Update #6:
We made it! We’ve reached our destination at New Hampshire Motor Speedway in Loudon, NH early Saturday morning. The car has traveled through ten states and gone nearly 1,000 miles, but thanks to project44 and Tive’s technology, we’ve received real-time updates to know where our shipment was at every stage of the journey. Now the only thing left to do is enjoy the race!
Update #5:
We are in the wee hours of the morning but also the home stretch! We’ve passed through North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and now find ourselves in the great state of Massachusetts. We’ve traveled 861 miles with about 100 to go. We are now well ahead of our original ETA (it just keeps getting better!) with plenty of time to prep and get ready to rock-and-roll on race day. Funnily enough, the car’s exact location at the moment of this update is Hopkinton, Massachusetts, which is the start of another great race, the Boston Marathon. Is it a sign of good fortune? Pure happenstance? Who can really say? I suppose we will find out on Sunday!
Tracking Update #4
Look at us! We’ve made it all the way to New Jersey. We’ve traveled 657 miles with a little under 300 to go, and have gained two hours on our original ETA (real-time data is great, right?)
One other aspect that I think is worth calling out is our environmental impact meter that is constantly updated along with our tracking updates. Sustainability is an essential component of project44’s mission. With the most accurate, consistent data available, our customers have unique insight into the exact CO2 emissions of each shipment they make. With this intelligence, they can now make decisions not only on price or timing, but also the impact their shipment will make on our environment.
Our platform gives customers the power to make more sustainable business decisions, and who doesn’t love that?
Update #3:
We’re nearly halfway there! We’ve tackled North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and now find ourselves in Pennsylvania. For this update, I want to talk about our API first platform. At the most simplistic level, project44 is a real-time data platform. We then built our Visibility Operations Center (what I’ve shown screenshots of so far) on top of our APIs as way for our customers to easily track their shipments and access the data. The beauty of an API-first platform is that not only does it power our VOC, but it can be used to power a Transportation Management System, Salesforce instance, call center, or other homegrown technology. Some of our customers don’t even use our VOC for day-to-day operations and instead view the API calls in their own system of record.
Using just the API, we can see that we are In Transit, In Motion, in Greencastle, PA, and can even see that the truck has already taken two stops. While our VOC is a great way to view this information, we ensure our customers can view this mission critical information in the way that makes the most sense for them. Oh, and by the way, we’ve made up some lost time and now are scheduled for an on-time delivery.
Tracking Update #2:
We are making progress! For this update, I decided to show our location tracker in the VOC. Here we can see exactly where we are on the map, right by Staunton, VA, as well as all the completed stops on our trip on the left-hand side. Our VOC doesn’t just show a flash in the pan current location, it keeps a historic record of all completed “stops” which we can really think of as checkpoints. It will also keep a record of the times the truck is in motion and the times the truck is idle, for example a break at a truck stop. Good news, our real-time ETA still has us scheduled for arrival early tomorrow morning -- we’ve made up over an hour of time from our previous delay and have traveled 268 miles with over 700 remaining.
Tracking Update #1:
And we’re off! After a slight delay, the truck is away and headed to the racetrack in New Hampshire. In project44’s Visibility Operations Center (VOC), you get a holistic look at the shipment that goes far beyond this screenshot, but this high-level overview in the screenshot below gives us some great insight.
First, we can see that we are officially in transit, and although truck didn’t take off on time, we are still well on time to deliver the shipment, which is currently scheduled to arrive tomorrow morning. It’s worth noting that these ETAs are not hard and fast, they are constantly being updated in real-time with the accurate data available, so we expect some fluctuation there. Thanks to our live connection to the vehicle, we can see we are near Statesville, NC, with 35 miles traveled and…well a long way to go. There’s lots more information in our timeline, route and location screens, but this is a great snapshot of our progress thus far.
