Estes Express partners with DDC FPO for AI-powered freight billing processing

Estes' CEO invests in Cargo Chief, joins its board (Photo: Jim Allen/FreightWaves

Business process outsourcing service provider DDC FPO announced on Sept. 23 that Estes Express Lines will use its machine-learning, software-as-a-service (SaaS) program, DDC Intelligence, to mitigate its bill of lading volume. 

Estes Express, headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, is the largest privately-owned less-than-truckload carrier in the U.S. and has been partnering with DDC since 2011, according to a DDC press release. The LTL carrier has approximately 8,500 drivers and is ranked No. 6 out of the top 100 for-hire carriers of 2019 by revenue, the release states.

DDC will use its machine learning program, DDC Intelligence, to process Estes’ more than 33,000 freight bills per day to meet the “recent acceleration in data demands that shippers require,” according to Tad Blackburn, vice president of administration for Estes Express.

“Our customers want the information faster and faster,” Blackburn said in the release. “It’s really important for us to get the data back to them as fast as humanly possible.”

While testing started in late 2018, the official migration of Estes’ bills of lading over to DDC Intelligence kicked off in early August.

“DDC Intelligence will only continue to improve these performance metrics and, more importantly, facilitate the long-term growth and scalability for our partner,” said Art Zipkin, president of DDC FPO.

DDC, headquartered in Evergreen, Colorado, currently processes more than 30 percent of all LTL bills in North America, the company said.

“With DDC Intelligence, we can now do data matching and validation accurately and more timely and enable our customers’ processes and systems to connect seamlessly without any problem,” Blackburn said.

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Clarissa Hawes

Clarissa has covered all aspects of the trucking industry for 18 years. She is an award-winning journalist known for her investigative and business reporting. Before joining FreightWaves, she wrote for Land Line Magazine and Trucks.com. If you have a news tip or story idea, send her an email to chawes@firecrown.com or @cage_writer on X, formerly Twitter.