Trimble's Michael Kornhauser: AI is the new GPS for navigating supply chain disruptions

The logistics industry consistently faces a complex variety of challenges; unpredictable demand, rising fuel costs and persistent driver shortages to name a few – all made tougher by global shifts and sudden disruptions. New strategies are essential to thrive in this changing environment. For years, carriers have largely operated in a reactive mode, scrambling to address issues as they arise. Now, there’s a way to anticipate and adapt, rather than react to these unpredictable obstacles.

This is where artificial intelligence (AI) lends a helping hand. It’s not just another industry buzzword. AI technology is transforming the tech and logistics industries, equipping carriers with the tools to navigate these obstacles and forge a resilient, efficient and ultimately more profitable future.

Michael Kornhauser, Trimble's Sector VP of Transportation & Logistics for North America, sat down for a chat at FreightWaves Enterprise Fleet Summit to talk about how Trimble is harnessing the power of AI to empower carriers.

"AI can fundamentally make a carrier more efficient in their everyday tasks."

Trimble's AI-powered solutions directly address these pain points, allowing carriers to move from merely reacting to disruptions to actively preventing or mitigating them:

• • Unpredictable demand: Fluctuating demand and inefficient inventory often lead to wasted resources like empty miles or missed opportunities.
  • Rising fuel costs and driver shortages: These require smarter utilization of every valuable resource.
  • External disruptions: Traffic congestion, road closures, severe weather and even geopolitical events can cause significant delays and erode profitability.
  • Lack of visibility: Without end-to-end insight, identifying bottlenecks and anticipating delays becomes a guessing game.
  • Time-consuming administrative tasks: Manual paperwork and repetitive inquiries consume valuable time that could be spent on strategic planning.

Trimble's AI solutions build resilience

Trimble's approach to AI for carrier resilience is comprehensive, touching on every facet of the supply chain.

1. 1. Smarter demand forecasting and inventory planning: The AI-powered Trimble TMS Order Module, a key component of our next-generation TMS solution, helps carriers balance orders with available drivers. It uses historical data and AI algorithms to instantly assess each tender, optimizing asset utilization, finding best-fit loads and expanding lane profitability. Kornhauser highlights the "Predictive Balance" feature, which acts as a "crystal ball," accurately predicting where a carrier will be under or overbooked up to seven days in advance. This foresight allows users to confidently book freight in the right places, keeping drivers moving and maximizing efficiency.
      
      Trimble Autonomous Procurement further enhances this, helping shippers in the spot market find the right partner with a remarkable “90% touchless experience”. This dramatically reduces the manual effort in procurement, making the process faster and more efficient.
      
      
   2. Dynamic route optimization and real-time adaptability: Trimble’s mapping solutions, enhanced by AI's ability to automatically extract map features from imagery, provide more accurate navigation and routing. Beyond simple directions, solutions like the hyper-local weather feature leverage AI-powered predictive models.
      
      "Our AI-based weather predictions in CoPilot allow fleets to know ahead of time if a load will be impacted by weather and take action before it happens," Kornhauser explains. These tools enable carriers to reroute trucks instantly to avoid unexpected disruptions like accidents, detours, road closures or extreme weather, minimizing fuel waste and delivery delays. Drivers receive actionable alerts live in-cab, ensuring they're always equipped with the most efficient and truck-safe alternative routes.
      
      
   3. Enhanced visibility across the supply chain: Lack of end-to-end visibility has long been a significant blind spot. Trimble Freight Visibility employs powerful AI capabilities to create highly accurate ETAs. This provides carriers and shippers with real-time tracking and shipment locations across various modes – road, ocean and air.
      
      With a new bi-directional data flow integration via Trimble TMW.Suite TMS, Freight Visibility receives comprehensive inbound data (real-time truck/shipment locations, planned statuses, freight movement info) and automatically flows real-time location updates and ETA changes back to TMW.Suite. This comprehensive, two-way data exchange ensures continuous awareness, enabling proactive responses to deviations and even detecting and preventing freight fraud by identifying unusual patterns.
      
      
   4. Optimized load matching and capacity management: Finding suitable loads and maximizing truck capacity can be time-consuming, leading to inefficient empty backhauls. Trimble's AI-powered solutions, including Autonomous Procurement and Freight Marketplace, streamline the bidding process and provide dynamic pricing insights. By leveraging transactional data, Freight Marketplace matches the right counterparties to strike fair agreements, reducing empty miles and maximizing profitability per trip.
      
      
   5. Automation of administrative and repetitive tasks: Kornhauser emphasizes that AI is "just software that helps humans be more efficient." By automating manual paperwork, repetitive tasks and high-volume customer inquiries, AI significantly increases operational efficiency. "We are removing all of the manual processes and extra steps to get a movement from order to cash, ultimately freeing up internal resources,” he states. This liberation of time is critical, allowing carrier teams to shift their focus from reactive problem-solving to proactive contingency planning.

Human and AI partnership is redefining how the industry operates

For Kornhauser, the ideal human-AI collaboration is not about replacing human roles, but enhancing them. 

"Just as spell check simplified writing, AI is now advancing to the point where it can draft documents, leaving humans to refine and edit," says Kornhauser. The goal is to empower human operators and decision-makers to respond with greater agility during disruptions. By removing the burden of manual, repetitive tasks, AI frees up human intelligence for higher-level strategic thinking, problem-solving and contingency planning.

Basically, human operators can focus on the complex, nuanced aspects of logistics that require critical thinking and real-world experience, while AI handles the automation of routine processes.

Agentic AI holds significant promise

Looking to the future, Kornhauser is especially excited about the recent advancements in Agentic AI. This emerging technology takes AI a step further, allowing systems to perform more complex, multi-step tasks with greater autonomy.

"We have a strategy to deploy agentic AI internally before externally to prove them out," says Kornhauser. This internal validation ensures the reliability of these AI systems before they are rolled out to customers. Further, Trimble is building its software to be both human and agent compatible, ensuring seamless integration into existing workflows, whether driven by human input or AI automation.

Agentic AI integration means carriers can anticipate even more sophisticated tools for predictive analysis, automated decision-making and dynamic resource allocation, ultimately solidifying their position as resilient players in an ever-evolving global supply chain.

A resilient future for freight awaits

Trimble's AI solutions are redefining daily workflows for carriers. By empowering them with real-time insights, predictive capabilities and automated efficiencies, AI transforms the logistics landscape. It shifts the industry from a state of constant reaction to one of empowered proactivity, ensuring that even amidst the most formidable challenges, freight continues to move safer, cheaper and greener.

We’re building a truly resilient future for essential industries worldwide one step at a time. Contact our team to discover the power of AI for a more resilient supply chain.