Full Blog Entry:
We’ve all seen the effects of disruption in the global supply chain. Empty shelves at the grocery store when all you want is paper towels and toilet paper. Paying $14 for hand sanitizer at your local convenience store. A banner ad on your favorite online clothing store apologizing for limited stock. The new gaming system you preordered is months behind its original expected delivery date. You get the idea.
As consumers, we naturally blame the company in question, but the reality is that the global supply chain is a vast, interconnected ecosystem where there are thousands of opportunities for things to go awry at any moment in time. If organizations don’t know where their goods are located or are headed next, how can they make informed decisions?
Logistics and supply chain disruptions are not new. Weather, power grid failures, labor supply issues, natural disasters, cyber-attacks, etc. can all disrupt the flow of cargo. The industry deals with these challenges every day, but this disconnect has been even further exacerbated by recent events like the coronavirus pandemic and the Suez Canal incident. It’s fair to say that the light on the challenges of delivering goods via the global supply chain has been brighter.
That’s why we decided to sponsor a race car.
Just kidding. What we actually did was change the game with an API-first approach to directly integrate with carriers, freight forwarders, ports, terminals, and much more to provide real-time end-to-end visibility of the global supply chain to our customers. The combination of the largest carrier network and consistent, accurate real-time data provides shippers the insight to be proactive rather than reactive and optimize the global supply chain to meet the increasing demands of consumers. With this combination, they can increase operational efficiencies, reduce costs, improve shipping performance, and manage their inventory more intelligently. In other words, project44 helps customers understand where most of their goods are most of the time.
But… we also co-sponsored a race car. Partnering with NASCAR was a natural fit for us for several reasons:
- It’s a great way to collaborate with logistics tech companies.
- Many of our customers, carriers, and drivers are racing fans.
- It harkens back to the origins of our company in optimizing over-the-road and less-than-truckload visibility.
- We can use the reach and prominence of NASCAR to shine a spotlight on our project44’s relentless determination to push performance further and highlight the massive impact our visibility solutions have on making the supply chain more efficient and resilient.
- It’s a fun way to highlight our leading position in the market -- we will be hosting our customers, prospects, and partners at the event on race day.
In addition to those benefits, it gives us an opportunity to share the value of end-to-end visibility and what our platform can provide that our customers benefit from every day with a wider audience. We’ve partnered with Tive, a tracking device company that is co-sponsoring the car. Using Tive’s devices and project44’s software, racing fans (and readers of this blog) will get a live demonstration of our leading supply chain visibility solution as we track the car in real time as it makes its way to the track in the days before the race.
This sponsorship is a big deal for project44 and Tive, but if the car doesn’t arrive on time…we can’t race. This challenge is what shippers and logistics professionals deal with every day. We need to have real-time insight into where the car is located at all times as it makes its trip from North Carolina to New Hampshire. That’s what our solution, in partnership with Tive, will provide.
This will expose the value of our solutions and put the intricacies of the global supply chain under a magnifying glass. Just like we need to know where our car is so our driver and the track facility can plan effectively, organizations everywhere need to know when loads are going to arrive at a factory, port, or distribution center to make informed decisions and manage their inventory -- and if necessary, pivot quickly and make decisions that can save them millions of dollars.
While this shipment will highlight our over-the-road tracking capabilities, it’s worth noting that project44 supports all transportation modes and shipping types, Air, Parcel, Final-Mile, Less-than-Truckload, Volume Less-than-Truckload, Groupage, Truckload, Rail, Intermodal, and Ocean.
WATCH: project44 & Tive NASCAR Wrapping
So, the car has been wrapped (how cool is this!?) and is ready for shipping, which has already been scheduled, as you can see in the Shipment Details screenshot below. Check back with us for updates to see the powerful real-time data our visibility platform provides customers with as we track our car’s trip north, starting Thursday and all the way into race day!
Ready to discover how we project44 can help your organization achieve supply chain resiliency? Learn more about our platform and Visibility Operations Center™ (VOC).