.
Volga-Dnepr will operate the aircraft through a sale-leaseback agreement with Dubai Aerospace Enterprise, a large lessor of 777 freighters, Boeing announced. In 2018, Volga-Dnepr signed a letter of intent to purchase 29 Boeing 777s.
Volga-Dnepr is among the world’s largest Boeing freighter operators, flying 17 747 freighters and five 737 freighters, including 13 747-8F, four 747-400ERF, two 737-800BCF and three 737-400SF types.
The 777 freighter has a cargo payload of 112 tons and has surpassed the 747-400 in fuel efficiency and carrying capacity.
Boeing (NYSE: BA) has received 231 orders since it began making the 777 freighter in 2005. Volga-Dnepr is the 19th airline to use the twin-engine freighter.
In related news, Volga-Dnepr this week completed a 30-ton shipment of electric power-generating equipment from India to Vietnam for a 450-megawatt solar power plant.
The cargo was transported on board one of the airline’s heavy-duty Antonov AN-124 freighters, which was chartered by Bee Logistics Corp. on behalf of Advanced Information Technologies Corp.
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British Airways (LSE: IAG) is making good on a recent announcement to ground all 31 of its Boeing 747-400 jumbo aircraft by removing the first plane on Tuesday.
The airline has operated the 747 since 1971. At one time British Airways had 57 of the jumbo jets in its fleet. Efforts to reduce fuel consumption and the coronavirus pandemic’s devastating financial impact on the aviation industry have accelerated British Airways’ effort to ground the planes.
The first plane to be retired has been part of British Airways’ fleet for 25 years. Its last flight was to Lagos, Nigeria, on April 18, and it has not flown since due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. The airline estimates the plane made 13,364 flights and covered more than 50 million miles during its operational life.
The 747 is rapidly being replaced by more fuel-efficient aircraft types, some of which match or exceed the former plane’s cargo payloads in passenger configuration. British Airways’ new 787-10s offer 12 to 13 pallet and four ULD (unit load device) container positions and the 777-300s have space for nine pallet and 12 ULD container positions, compared to the 747’s six pallet and four ULD container positions.
British Airways has committed to net-zero emissions by 2050. Newer, long-range planes to join the air carrier’s fleet, such as the six Airbus A350s and 32 787s, are over 25% more fuel compared to the 747.
British Airways is not alone in its efforts to shed aging jumbo passenger jets. Air France-KLM in May removed its nine remaining A380s from service, while five 747-400s and six A380s from Lufthansa’s fleet and Delta’s 18 777s will be permanently grounded by year’s end.
In July, Boeing revealed that it will end its more than 50-year production of the 747 passenger airframes in 2022. Industry experts, however, expect the plane to remain in freighter service for years to come.
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Russia’s ATRAN Airlines has expanded its express cargo services to China with the addition of a weekly flight between Moscow and Shijiazhuang airports to handle e-commerce orders.
Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province, is smaller than Beijing and Tianjin to the north but has benefited as e-commerce suppliers expand to second-tier cities. Online orders from Russia have significantly increased this year because people have few opportunities to shop in stores amid the coronavirus pandemic.
ATRAN said the pullback of most passenger flights and associated belly capacity as well as stable contracts with customers contributed to the increase in e-commerce volumes.
ATRAN, a subsidiary of Russian air cargo conglomerate Volga-Dnepr, launched its first express flight from Moscow to Shijiazhuang on Saturday, transporting 15 tons of e-commerce packages. The carrier said it will operate the flights with Boeing 737-400 and 737-800 freighters.
ATRAN’s express network in China includes Xi’an, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Urumqi and Zhengzhou.
Russia’s S7 Airlines
In related news, GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) said it will lease two 737-800 converted freighters to Russia’s S7 Airlines. The move marks the first time S7, which markets the belly space of passenger flights to cargo shippers, will manage all-cargo aircraft.
Narrow-body 737-800 freighters, with a cargo payload of 24 tons, are particularly suited for short-haul, regional flights.
S7 will use the freighters on routes with strong demand where there is limited capacity in the baggage holds of passenger aircraft. The cargo jets will increase the carrier’s capacity by 30%, CEO Ilya Yaroslavtsev said in a press release.
GECAS said it expects to deliver the planes in November and January.
