Dive Brief:
- Estes Express Lines is dramatically improving visibility into its shipping through an expanded partnership with Samsara, according to an announcement released March 13.
- With the expansion, the LTL carrier is adding tracking devices across its fleet of 43,000-plus trailers as well as delivery and dock equipment, such as dollies and pallet jacks. A maintenance platform will also help scale future additions, leveraging an integrated network as opposed to piecemeal solutions that can be less efficient.
- “Estes can now catch equipment issues before they cause unplanned downtime, automatically generate work orders from vehicle inspection reports and fault codes rather than manual entry, and manage maintenance history and active issues across its entire fleet in one place,” a public relations representative said in an email.
Dive Insight:
Estes envisions a frictionless shipping experience for employees and customers, and the more granular visibility it can provide, the smoother its planning and operations can be, CIO Todd Florence told Trucking Dive.
The carrier plans to complete the tech deployment by the end of this year. With the add-ons, the company can better track the equipment’s location and predict its maintenance needs, thanks to real-time visibility into equipment safety features, such as anti-lock braking and automated tire inflation systems, he said.
The additions further seek to help improve not only safety but also the driver experience and equipment availability.
“With this, we get not only equipment visibility, but we get a platform we can expand on,” he said. “So if we add freight cameras in the future or want temperature sensors or those sorts of things, it's really scalable and really easy to do that.”
The tech builds off a partnership with Samsara that began in 2023, which brought AI-powered dash cameras to cabs and helps with future scaling. The expansion moves Estes closer to developing a digital twin-like environment to further improve visibility and improve overall network efficiency.
Digital twins, or virtual simulations, allow entities to project possible problems and can make operations more efficient in the real world. Businesses such as Subway have used the tech to source savings, while General Mills built its own digital twin connected to an AI platform.
For carriers such as Estes, more data means better servicing, which improves safety, keeps equipment on the road and helps remove many of the surprises that can happen.
“Over the last five or six years, customers’ demand for data has not diminished, and it's never going to get lighter,” Florence said. “They want more granularity. They want more specificity.”
