An opportunity to reduce transportation costs and your company’s carbon footprint through effective Back Haul partnerships

The Situation

Several very hot industry topics revolve around a company’s “carbon footprint” and the impact of fuel costs throughout the enterprise.  Although a secondary consideration, truck fleet utilization and manpower availability to drive, maintain and manage those fleets are cost drivers that contribute to the overall carbon footprint.  Some industry sources state that their fleets are driving empty approximately 50% of the time resulting in enormous lost resources measured in fuel consumption, lost productivity, fleet wear and tear unnecessary emissions and delays in product availability.

Supply chains are sub-optimized by design!

The Opportunity

VICS is taking a leadership position by building on our tradition of Collaborative Commerce for the benefit of our members and ultimately our industry.

VICS is sponsoring the development of a web portal solution including VICS' collaborative business processes and GS1 standards and community management tools to facilitate the matching of supplier/shipper transportation needs and transportation/carrier companies’ capacity for North American backhaul.

VICS is uniquely positioned to build this capability through member participation and commitment.  The collaborative nature of VICS enables open communication between companies requiring backhaul capacity without compromising competitive or proprietary boundaries.

The Solution

“Empty Miles” is the solution that incorporates a standard Process, common industry Protocol agreement and Technology in a way that enables companies to identify, qualify and consummate transportation relationships that provide real benefit to both parties including:

·    Elimination or reduction of empty capacity on return or interim lane runs

·    Reduces transportation costs through higher truck utilization

·    Reduces the carbon emissions due to fewer miles driven

·    Delivers a standard method comprised of processes and internet services that are easy to use and enable collaboration.

Empty Miles will focus on private or dedicated fleets with the intent of using VICS' member private fleet or dedicated common carrier capacity to eliminate overlapping power lanes where multiple shipper fright opportunities can be engineered into a durable partnership.

The Empty Miles Development Strategy

Several VICS' member companies have participated in a requirements workshop with the objective of defining the processes and initial functional capabilities of the Empty Miles Service.  The results are the basis for a proof of concept that will be reviewed by VICS, and modified as needed.

The initial Service will be available to VICS' members plus other large enterprises on a reasonable fee or subscription basis, yet to be determined.   Additional functional capabilities will be developed based on industry needs and priorities for the Empty Miles Members.

We Need Your Help

Additional processes, policies and procedures unrelated to the Internet tools, but vital to the adoption and continuing benefit stream of the transportation partners need to be defined, documented and incorporated into the Empty Miles Service.

Topics include pricing rules (standard rate structure), fuel surcharge, labor, loading, scheduling, and claims.  Our goal will be to define the key variables and embed them into an agreement that follows a process at the point of backhaul initiation.

We will use a facilitated workshop comprised of VICS' members who have relevant industry experience to develop specific deliverables needed to support the broader business processes and information – common protocol or operating principals. The workshop objective is to define processes that can be standardized at the beginning of a back haul relationship as well as a management oversight process including metrics that both parties agree will reflect the operational key points. And finally, how to build backhaul management into Supply Chain operational reviews.

Please contact Laura Golding at (609) 620-4562 or reply to this message to volunteer for this critical stage of the Empty Miles development.

Contact Joe Andraski at jandraski@vics.org or call (609) 620-8012 if you would like to discuss in more detail.