Intelek Technologies, a Norman, OK.-based software development company, released StripMiner Screen Scraper software on March 17, 2008. This hosted software service can be used by trucking companies and freight carriers to obtain load shipments from online sources by completely automating the acceptance process, the company says.
The final release of StripMiner Screen Scraper hosted services increases efficiency, reduces carrier costs and data entry errors. Trucking companies using StripMiner will be able to operate more efficiently on shrinking margins and quickly locate shipments that are more profitable, the company says.
More and more carriers are turning to loads posted online by manufacturers and online load brokers. StripMiner Screen Scraper software automatically watches a carrier’s trading partner website for loads that meet pre-defined business rules. These business rules can be simple or very complex. The carrier works with the experts at Intelek Technologies to ensure the business rules will match loads that the carrier really wants and ignore those loads that do not.
Matching loads are then automatically accepted on behalf of the carrier and the shipment data is passed directly into the carrier’s dispatch computer systems. The level of automation, data conversion and integration with existing trucking protocols has never been accomplished before, the company says. The StripMiner Screen Scraper service works with any dispatch system that can handle EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) translation.
Until now, trucking companies have had to rely on employees to research, locate and accept loads from online sources. This process has depended on the dedicated work of employees already taxed by high workloads. Mistakes made during data entry cause additional workload, creating a mountain of maintenance work, further complicating the process.
Gary Hopkins, President and CEO of Intelek Technologies had this to say about his company’s latest release. “StripMiner performs all day, every day. It never takes a day off and is truly a ‘Hands Off Operation.’ You set it up and StripMiner goes out and finds new loads for you to help grow your business. It will help carriers get a extra loads every day, and that really adds up over a year.”
By automating the online load tendering process with StripMiner, carriers can reduce employee costs, redirect employees to more profitable tasks, eliminate data entry errors and immediately claim online loads to be more competitive, according to Intelek.
“One of our East Coast people was out sick,” said Tobias Ostlund of Knight Transportation. “Under normal circumstances we would have missed six loads on Monday morning but StripMiner accepted them for us. In today’s freight environment that is, of course, very important to us.”
Pricing for StripMiner is based on the total loads a carrier wishes to haul. “This pricing model allows StripMiner to be a great asset for the carriers, without causing a financial strain in already difficult times,” says David McCarty, Marketing Director for Intelek Technologies. “StripMiner will save a carrier money just from the aspect of payroll and error correction
