The trucking industry has relied for years on technologies such as dynamic routing software, forward-looking cameras and electronic recording devices. But with increased pressure on supply chains, the transportation and logistics industries envision the next wave of innovation.

Truck drivers who work longer hours face health and safety risks as disruptions push companies to build more reliable supply chains that depend on faster, more traceable delivery methods.

New software developed by Milwaukee-based startup Renaissant guides businesses toward this new digital horizon by solving a major logistics problem at the intersection of truck drivers and loading docks.

Renaissant CEO Thomas Dean said warehouse and logistics companies have struggled to match drivers to loads, and this causes traffic jams that cost drivers and businesses millions of dollars every year.

“The main cause of these problems is simply the lack of visibility,” Dean said. “The human eye is not able to see 500 loads in a day, but our system sees it very easily, organizes it and makes its warehouse intelligent. “

Renaissant organizes warehouse and transportation management system data on a single platform to help businesses visualize their operations. The platform then optimizes shipping and receiving schedules based on weather, traffic patterns, and a host of variables built into its machine learning algorithms, Dean said.

“We take all of that information about when drivers arrive, match their schedules, and optimize the number of loads you schedule for a particular time slot,” Dean said.

Renaissant’s platform, called Dock C2, focuses on streamlining communication between warehouses and truckers using digital kiosks. When a trucker arrives, the driver can check in at a kiosk and provide essential information to warehouse staff, including load number, maximum load weight, and phone number.

Fixed QR codes placed on signs around facilities also allow truckers to use their phones to connect to Dock C2, providing the same functions as kiosks, Dean added.

“Then we know what’s going on at every door,” Dean said. “We can tell them, ‘You have eight doors open out of 700, so get this driver here. “”

The platform also transcends the language barriers many businesses face with truckers, Dean said, adding that as long as a driver’s operating system on their mobile device is set to their native language, texting via Dock C2 will be translated.

“(Customers) told us it’s been a huge struggle because English is a second language for so many drivers,” Dean said.

Truck drivers check in at a Renaissant kiosk when they arrive at a facility.” width=”1280″ height=”720″ srcset=”https://assets.biztimes.com/2021/10/Driver-Sign-In-Trailer-300×169.jpg 300w, https://assets.biztimes.com/2021/10/Driver-Sign-In-Trailer-1024×576.jpg 1024w, https://assets.biztimes.com/2021/10/Driver-Sign-In-Trailer-768×432.jpg 768w, https://assets.biztimes.com/2021/10/Driver-Sign-In-Trailer-1068×580.jpg 1068w, https://assets.biztimes.com/2021/10/Driver-Sign-In-Trailer.jpg 1280w” sizes=”(max-width: 1280px) 100vw, 1280px”/>

The C2 dock not only makes shipping and receiving more time-efficient, but also allows companies to reallocate the industry’s shrinking labor pool by removing employees from loading docks and putting them in other roles in the warehouse, Dean said.

Charter Steel, a supplier of steel products based in Mequon, is a company that uses Dock C2 to streamline the connection process for its drivers, said Andrew Gash, logistics director at Charter Steel. Prior to Dock C2, vendor legacy processes involved restaurant pagers, CB radios, dock coordinators and a lot of paperwork, Gash wrote in a recent social media post.

Renaissant is also tackling a long-standing problem in the trucking industry: driver detention. The industry standard for detention or turnaround time in a warehouse is approximately two hours; beyond that, carriers struggle with paying drivers for excessive wait times. Despite detention payments, truck drivers make more money when they are on the road. They are paid for the number of kilometers driven and drivers are also limited to 14-hour shifts, including an 11-hour daily driving limit.

According to a 2018 survey by the U.S. Department of Transportation, truck drivers lose an estimated $ 1.1 billion to $ 1.3 billion in wages each year due to detention. That’s because the wages received for detention are in some cases less than what a professional truck driver would earn on billable logging hours, according to a report by the American Transportation Research Institute.

As C2 Dock optimizes planning and streamlines communication between truckers and warehouse staff, congestion levels decrease, lowering hold rates in the process, Dean said.

“For most businesses, we think we can reduce their holding costs by 50% in less than a month and that can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month,” Dean said.

Estimates suggest that the transportation industry faces a shortage of nearly 61,000 drivers and will need to hire around 1.1 million new drivers over the next decade to keep pace with the growing demand for freight from the United States. economy, according to the American trucking associations.

This is one of the reasons why big companies like Amazon are pouring millions into autonomous truck systems. However, experts say it can take decades to bring these systems to market.

In the near term, companies will seek innovative solutions such as the Renaissant platform, particularly along the I-94 corridor in Southeastern Wisconsin, where traffic patterns change rapidly as more and more more logistics companies are setting up shop, Dean said.

“The big thing that changes for all of these shippers is everything that is being built between here and Chicago,” Dean said. “All of these operations out there are dramatically changing the trucking habits because you have these multi-million square foot facilities set up there. “