Transportation Costing Group, providers of Profitability Management Tools and activity-based cost analysis for the transportation industry, has announced that RRR Express has adopted the company’s Truckload Cost Information System (TL/CIS). RRR Express will utilize a recently released interface designed to enable truckload motor carriers using Innovative Computing Corp.’s Innovative Enterprise Software to extract accurate load-specific data and use it to develop actual cost and profitability information.
Founded in 2001 by company president Steve Hall, Cincinnati-based RRR Express is a family-owned and operated 48-state truckload carrier. The company hauls dry and refrigerated freight primarily in the Midwest and Southeast states, with an average length of haul of 535 miles. Over the past five years, RRR Express has grown steadily from 16 to 110 company-owned tractors and now fields about 200 trailers.
Effective costing strategies based on accurate information and advanced analysis capabilities are essential to the continued success of RRR Express, Hall says. “With the interface between TCG TL/CIS and Innovative IES software, we can keep the quality we have in our existing enterprise software, while becoming better enabled to address problems and find a credible and comprehensive way to enhance profitability,” Hall says. “The solution will give us a closer look at the positive and negative trends in our operation much faster, and let our sales and management teams capitalize on that information.”
In particular, RRR Express is interested in cost and profitability analyses for specific lanes, segments and customers. Among the things it plans to evaluate with the integrated TL/CIS-IES system include pricing, lane balance, the impact of drop trailers and delays, and the effective utilization of a mix of dry and refrigerated trailers.
The interface between Innovative’s iSeries-based enterprise management system and TCG’s solution is designed to enable RRR Express to transfer accurate financial and operating data to the TL/CIS cost analysis solution. The TL/CIS-IES interface was co-developed by TCG and Innovative over the past two years, and is now available for users of IES versions R7 and R8. Running in a host environment or across the Internet, the Innovative IES software provides trucking companies with such services as dispatch and operations, administration and accounting, maintenance, risk and safety capabilities.
“We evaluated the TCG system thoroughly before making the decision to adopt TL/CIS,” Hall says. “There really wasn’t any other option available that offered the capabilities and functionality we required, and the ability to seamlessly interface with our IES software. As we continue to grow, we’re looking forward to using this advanced solution to enhance our profitability.”
“The TL/CIS-IES interface is designed to provide truckload motor carriers of all sizes and types with the ability to gain further advantages of accurate Profitability Management Tools,” says Jack Jones, vice president of Rockville, Md.-based TCG. “RRR Express will benefit from its use of these highly effective cost and profitability measurement tools. We are very pleased to be able to meet their growing needs.”
