Analyst Insight: The transportation industry faced many challenges over the last two years, including supply chain disruptions, labor shortages and economic pressures. Shippers and logistics companies must become more agile to meet customer expectations, close the “black holes” of visibility in transportation networks and reduce risk. 

Following are three key trends that will be important to transportation management in the year ahead.

Real-time freight visibility and automation will be top priorities. Whether it’s a matter of tracking truckload shipments out of Mexico or mitigating potential demurrage fees for containers on their last free day, visibility is the top capability needed for effective transportation management, according to a 2023 global transportation management survey by Descartes. Shippers are demanding real-time visibility through every step of their supply chains. 

This year will be about further relying on transportation data to improve the customer experience. Shippers, brokers and carriers will seek to share insights from freight tracking data — delivering accurate up-to-date location, status and ETA — communicated in real-time to minimize disruptions. 

Visibility also allows shippers, brokers and carriers to optimize transportation operations. With such compelling benefits, it will be one of the deciding competitive advantages in 2024.

In addition, automating transportation processes is seen as the most important tactic for improving transportation value, according to the survey, and the move to automate more complex processes will ramp up next year. Automation in 2024 will be about efficiency and productivity — empowering people, not replacing them.

Innovation in freight technology will accelerate. The last several years have accelerated technological innovation in supply chain and logistics. A recent study found that 65% of companies are increasing IT innovation funding over the next two years. As digitization efforts quicken throughout 2024, transportation processes will be a top focus area for companies looking to prioritize customer-facing initiatives.  

Companies further along in their advanced computing journey see even more advanced machine learning-based capabilities, helping to increase transportation performance and save on labor and costs. ML has been employed by early adopters for years to improve shipment consolidation, at-risk monitoring and ETA accuracy, and this adoption will only increase this year. 

Artificial intelligence use cases are also expected to expand in 2024 with, for example, AI-enabled automation of load planning, load optimization, ETA calculations, load and unload duration updates and capacity matching, as well as back-end operational tasks like training.

Mitigating transportation risk will be key to success. As U.S. manufacturers and retailers seek to diversify sourcing strategies to minimize supply chain risk, nearshoring is expected to continue growing, creating the opportunity for higher volumes of cross-border, over-the-road shipments.

While proximity to the U.S. is an important nearshoring advantage, shippers, carriers and freight brokers will still need to prioritize timely and predictable delivery, greater freight visibility and lower transportation costs — and ultimately facilitate more reliable and resilient supply chains, even as volumes increase.

In addition, shippers will continue to look to freight technology to help minimize the risks of supply chain disruptions. 

Outlook: While advanced computing technologies such as machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotic process automation, are largely at early stages for some companies, ever-increasing pilot programs and partial deployments are expected to produce tangible results and return on investment for a growing number of organizations. 

Resource Link:

www.descartes.com