The last few years have been a whirlwind for shippers as they have had to face unprecedented volumes, growing delays and record-high rates. Because of this, they have sought ways to increase visibility and reduce manual tasks and overall disruptions in order to make their supply chains operate more efficiently.
Daniel Wellnitz, vice president at Five TMS AI, laid it all out for Isaiah Buchanan, an assistant producer at FreightWaves, in a Technology Update segment.
Twenty years ago, transportation management systems were practically nonexistent, according to Wellnitz. Shippers mostly utilized manual data entry like spreadsheets. Fast-forward to today and a lot of shippers now utilize TMSs, but many still wish for more automated visibility and tracking options.
After noticing the increase of these concerns among shippers, Five TMS launched in March with a specific emphasis on artificial intelligence in order to create a more streamlined and simplified TMS platform.
“It’s the first of its kind. We use the best software that you could find as far as AI goes. We have an entire team of in-house software engineers that have been working on this for over a year,” Wellnitz said.
Wellnitz said he noticed many shippers were using between three and five different TMSs at a time. Five TMS offers multiple solutions all in one place.
The software is integrated with a TMS that provides live GPS tracking, multiple procurement options, including LTL and truckload, and an RFP platform — all options most TMS companies do not offer, he added.
“I think this will eliminate a lot of software that shippers are currently using. They currently have a lot of different APIs that they are using and connecting. By using Five TMS, they won’t need all these different software,” Wellnitz said. “We wanted to establish a place where shippers could come and get everything done under only one software and only one subscription.”
Five TMS also offers a freight marketplace to connect shippers with reliable carriers.
“I think this hinders [shippers] when it comes to getting fair rates and pricing — another reason we came out with this TMS,” he said. “Shippers can use our TMS to put their freight in front of their network, but if they want to go outside of their network for a chance at more visibility and lower prices, we do have a place for them to do that as well.”
Wellnitz believes all shippers should look into Five TMS AI and what it has to offer to reduce the amount of integrations needed. Reducing integrations creates a more streamlined process that leads to increased efficiency and money saved.
“You can reduce the amount of emails coming in. You’re able to go ahead and find procurement and carriers through the platform and eliminate the process of sending out load lists every day,” Wellnitz said. “Our system makes it all really easy — it’s very user friendly. You can pick and choose the features that are going to work best for you and at the end of the day you might end up using all of them, but that’s our goal.”
To learn more about Five TMS AI, visit its website.
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