On Wednesday, GECAS reached a deal with Boeing (NYSE: BA) to convert 11 737-800 passenger planes to freighters, with options to convert an additional nine, bringing total confirmed orders to 60 since the conversion program began in 2016.
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GECAS embraces 737-800 converted freighters for efficiency and cargo versatility. [Photo: GECAS]
GE Capital Aviation Services (GECAS) said Wednesday it entered an agreement with Boeing (NYSE: BA) to convert 11 Boeing 737-800 passenger planes to all-cargo mode.
The deal includes options for Boeing to convert an additional nine 737-800s for the General Electric (NYSE: GE) subsidiary.
GECAS said its total 737-800 freighter conversion orderbook now stands at 74: 60 firm and 14 options. The orders in this latest tranche are scheduled for completion between 2022 and 2024.
Boeing has delivered 23 converted 737-800 freighters to GECAS, which leases the planes to air carriers.
The 737 converted freighter is increasingly seen by air cargo operators as a good fit for the express and e-commerce market, which demands frequent shuttle runs at airports that are close to consumers to minimize road transport. Smaller gauge-aircraft can land at smaller airports and are being used by Mesa Airlines and Sun Country to carry packages for DHL and Amazon. The 737-800 converted freighter is considered fuel efficient and can transport up to 24 tons of cargo.
GECAS has also ventured into larger aircraft conversions with the recent delivery of its first 777-300 extended-range passenger plane to Israel Aerospace Industries for conversion to all-cargo configuration.
GECAS, so far, has completed more than 80 cargo aircraft conversions. It currently has more than 100 orders and options for conversions.
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Magma Aviation adds fourth 747-400 freighter to its fleet. (Photo: Magma Aviation)
Charter operator Magma Aviation has added a 747-400 freighter to its fleet as it looks to attract cargo customers and expand.
Sister company AviaAM Leasing purchased the plane and is providing it to Magma, the companies said in a news release. AviaAM did not reveal the age, origin or price tag of the factory-built aircraft. The 747-400 freighter offers nose-loading capacity and a 121-ton cargo payload.
Magma said the freighter conducted its first commercial cargo flight on Aug. 4.
Magma now manages a fleet of four 747-400 freighters. It markets the capacity and handles flight support services, but outsources actual flying to airline crews.
All-cargo aircraft are in high demand this year because the destruction of passenger networks by the coronavirus pandemic created a large capacity shortage.
Magma representatives declined to name any specific clients using the new aircraft, but the company recently began providing airlift to German forwarder Senator International.
Parent company Avia Solutions acquired U.K.-based Chapman Freeborn, a specialist in humanitarian air cargo transport, last year. In addition to Magma, the acquisition included four other Chapman entities and expanded Avia’s overall ownership to 110 companies in 32 countries.
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LATAM Cargo, South America’s largest freighter operator, has started a weekly flight between Miami and the Florianopolis airport in southern Brazil.
The airline said it has the only all-cargo flight tying North America with consumers in Santa Catarina that seek automotive parts, metals, food, pharmaceuticals and electronic products.
LATAM said cargo from Europe and Asia will also be included on the Miami outbound flight, which is serviced with a Boeing 767 freighter.
Previously, cargo destined to Santa Catarina arrived at Brazil’s Guarulhos and Viracopos airports and was trucked to the province.
With the addition of Florianopolis, the airline now lands at 10 Brazilian airports with cargo-only service.
Cargo has been a bright spot for LATAM. It has been busy flying medical supplies for governments and humanitarian groups, as well as important staples and other commodities for communities in Latin America.
In May LATAM Airlines Group (NYSE: LTM) filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. to downsize the airline and restructure its debt, citing the financial toll of the coronavirus pandemic on its international passengers.
Qatar Airways and LATAM chairman Ignacio Cueto, two of the Santiago, Chile-based company’s largest shareholders, will provide $900 million in debtor-in-possession financing.
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The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of FreightWaves or its affiliates.
Author’s Disclosure: I am not an investor in Transmetrics, either personally or through REFASHIOND Ventures. I have no other financial relationship with Transmetrics.
