3PL: FLEET MANAGER’S FORCAST 2017
BY MARY SHACKLETT
THE FLEET MANAGER’S
FORECAST FOR 2017 Five trends and challenges are leading the charge in the New Year.
I
n 2017, fleet managers and others in the transportation sector will continue to wrestle with the challenges they dealt with in the recent past, such as tight capacities and a driver shortage— but they’ll also face a few new challenges in the form of rising fuel prices, rate pressures and regulatory measures. How fleet managers respond will likely involve a mix of technology, changes to operations and business processes, and strategic innovation. Here are five trends and challenges that are leading the way.
#1
The Capacity Crunch Aging highway infrastructures, such as potholes and bumpy roads, can dam-
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age goods in transit. When added to an ongoing shortage of drivers; more regulations to comply with; aging trucks; and the inability of shippers, transportation companies, third-party logistics providers (3PLs) and logistics providers with supply chain management capabilities (4PLs) to seamlessly work with each other, these factors are coalescing into a looming capacity crisis that will be felt in 2017. “If the many components in logistics and supply chain management do not engage effectively with the transport workforce and manufacturing skills gap of the U.S., crisis may be an understatement rather than an overstatement,” reports Adam Robinson, director of marketing for Cerasis, a provider of transportation management solutions, in an article titled,
“Transportation Industry Braces for a Looming Transportation Capacity Crunch Crisis in 2017.” In many cases, technology can help. New analytics applications can assess routes with data feeds that provide updates on highway construction and detours, weather, traffic and more. The analytics software acts on this information, and can then optimize routes for the fastest and safest travel times. Transportation management systems (TMSs) that interact with sensors placed on vehicles and at various locations in distribution networks also can track logistics operations, monitoring that trucks are promptly loaded and unloaded, and real-time collaboration is occurring between the different parties in a logistical chain. However, not all companies have, or can afford, these technologies, so when one participant in a logistics chain doesn’t have the software, it breaks the chain. This management and communications
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