The Connected Supply Chain: Trimble’s Vision for the Future of Transportation

Imagine a world where the silos of information between supply chain stakeholders are broken down – to empower unprecedented efficiency and savings for all parties by achieving continuous truck movements and optimized freight coverage. A world of maximized transportation efficiency like this only becomes possible when shippers, carriers and intermediaries share common platforms and solutions.

The path toward this wholly connected global supply chain is the revolutionary vision that Trimble leaders presented during the opening session of the 2020 virtual in.sight user conference + expo, held August 24-26, 2020. The theme for the conference was “We Are One,” focusing on how collaboration is essential to keeping the transportation supply chain moving. 

This sentiment is not only important for navigating current economic and pandemic-related challenges, but also in improving the performance and efficiency of the supply chain in the months and years ahead.

Transforming the Supply Chain

Trimble President and CEO Rob Painter stepped into the role in January 2020 as just the third CEO in the company’s 42-year history. He highlighted Trimble’s strength and stability in the face of uncertainty, and how the company continues to invest in developing products that connect the physical and digital worlds.

“From a company that started in a garage in 1978, that has weathered crises in the past, we’re a company today that has over 11,000 people working in over 40 countries, millions of global customers and thousands of global partners,” Painter said. “For decades, Trimble’s mission has been to transform the way the world works. And when we think about transportation, we think about transforming the way the supply chain works.” 

Painter also outlined the direction Trimble is headed via its “Connect & Scale 2025” strategy for creating better integrations between products and making it easy to do business with Trimble over the coming years. 

“We are committed to this business. We know the industry lacks visibility, data integration and collaboration – this is the work we do at Trimble,” Painter said. “We believe in our ability to transform the way the supply chain works today, and unlock value for you and for your customers.”

The Connected Supply Chain: Global, Seamless & Transparent 

Despite the challenges that 2020 presented to carriers, shippers and third-party logistics providers (3PLs), Trimble Transportation remains committed to supporting customers’ operations by creating optimizations, efficiencies, and opportunities to collaborate with new partners.

“Our new reality is that we’re doing business together differently,” said James Langley, senior vice president of Trimble Transportation. “We all understand, respect and appreciate how the trucking industry never stopped, never slept, and continued to carry on, making sure all of our stores and shelves were supplied with the things we need every day.”

Langley mentioned several ways Trimble has increased customer assistance, including products focused on the new normal through Community Load Match or transitioning to cloud services and hosting for providing continuity for your business; extended support hours; and virtual tune-ups to increase learning and training to support virtual go-lives and upgrades.

Looking at all of the solutions Trimble provides across the transportation sector, including asset maintenance, telematics, carrier and shipper transportation management systems (TMS), Video Intelligence, Oil & Gas Services, MAPS, Visibility, data analytics and more, Langley says the company’s strategy is to integrate all this data together in a whole new way.

“We want to create a global, seamless and transparent supply chain,” Langley explained.

These solutions help solve inefficiency challenges by increasing transparency, improving carrier resource utilization and providing shippers with freight coverage at the best possible value – creating opportunities for transportation companies to do business together more effectively in an increasingly virtual world.

Community Load Match Connects the Dots

Dan Clark, Trimble vice president of product innovation & strategy highlighted the tangible progress Trimble is making in achieving a connected supply chain. Clark is the founder of Kuebix, a leading TMS provider and creator of North America’s largest connected shipping community, which Trimble acquired in January 2020. 

Just four months later, in May 2020, Trimble and Kuebix launched next generation Community Load Match capabilities to optimize optimizes how truckload capacity is found and filled by connecting Kuebix’s 20,000+ shippers with a rapidly growing carrier community from Trimble customers’ network of 1.3 million commercial trucks.

“When all players in the logistics supply chain work together, everyone wins,” Clark said. “By bringing together Trimble’s massive network of carriers with one of the industry’s largest networks of shippers, there are unprecedented possibilities to foster direct connections that improve efficiencies for all.”

Community Load Match enables shippers to use advanced matching capabilities to more easily find available carriers for their truckload shipments and leverage improved map visualization through Trimble MAPS. For carriers, these capabilities give them direct access to Kuebix’s community shippers for matching shipment requirements with available truckload capacity. By connecting all logistics stakeholders on a single platform, shippers gain access to available capacity and competitive pricing, while brokers and carriers increase their business and gain superior asset utilization. 

Together, Trimble and Kuebix are transforming the transportation industry with a common TMS platform for shippers, carriers and intermediaries to enable new levels of visibility and efficiency for the entire market. 

“What we ultimately want is 100 percent resource utilization of our carriers and we want to provide 100 percent freight coverage at the right price – not the lowest price – based on the services rendered in the supply chain in our shipper community,” Langley added.

‘Humbled and Inspired’

Given our current circumstances, it’s never been more important to work together to keep frontline workers safe, equipment running and freight moving. The future of the transportation industry is increasingly connected and collaborative across the entire global supply chain.

Trimble is committed to building on this collaboration by creating the platforms that enable the secure flow of data and information to drive better decisions and optimize how freight moves in order to revolutionize how the world is supplied.

“Our customers and the entire industry have shown incredible resilience in the face of the most difficult operating environment in decades,” Langley said. “We’ve been both humbled and inspired by the work that you’re doing to make sure that we’re all taken care of, and the backbone of our world – the supply chain – never sleeps.”

Curious to learn more about Trimble’s connected supply chain strategy? Contact us today to find out how  our solutions can help improve visibility and collaboration and improve the performance and efficiency of your business.