Transmetrics is a software-as-a-service startup that unlocks the power of data for demand forecasting and predictive optimization in cargo transportation. It was founded in 2013, and is headquartered in Sofia, Bulgaria with a distributed team residing in Belgium, Germany, Hungary and Netherlands.
This installment of the AI in Supply Chain series (#AIinSupplyChain) focuses on what Transmetrics has done since it was founded, as well as its plans for the near future.
While I specifically focus on Transmetrics in this commentary, it is just one example of some of the innovations that are taking place in logistics technology as entrepreneurs, software engineers and other technologists team up to build products and startups that solve the problems large companies have grappled with for too long because the enabling technologies were immature.
Defining the problem that Transmetrics solves for supply chain logistics companies
Lisa Laguzinskaya, Transmetrics’ Head of Commercial Operations, told me that the company’s co-founders, who have known one another for many years, came together to see if they could answer a question that they encountered frequently during their IT consulting engagements with large logistics companies.
The logistics and cargo transportation companies kept asking Transmetrics’ co-founders, “What can we do to better match our supply of cargo capacity with demand?”
Based on their experience, Transmetrics’ four co-founders decided to create a product that utilized machine learning, data mining and data analytics to forecast demand and optimize transport planning and asset management for companies in cargo logistics. The co-founders reasoned that with more accurate demand forecasts, cargo transportation companies could then optimize capacity and supply.
The original sketch of the ideas behind Transmetrics from 2013…
Since those early days in 2013, Transmetrics has developed products for less-than-truckload trucking, asset management (container, truck, trailer), freight forwarding, as well as transportation equipment rental and leasing, with more products in the pipeline.
Starting in 2013 and 2014 with pilot customers like DHL Express, Agility Logistics and ECS European Containers, the company now helps companies like Kuehne+Nagel, NileDutch, DPDGroup, Gebrüder Weiss, and others reduce their operating costs and increase their operating efficiencies.
During our conversation, Laguzinskaya emphasized Transmetrics’ unique focus on data cleansing. In her words, the team at Transmetrics made that an integral aspect of the company’s capabilities once they realized that “You can’t forecast or optimize effectively if you have bad data.”
Transmetrics works with its customers to gather, cleanse, augment and enrich historical operational data on capacity and utilization. This data is then fed to optimization models that support decision-making by Transmetrics’ customers.
Transmetrics employees pose for a group photo. (Photo: Brian Aoaeh)
Why Transmetrics’ team believes that data cleansing is critical
Alexis Zubiolo, Lead Data Scientist at Transmetrics explained, “Data quality is often a major issue when working in logistics. The two main reasons are the lack of discipline and automation in the data acquisition process (missing scans, package dimensions, etc.) and the fact that there are many different transportation management systems (TMS) with various data structures.”
Zubiolo added, “Transmetrics combines manual and automatic approaches (outlier detection, imputations, duplicate elimination, etc.), and we have years of experience by now. The automatic approach can easily scale but the manual work cannot. Fortunately, logistics companies are realizing that data acquisition is a key point, and as a consequence, the quality of the data is increasing, which will reduce the need for manual data transformations.”
Asparuh Koev, a co-founder and CEO of Transmetrics, offered additional perspective on why data cleansing is core to how the company sees its relationship with its customers. In his opinion there are three key aspects of the data quality issue in logistics.
A tractor waits near the docks while a ship is unloaded. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
“The first problem is that the data contained in a TMS is in a very complex format. The data is focused on supporting daily operations and it is not suitable for business intelligence in its raw form. We have developed technology to quickly take the data from any TMS including custom-built and legacy/in-house systems, and put it into a format which makes it easy to use it for business intelligence. The first time we tried to do it years ago, we realized that it takes up to a year to do such a process properly. Now we have learned how to do it in one to two months.”
“The second problem is missing or incomplete data. For example, if you are trying to decide on how much truck capacity you would need, you should be able to understand how big the parcels are that you are transporting. Very often, however, there is not enough data and you might know only the weight. Our algorithms use machine learning and predictive techniques in order to enrich and complete the data,” he explained.
“The third problem is related to data complexity. Logistics is not really about big data but it is about complex data. The data that describes the logistics processes is extremely complex so we have developed an entire canonical data model that helps to put all the data into perspective and connect it to other data,” Koev said.
