Regional LTL carrier Ward Trucking says it recently evaluated its largely manual processes to fuel efficiency and recognized that automation was the means to greater profitability. “We needed to figure out how to break the back of escalating fuel costs by boosting driver efficiency and slashing costs,” says Greg Confer, vice president of asset management for the Altoona, Ohio-based company.
Ward says it engaged in an exhaustive study of the less-than-truckload logistics software market; their search identified Cheetah Freight from Cheetah Software Systems as offering a unique approach to dramatically reducing fuel costs and improving margins. “We researched about 20 vendors, and Cheetah came out on top,” Confer says. “Cheetah provided us with a one-stop solution that contained the same or advanced functionality, compared to alternatives that would have cost us 10 times as much.”
Cheetah Freight says it helped Ward intelligently optimize routes and respond quickly and effectively to in-route events: Ward increased its number of stops by 10 percent while reducing miles driven by 6 percent. According to Confer, Cheetah helped the company save more than $1.5 million per year in fuel and labor.
“With our proven systems, a dispatcher can quickly determine the most efficient routes and update them, on the fly, in real time, to make meaningful reductions in miles driven and thus, fuel usage,” says Stephan Karczag, vice president of Westlake Village, Calif.-based Cheetah Software. “We are gratified that we have helped Ward revolutionize their speed of service, and save money doing it.”
