Optimizing Asset-Based Trucking Companies: The Power of a Decision Engine to Answer Big Questions

At Optimal Dynamics, we drive tomorrow’s decisions today. We provide asset-based trucking companies and 3PLs with advanced tools to make effective decisions and optimize their operations. 

Optimal Dynamics’ proprietary technology, CORE.ai, takes a revolutionary approach to the inherent uncertainties in the logistics industry. CORE.ai leverages distributional forecasting and artificial decision intelligence, resulting in a powerful decision engine. Carriers and 3PLs equipped with CORE.ai are able to plan for the future with confidence, increase efficiency, reduce risk, and boost profitability.

This article will explore the benefits of implementing Optimal Dynamics and how it enables carriers and 3PLs to tackle uncertainties and optimize their operations.

The Limitations of Human Decision-Making in Logistics

Transportation and logistics companies must analyze and process large amounts of data prior to making informed decisions. It’s nearly impossible for an individual, even an expert, to take all data into account. Especially in high-pressure, high-volume situations!

Companies typically use a combination of data analysis and human expertise to make decisions. Transportation management systems (TMS) will house real-time and historical load, routing, scheduling, and rating data. Then data analytics and visualization tools will utilize that data to analyze and present results. Even with the help of these tools, there is an overwhelming amount of information for an individual to consider in their decision-making process.

Humans are limited in the amount of information they can consider at any given time. This, paired with the fact that we are prone to cognitive biases, can lead to misinterpretation of data and result in errors as the complexity of decisions grows. Strategies that worked well enough for trucking companies to stay competitive ten years ago, now show their weaknesses.

Embracing Uncertainty through Distributional Forecasting

CORE.ai provides a powerful alternative to human interpretation by using artificial decision intelligence to optimize decisions. As decision factors increase, the number of possible combinations grows quickly.

Imagine, you have one truck driver that could realistically take 1 of the 20 load assignments available, how do you decide which is the best load to assign? Now consider, once the driver has finished that one load there are 20 more potential assignments available from that new location. The possibilities for one truck driver quickly get out of hand. The average dispatcher has to manage assignments like this scenario for 50+ drivers every day, often with more than 20 potential load assignments for each of them.

If an asset-based trucking company has hundreds of thousands of drivers, the number of possible decisions becomes astronomical making it impossible for one person to consider the exponential options and make the best decision for the company, the customers and ultimately the drivers.

Optimal Dynamics’ CORE.ai uses distributional forecasting, which predicts a range of possible outcomes rather than a single outcome. CORE.ai learns from a company’s historical data, and is able to forecast possible outcomes by considering loads that have not yet been tendered.

CORE.ai’s distributional forecasting model allows trucking companies to manage uncertainty while considering customer demand, resource allocation, market rates, and travel time. This innovative approach enables more accurate planning for an uncertain future.

Bridging the Gap Between Planning and Execution

CORE.ai's unified modeling system integrates strategic planning (long-term decisions that do not depend on current conditions), tactical planning (medium-term decisions that do depend on current conditions), and real-time operations (short-term decisions that must be made immediately). By using a single model to simulate dispatching assignments, improvements made to the logic are implemented across all three.

With a unified system, CORE.ai helps trucking companies make tactical decisions in real-time and simulate strategic planing in a realistic setting. To eliminate the disconnect between planning and operations, Optimal Dynamics offers two solutions, Plan and Execute, to enable more agile and efficient operations.

Artificial Decision Intelligence: A Game-Changer for Decision Making

The powerful algorithmic strategy described above, artificial decision intelligence, is the heart of Optimal Dynamics’ decision-making engine.

Standard load-matching systems yield results after only a single iteration, completely overlooking the downstream impact. CORE.ai’s feedback learning captures the downstream impacts of hundreds of decisions, resulting in continuous improvement over multiple training iterations. At the same time, Plan’s Network View provides a digital twin for testing strategic decisions in a simulated environment. With this advanced technology plus platform tools, carriers can enhance their decision-making capabilities like never before, gaining the following benefits.

Benefits of CORE.ai in Asset-Based Trucking Optimization

• Enhanced decision-making: CORE.ai runs 20 scenarios for each decision, therefore allowing trucking companies to make data-driven decisions and consider downstream effects.
• Enhanced operational efficiency: CORE.ai helps reduce operating costs and make network improvements by identifying sources of inefficiency within trucking operations and addressing them proactively.
• Better risk management: Optimal Dynamics allows carriers and 3PLs to not only have a clearer view of future outcomes, but to add business logic enabling better-informed decisions and risk mitigation.
• Increased confidence in long-term planning: With the ability to handle uncertainty, carriers and 3PLs can plan weeks into the future at the strategic and tactical levels, knowing they can make adjustments easily based on real-time operations.
• Increased customer satisfaction: Leveraging data-driven insights from CORE.ai enables carriers and 3PLs to enhance service levels, improving on-time delivery rates and increasing customer satisfaction.
• More accurate forecasting: Distributional forecasting empowers carriers and 3PLs to better anticipate and adapt to the uncertainty within available loads, driver decisions, and other factors that impact operations.
• Continuous improvement: The feedback learning mechanism in artificial decision intelligence ensures that the decision engine continually refines its predictions and recommendations, leading to steady profit growth and adaptation to network changes.

Equip Your Trucking Business with CORE.ai Insight for Tomorrow’s Decisions

With CORE.ai’s advanced capabilities applied to practical technology solutions, Optimal Dynamics’ represents a significant leap forward in optimizing asset-based trucking operations. By embracing uncertainty and leveraging advanced algorithmic strategies, asset-based trucking companies and 3PL’s can make better-informed decisions, plan for the future confidently and drive continuous business improvement.

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Learn more about CORE.ai.