Third-party logistics company C.H. Robinson has rolled out a new asset management system (AMS) within its Drop Trailer Plus program that includes more than 800,000 shipments and over 10,000 trailers in circulation daily.
The new Drop Trailer Plus AMS aims to eliminate manually managed “drop-and-hook” operations – typically ran via labor-intensive data entry into spreadsheets – by migrating them into one platform that includes not only C.H. Robinson’s trailer pool but also that of its growing contract carrier network.
The platform, built in house, combines GPS tracking, telematics data, geofencing and facility mapping to give shippers and carriers complete visibility into trailer inventory and activity.
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Data gathered by the AMS includes GPS location, cargo status, geofence notifications, the trailer’s battery health, temperature and door sensors, said Adam McDonough, C.H. Robinson vice president of truckload.
“The real magic happens when the data is merged with operational parameters in our AI-infused global shipper platform Navisphere,” McDonough said. “This combination of data and analytics enables us to help carriers and shippers keep track of crucial KPIs like trailer utilization and dwell time, and react faster when they receive automated proactive exception notifications. All of this increases efficiency and uptime – and it saves significant cost.”
C.H. Robinson has been using the AMS internally since July.
McDonough said all the company’s trailers – and many of its contract carriers’ trailers – are equipped with telematics. And the platform is vendor-agnostic, so carriers can use their existing telematics provider.
The AMS acquires data from telematics-enabled trailers at regular intervals – sometimes as little as every five seconds – and consolidates everything into a full picture of the trailer pool in real time.
For example, McDonough said, the system knows exactly where a specific trailer is at a large facility.
“That means no more yard hunts for hard-to-spot trailers,” he said. “It also means the system knows how long a trailer has been there. When that dwell time exceeds the limits, there’s an automated notification.”
But it goes beyond the trailers.
When a purchase order is created, McDonough said the system knows exactly what’s expected to be on the trailer down to the individual item, so it can compare what’s loaded onto the trailer and what arrives at the destination.
This gives shippers inventory visibility with additional protection from theft and fraud, helping them right-size trailer pools, maximize uptime, and minimize waste to lower costs and reduce unplanned work, he said. In addition, he said it allows carriers to manage their trailer pool with insights like number of trailers at each facility and awareness of scheduling, billing and maintenance.
“It’s a big step up from what existed before, especially in an industry that often still works with whiteboards, spreadsheets and phone calls,” McDonough said.
