“Our direction is helping our customers find theirs.” – Ray Greer, CEO of Omnitracs
Our CEO Ray Greer kicked off today’s opening session with a message about our values. At Omnitracs, we value community and our goal is to bring that value to life. Throughout the year, Ray and the entire Omnitracs staff are extremely involved in community initiatives, from participating in Wreaths Across America and organizing canned food drives at our local offices to building and donating tricycles to the Children’s Advocacy Center of Collin County.
Here’s a recap of some of the sessions and news from today:
Q&A on Human Trafficking with Ray Greer and Kylla Lanier
To begin day two of the conference, our CEO sat down with Kylla Lanier, Deputy Director and Co-Founder of Truckers Against Trafficking (TAT). TAT is an association of transportation professionals working together to assist law enforcement in the recognition and reporting of human trafficking. Ultimately, TAT’s efforts aid in the recovery of victims and the arrest of their perpetrators. And this is no small issue: globally, there are 40 million people enslaved each year, and in the U.S., we have thousands of cases each year. The organizers of TAT saw the transportation community as a strong ally: these are the men and women who have their eyes and ears on the road and can help combat this terrible crime. Aided by TAT, truckers can and have saved lives — as Kylla puts it, “That’s the power of a phone call.” To learn more about TAT and how Omnitracs is supporting this issue, read our news release.
Stay Focused on the People: An Important Reminder from Dan Baker
We were also thrilled to have Dan Baker, a nationally known speaker, teacher, and consultant to the trucking industry, join us during today’s opening session. Dan drove home the message that despite all the advancements in technology, the trucking business still remains a people business. Dan pointed out that we’re moving from promotion to attraction when it comes to recruitment strategies in the trucking industry. Dan believes that we must focus on keeping the driver-dispatcher relationship strong and intact. This is especially true when it comes to new, younger generations of workers who are just beginning their careers in the transportation industry. They want to feel like they are part of a family, and the industry must adopt a different employee engagement strategy to build personal connections with this new talent pool.
Discussing the Relationship Between Technology and Time with Michal Yariv
Our last general session speaker was a member of the Omnitracs team: Michal Yariv, Vice President and General Manager of Strategic Initiatives. Michal led a discussion on how technology can be used to solve some of the biggest issues our industry faces today, specifically around time management. Michal examined issues that are eating away at the clock, including missing loads and detention, which causes the industry to lose about 1 billion dollars each year. The answer to the time dilemma? Taking the tribal knowledge and data points from within each organization and leveraging that across our entire industry. Through our network, Omnitracs can be the proxy that is delivering actionable data to the industry through our Omnitracs One platform. In the months to come, expect more news from Michal and her team on how Omnitracs is developing predictive models to act on this data.
A Customer Conversation on Centralized Routing
We were honored to have multiple customers offer to speak about their firsthand experiences and share their strategies for success with other attendees tackling similar challenges. Today, we were joined by Mike Becker, Director of Routing Transformation at PepsiCo, who led a highly informative session on the benefits of a centralized dispatch operation. Centralized dispatching means moving the organization of the dispatching function into one central location. It requires taking a holistic approach to improve logistics efficiencies and training. Mike’s own organization had made the switch to centralized routing, and so he was able to explore the rationale behind making this change, analyzing the major benefits PepsiCo experienced.
With a more traditional approach, routing is localized which makes it difficult to enforce standards, be consistent with training, and offer remote support. With driver pay and fuel prices continuing to rise, making the organization more efficient can be the key to cost savings. This is where centralized routing comes into play. Mike spoke about how the move to centralized routing delivered major benefits for PepsiCo — by optimizing dispatcher duties, the company improved their service, reduced headcount, lowered cost, and implemented standardization. PepsiCo was also able to better plan for increases in delivery totals day-over-day, or during the holidays, and flex their workforce as needed in an efficient way. Delivery productivity and accountability increased as workflows were optimized to save time. By the end of the session, Mike had laid out a clear blueprint for driving success with centralized routing, enabled by Omnitracs technology.
Solving the Data Dilemma with Customers and Omnitracs Experts
Throughout the day, our customers were treated to multiple sessions on how to easily access important data and identify opportunities for improvement. During a presentation on best practices when using XRS data, we heard from John Feskanin, Senior Manager of Mobile Technology at Penske Logistics about what data is the most important for day-to-day operations, and how fleets can use that data to save time, money, and effort. John shared tips and tricks around how XRS users can better structure reports. For example, as Penske Logistics has been prioritizing compliance, they were able to create their own compliance report using the driver log, violations, and unassigned vehicle summary. He also highlighted how Omnitracs enables custom reporting with multiple options for data integration.
Outlook attendees also explored ES/XRS reporting and industry benchmarking with Lauren Domnick and Emilie Worsham of Omnitracs, two of our resident data experts who recently spoke at a Women in Trucking (WIT) conference. Customers walked away from both sessions feeling empowered to act on their data and make the most of new opportunities.
We hope you’ve enjoyed this year’s Outlook conference — we’ve certainly enjoyed spending time with all of you! Make sure to check out our social media platforms for recaps, videos, and photos from the event: Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.