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For example , a large US importer might be getting data from its forwarder , its customs broker and multiple visibility providers for different elements , all funneling into an internal data warehouse it can use for a range of purposes beyond just tracking in-transit shipments , Dodeja said .
“ The most sophisticated buyers here , they want to update their source of truth ,” he said . “ They might still use [ a visibility provider ’ s ] tools for very specific tasks , but the way the world is going is more and more cargo owners will have their own source of truth in their data warehouse .”
Best of both worlds
Kevin Valsi , CEO of visibility provider OpenTrack , said that severing the provision of tracking data from transportation services enables a shipper to shop for the best version of both .
“ Since BCOs generally use multiple 3PLs and freight forwarders to find the best service and rates , they prefer to have an independent source of visibility across all service providers ,” he said . “ They can more effectively control their own data , while having the flexibility of using the best supply chain partners , by lane or area of expertise . It ’ s also less work ; imagine a BCO building integrations with five to six freight forwarders and reformatting all the inbound data .”
OpenTrack , similar to many visibility providers , works with both BCOs and 3PLs as customers . On the 3PL side , the product is essentially white labeled as a self-service portal for shippers that lets 3PLs cut down on operator hours dedicated to tracking freight milestones and conveying them to shippers .
For instance , OpenTrack has such a relationship with non-vessel-operating common carrier OW Logistics . Another visibility provider , Vizion , has a similar
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shippers and third-party logistics providers ( 3PLs ) to collect milestones on the six Class I railroads and marry those with ocean and terminal milestones it previously collected .
Vizion , another ocean visibility specialist , also offers an intermodal tracking product that negates the need to individually request data from ocean carriers and railroads and then try to stitch the milestones together .
“ There has been concern that advancements in the short term may not pay off years down the road ,” Vizion wrote in an April 8 blog post . “ With so much advancement in the space and a huge price tag for innovation investment , users have to be careful to pick the right technology .
Any advancements in the technology used for rail freight transportation need to first proliferate at the carrier and terminal level before it can be useful for shippers . That takes time .”
Longstanding challenge
The fact that getting normalized data on a container as it moves from vessel to terminal to rail is still a problem for many shippers in 2024 speaks to the size of the challenge .
“ Visibility has fallen short in the past because the solutions were oversold and under-delivered ,” said Kevin Valsi , CEO at visibility provider OpenTrack . “ To say that something works across all modes and all geographies is a very bold statement . Many of these platforms perpetuated known limitations of data providers , or lacked context because not all solutions were built in-house . We decided to build our multi-modal architecture entirely in-house from the ground up , and we only focused on North American container freight . This alone has taken us seven years of software development .”
OpenTrack ’ s progress on tracking ocean containers was driven , in part , by a non-vessel-operating common carrier approaching it five years ago with “ tens of thousands of missing event milestones ,” including inland point intermodal and transload legs .
Even 3PLs selling intermodal services — some of whom see visibility as a lever to win and retain customers — have long struggled with rail data .
“ Truckload and rail milestones were a problem for us and , therefore , for our customers ,” said Paul Brashier , vice president of drayage and intermodal at nationwide provider ITS Logistics , which debuted a visibility product called ContainerAI in late 2023 . “ A lot of rail data went into a black hole . Is it empty and ready to terminate ? Those were big gaps that we had to address that were symbiotic with our clients ’ pain points .”
email : eric . johnson @ spglobal . com www . joc . com May 6 , 2024 | Journal of Commerce 13