FourKites

[loaders]

Has anyone heard of this tracking system before? Better yet, is there anyone out there that is being made to enroll in it by one of their customers? Looks like we will be soon, so any feedback is definitely appreciated.
Michael Ludwig, if you're on Inside Trans this afternoon, do me a favour and google FourKites. I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.
Just a preview of what you will find, this is what they say they can do, I would appreciate anyone to attempt a translation...
"We connect the dots across global supply chains. We enable the worlds largest shippers and 3 PL's to achieve real-time visibility and gain predictive analytics that produce actionable insights". I really thought I had already heard all of the latest transportation buzz word, gobbley-gook, evidently NOT!

 

[loaders]

I suppose it is this kind of double-speak nonsense that gets upper management all hot and bothered when they hear it from the providers sales staff.

 

[Freight Broker]

its really simple loaders.. its a visibility platform enabled to predictively assimilate your shipments through value added coordination of available supply chain mechanisms regardless of vendor mode platform.

 

[Salma]

Just from a brief google search, it appears they have several offices in the US, headquartered in Chicago, but a large portion of their operation seems to be run out of Chennai, India.
Many large companies like Schneider, Walmart, Pfizer, Conagra, etc seem to use this company for supply chain tracking.
Sounds big and scary to me..............
"Real-time visibility" - does that mean that you can literally "see" the vehicle being tracked on Google maps or some sort of satellite map? Usually we only hear about real-time GPS "tracking"

 

[Salma]

Call me cynical but in my opinion, it sounds like a bigger, badder version of the privacy-violating, sensitive info-sharing tracking programs that already exist.

 

[Freight Broker]

no, real time visibility clearly means tracking predictated on insurgent interfaces involving data limited to but not necessarily supplied by the supply chain management criteria..

 

[Salma]

no, real time visibility clearly means tracking predictated on insurgent interfaces involving data limited to but not necessarily supplied by the supply chain management criteria..

Oh OK, thanks for clarifying!! ROFLMAO!!!

 

[Igor Galanter]

no, real time visibility clearly means tracking predictated on insurgent interfaces involving data limited to but not necessarily supplied by the supply chain management criteria..

Check & mate....

 

[loaders]

Exactly FreightBroker! What utter nonsense! When did English get replaced with Mumbo Jumbo? Real time visibility....what other type of visibility is there? Actionable insights???? It is enough to make one's head spin.
What isn't explained on their website, is what happens in their"perfect world" of knowing exactly where the truck and shipment is at any given moment and the sun and the moon and Venus have aligned themselves perfectly, when all of a sudden, that chilli con carne the driver had for lunch at that sketchy truck stop 75 miles ago, decides to make a second appearance, and not in a nice way? Is that predictive enough for you? What actionable insight does that provide? Looks like that delivery appointment is going to be a little late.

 

[Freight Broker]

an unexpected discharge by a supply chain operative would likely negatively impact real time visibility.. (at least one would hope so..)..

 

[thebluffs1]

we had a customer deploy the system, never trained anyone at their end to use it so they just ended up calling us for status updates.lol

 

[MikeJr]

Exactly FreightBroker! What utter nonsense! When did English get replaced with Mumbo Jumbo? Real time visibility....what other type of visibility is there? Actionable insights???? It is enough to make one's head spin.
What isn't explained on their website, is what happens in their"perfect world" of knowing exactly where the truck and shipment is at any given moment and the sun and the moon and Venus have aligned themselves perfectly, when all of a sudden, that chilli con carne the driver had for lunch at that sketchy truck stop 75 miles ago, decides to make a second appearance, and not in a nice way? Is that predictive enough for you? What actionable insight does that provide? Looks like that delivery appointment is going to be a little late.

Can I nominate this for post of the month?

*crying from laughter over here - Looks like that delivery apt is going to be late.
Thank you for that!

Keep well,
Mike

 

[Michael Ludwig]

Been a bit busy lately folks ...
It's the same thing as MacroPoint. It pings every tracking device that gets assigned to it. With authorization MacroPoint can ping you cell phones, ELD's, shipboard AIs, and/or whatever GPS tracker you have stuffed in your trailer/container.
Admittedly, they do use fancier words than MacroPoint does though ... LOL

 

[ShawnR]

with the lack of trucks/drivers, we as a customer, can't be too picky on what requirements we put on each shipment. so we just don't use this and we decline shipments that force us to use these types of services. so far hasn't been an issue. tracking is usually just easier by phone or email and have a bit of trust in the carriers you work with.

 

[Steph18]

Any Carriers using this with brokers yet?

 

[rmarks]

Yes please advise as I have been looking into this for a little bit to see if it will work or not with us.

 

[Steph18]

We started with our customers but not with our carriers yet.