Sustainability is a hot topic these days, ranging from environmental policies to business and economic practices. On Monday, Sept. 21, David Wangler discussed ways that carriers can achieve sustainability during an unusually challenging economy.
Wangler, president and chief executive officer of TMW Systems, delivered the keynote address at the TransForum user conference and exhibition held at the Opryland Convention Center in Nashville, Tenn.
Setting aside concerns about new environmental and regulatory changes, the economy has forced carriers to worry more about the sustainability of their “triple bottom line”: increase profits, improve shareholder value and provide better opportunity for employees.
“In order to sustain our businesses in this new environment, we’ll have to become more cost-effective, more nimble, and more competitive to make a profit moving the freight that is available. Growth may no longer mean doing more of the same things that we did before; it’s more likely to mean reconfiguring our businesses to do new things in new ways,” he said.
As an example of a carrier that has developed a sustainable business model in the harshest of environments, Wangler cited TMW customer Carlile Transportation Systems, one of Alaska’s largest trucking companies. The fleet recently has found new success in the commercial salmon industry by operating team drivers and offering better systems than its major competitors, the airlines, by offering better service for temperature controls and visibility of freight.
During the conference, TMW Systems — the largest developer and integrator of transportation management software for the trucking industry — also announced several new products and services for its diversified software business.
A new data platform, Data Warehouse, will make it easier for users at transportation, logistics and trucking companies to perform and increase accessibility to robust reporting, data mining and statistical analysis.
The Data Warehouse is an enhancement to ResultsNow by TMW, a real-time performance monitoring and reporting tool. The Data Warehouse separates data intended for business reporting from daily transactional data into a structure designed specifically for fast and responsive query and analysis.
The TMW Data Warehouse is a no-charge addition to ResultsNow, available to existing and future TMW customers. ResultsNow is available for the enterprise transportation systems TMWSuite and TL2000, as well as the TMT Fleet Maintenance software.
“We’re addressing the market need for scalable, enterprise-level transportation-specific reporting capabilities by offering this platform according to internationally recognized data standards,” said TMW Chief Operating Officer David Mook. “Our data warehouse architecture follows accepted industry guidelines for reporting and analytical data platforms.”
With TMW Data Warehouse, transportation firms now can incorporate data from multiple sources, such as financial databases, fleet maintenance systems and even mobile communications applications, Mook said. “For mid-size and large firms, this technical approach opens new avenues for delivering timely business intelligence.”
TMW Systems also announced the launch of TMW Managed Services, a new service offering designed to help companies in transportation services reduce IT infrastructure investments, ensure scalability and optimize scarce resources. TMW Managed Services offers enterprise-class application hosting and systems management to reduce the complexity of software implementations and project startups; improve application availability, reliability and scalability; and lower the capital cost of major software implementations.
As a software development and solutions delivery company, TMW Systems already deploys comprehensive hosting services to fully manage back-end and customer-facing operations for many of its software customers in industries such as freight transportation, waste and municipal fleets. The announcement formalizes those services for marketing and sales purposes.