He went on to explain, “To give you an example – to correctly capture what is going on in logistics operations, you need to have 20 to 30 tables with between 10 and 15 fields per table to understand what is going on in one connected view. We have developed a recipe – our canonical data model – that works for any logistics operation. We have applied the same recipe to container operators, parcel operators, intermodal operators, warehouses and it works everywhere. Otherwise, it would take months and months to figure out how you should position various pieces of data in relation to each other and how you should connect them.”
Koev concluded, “The bottom line is that, besides the cost-cutting, Transmetrics saves its customers a massive amount of time. Implementing Transmetrics saves our customers data headaches and moves them directly to a discussion of the business benefits and how they can save money in the second or third month of implementation.”
A cargo ship heads toward port with a full load of containers. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
Transmetrics’ relationship with its customers
I noticed that Transmetrics has a Customer Board, a Board of Directors, and an Advisory Board. So I asked Anna Shaposhnikova, Chief Commercial Officer and another co-founder of Transmetrics, what roles the Advisory Board and the Customer Board play, and how having those two boards has helped Transmetrics commercialize its products and grow.
She said, “The Advisory Board plays the role of expanding our network within the industry. Professionals who are on our advisory board are industry champions and they specialize in different sectors of the supply chain (maritime, ground freight, warehousing, air freight etc.). They are all believers in data analytics and the importance for the industry to be data-driven and predictive. Our advisory board was essential for us during the first years of Transmetrics’ development when we started in 2013. They were introducing us to their network and potential customers who were open-minded and innovation-driven, which was not an “industry norm” especially back in 2013-2014. That is changing now.”
Shaposhnikova added, “The role of our customer board is to assist us with continuous improvement of our product and features, and the exploration of potential for product development. The customer board brings together the leaders of our current customers and we have strategic conversations about where the industry is going, where the changes must happen, where innovation (data analytics and forecasting) would be the most helpful to solve their everyday problems.”
She concluded by stating, “Both the advisory board and customer board are essential for our growth, as they support us with feedback, are very positive about our company and are very helpful when we come to the next customer, as they are providing references about working with us.”
Shaposhnikova’s comments confirm what I have learned since 2015 about some of the steps that startups building technological innovations for industrial supply chains must take if they are to succeed – they need ongoing engagement with the industry in order to understand the nuances that exist beneath the surface.
In a sense, supply chain technology innovators must simultaneously adopt and embody the outsider-mindset and the insider-mindset. This is one reason that innovation communities and ecosystems are critical as catalysts for technological innovation within industrial supply chains – they help close the cultural chasm between large industrial supply chain incumbents and emerging supply chain technology innovators. This observation has been reinforced by my experience building The Worldwide Supply Chain Federation and REFASHIOND Ventures.
In this photo, the stacks of containers look almost as high as the hills behind them. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
Transmetrics’ “secret sauce”
This is a series about AI in Supply Chain, so I asked Alexis Zubiolo, Transmetrics’ Lead Data Scientist, “What is the secret sauce that makes Transmetrics successful? What is unique about your approach? Deep learning seems to be all the rage these days. Does Transmetrics use a form of deep learning?”
He said, “Transmetrics combines data cleansing, forecasting and optimization algorithms to enhance logistics companies’ performance. Too many trucks, trains and ships travel empty – or far below capacity – due to suboptimal planning.”
He added, “Even if deep learning is all the rage nowadays, many AI-related problems are solved with more traditional machine learning approaches. Deep learning models require a lot of data. At this stage, only major players have such large amounts of data at their disposal. However, for the majority of logistics companies – that also deserve predictive analytics! – the amount of data available is insufficient.”
But, Zubiolo is not completely against deep learning, because, he said, “Transmetrics does not hesitate to test deep learning approaches whenever needed but until now, these do not outperform other approaches. There is no doubt that deep learning will gain popularity in logistics as the data acquisition process improves and the quantity of data increases. But as of today, Transmetrics uses mostly Bayesian modelling, traditional machine learning algorithms and optimization – deterministic and stochastic – to tackle its customers’ problems.”
One of this port’s cranes about to take a container from a drayage tractor. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
The next 18-24 months and the impact of COVID-19 on Transmetrics’ customers
I asked Koev, “What is Transmetrics focused on for the next 18 to 24 months? Are there specific problems your customers want you to solve now that everyone is dealing with COVID-19 that perhaps were not a priority before the pandemic?”
