Add another long time trucking company to the digital start-ups entering the freight brokerage market.
Trucking giant JB Hunt announced last week that had entered into a partnership with Google's AI to better shippers and carriers.
Supply Chain Digest Says...
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| The companies' engineering teams are working together to create a new framework for data management, supply chain visibility, and predictive modeling. . |
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Google and JB Hunt say they have agreed to form a "strategic alliance" to improve existing US supply chains and transport networks.
JB Hunt will work with Google to develop machine-learning tools to improve matches between shippers and carriers on JB Hunt's existing 360 platform, hoping to enable shippers get an accurate view of freight carriage supply and demand days in advance. It will also help carriers to estimate future fuel and other transportation costs.
The JB Hunt 360 platform is used by clients to track and manage shipments, loads, quotes and bookings.
Start-up companies such as Uber Freight, Parade and Convoy have roiled the truckload freight market – causing traditional players to accelerate technology development.
"It's an arms race," Evan Armstrong, president of logistics research and consulting firm Armstrong & Associates, told the Wall Street Journal relative to the freight-matching market.
Massive investments by private equity firms and others made much of this possible.
$1.37 billion was investor in digital freight companies between 2011 and 2019, according to the most recent number available from Armstrong & Associates.
The basic process of matching shippers and truckload carriers that are not in contractual relationships has been dominated by so-called freight brokers for decades, often using only the most basic of technology.
Others saw an opportunity to disrupt the brokerage market with app-based matching services.
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Giant freight broker CH Robinson is among the traditional firms also spending heavily to digital broker services.
Even before the Google partnership, JB Hunt has been recently advocating smarter solutions as a means to combat fluctuating demand, supply chain challenges, and inventory management.
As part of the multi-year deal, JB Hunt will implement Google Cloud solutions to bolster the firm's 360 platform. There are three main areas that are being targeted for application of Google's technologies:
Operating model: Google's Cloud AI Platform, AutoML, and Recommendations AI, among other tools, will be integrated with transport functions to improve supply chain visibility.
Data science: Google Cloud's Data Cloud will be used to enhance existing workflow systems, with a particular focus on breaking down data silos and providing predictive analytics to shippers.
Innovation in engineering: The companies' engineering teams are working together to create a new framework for data management, supply chain visibility, and predictive modeling.
As part of its agreement with Google, JB Hunt will migrate its 360 platform to Google Cloud, from Microsoft's Azure cloud platform so it can, among other things, more easily integrate Google's artificial intelligence technology.
One of the first projects the companies said they would work on is a real-time tracking and predictive model. The model would be built to provide more accurate pickup times, delivery predictions, and pricing data for both shippers and carriers.
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