He said, “Our ambition is to serve the entire supply chain industry, but right now we have two areas of focus where we are successful. The first area is transport planning for post and parcel businesses. The second is empty container management for ocean shipping lines. We see that in both of these areas there are unique challenges created by the pandemic that we are addressing.”
He added that Transmetrics sees a big spike of volumes in the parcel market, citing as an example reports that Amazon has added 75,000 jobs during the pandemic. He points out that this is not a development that is unique to Amazon; other parcel delivery companies are also scrambling to meet demand. “People stay at home so they are ordering more. At the same time there are supply issues and it is more difficult to find the capacity to transport these increased volumes of packages.”
He added, “Therefore, we are really focused on our strength – which is to match the supply and demand and to help them rationalize how they are moving the packages in three areas – linehaul, hub and last-mile.”
However, as people who follow news about supply chain logistics know, global container shipping volumes have hit a rough patch.
Matson containers positioned almost by themselves in this part of a port holding area. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
Koev explained, “The other sector on which we are focusing is ocean shipping. The liner companies have a different problem with COVID-19 as there are profitability issues and they need to cut costs. Our product can generally reduce the cost of empty logistics by 10%, and in some areas like storage costs, the cost reduction can be up to 30%. So especially now, Transmetrics is a strong tool for the ocean shipping companies when they are looking to rationalize their cost-base.”
Echoing some of the sentiments that other supply chain technology startups have shared in this column (April 9 and April 23), he added, “In general, for us it is business-as-usual and to some extent, COVID-19 made us more relevant – there is an urgency to use something like Transmetrics in both of these sectors.”
Specifically about where the team at Transmetrics will focus its attention over the next 18 to 24 months, Koev said, “At the beginning of 2020, we received a EUR 1.67 million grant from the European Commission for the Horizon2020 program. We are investing part of this grant in the area of big data forecasting using external data sources. The main data source for our predictions is historical data and a number of relevant external factors. But we are now expanding the external data sources.”
The team does not intend to stop there, however, because Koev continued, “The other area we want to explore is predictive maintenance. There are strong signals from the market that predictive maintenance is needed right now. We are uniquely positioned to do that. We are looking to start several pilots on predictive maintenance using our product.”
During my conversation with Laguzinskaya, she said the company has raised a total of EUR 5.0 million, including the Horizon2020 Grant from the European Commission. Although we did not discuss this specifically, I would not be surprised if Transmetrics is out raising a round of financing in late 2021 or early 2022 in order to enable it keep up with demand for its software.
A port’s crane removes containers from a flatbed. (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves)
Conclusion
Returning to the issue of Transmetrics’ secret sauce, Koev said, “Our secret sauce is that we are really business-focused. From the technology perspective, we combine different algorithms and approaches to get the best result for the business challenge.”
He added, “We are passionate about algorithms but we are even more passionate about the business impact the technology has. There are many companies that are very good at technology but the reality is that to transition from the algorithm to a real-life business application is quite a difficult process and this is what we have mastered.”
It appears Transmetrics’ focus on creating meaningful business impact for its customers is paying off: The company announced on July 1 that Jonathan Fath has joined the team as Transmetrics’ Chief Operating Officer. He will have “commercial and general management responsibilities, driving revenue, and contributing to product development based on his extensive experience in logistics assets management.” Furthermore, Laguzinskaya told me the company’s number of employees has grown by about 44% from its size just a year ago and is now at 33 people.
#AIinSupplyChain will be my focus in this column for the remainder of 2020. Next week I shift the focus to decision-making in global commodities markets and breakbulk shipping. After that, I’ll move away from logistics for a while and explore what’s happening in other industries and other areas of the global supply chain.
If you are a team working on innovations that you believe have the potential to significantly refashion global supply chains we’d love to tell your story in FreightWaves. I am easy to reach on LinkedIn and Twitter. Alternatively, you can reach out to any member of the editorial team at FreightWaves at media@freightwaves.com.
The reference archive – dig deeper into the #AIinSupplyChain Series with FreightWaves
Commentary: FleetOps tries to solve data fragmentation issues in trucking (August 5)
