While the industry takes steps toward autonomous trucking, Loadsmith is taking giant leaps.
With its sights set on becoming the first fully autonomous trucking company, Loadsmith is leaning further into capacity as a service to bolster its autonomous future.
The third-party logistics platform is taking its largest step yet, recently selecting Mastery Logistics’ MasterMind TMS to power its capacity-as-a-service platform. CEO Brett Suma said the partnership will be integral in equipping Loadsmith to offer autonomous middle-mile solutions with power-only first- and last-mile capacity by 2024.
“Mastery will serve as the backbone of our optimization efforts, supporting our power-only trailer management process as well as our digital freight matching through our mobile application,” Suma said.
The migration to Mastery is the third step in Loadsmith’s five-step capacity-as-a-service strategy. Building out a dense network of freight was step one, while developing Loadsmith’s driver app was step two, according to Suma.
The partnership has given Loadsmith the go-ahead to roll out its fourth step: scaling out its power-only solutions. That will be followed by step five: deploying an autonomous middle-mile solution.
Suma is confident that Mastery will greatly improve Loadsmith’s ability to manage its trailer pools and connect power-only carriers with power-only freight.
“Partnering with Loadsmith gives us the opportunity to help pioneer the autonomous transportation future but also stretch and strengthen the capabilities of our product,” said Jeff Silver, CEO at Mastery Logistics. “We thrive on solving these complex challenges and look forward to the insights and efficiencies that will emerge from this partnership over time.”
Despite being virtually unopposed in the autonomous trucking race, Suma welcomes and encourages the industry to follow Loadsmith’s lead to invest more in digital freight matching as well as autonomous middle-mile and power-only first- and last-mile operations.
He said Loadsmith’s foremost duty as a FreightTech leader is to put the driver first. In fact, drivers arguably stand the most to gain from Loadsmith’s capacity as a service.
Though drivers are often wary of automation, interpreting it to mean replacement, Suma assures drivers that the opposite is true. Instead of being removed from the equation, drivers will soon find themselves in a better position within the freight-hauling formula.
“When you think about the driver — as demographics and their quality of life changes — transportation’s digital transformation of the autonomous middle mile is going to be a full-force multiplier when it comes to the creation of additional local driving jobs that will allow drivers to be home nightly,” Suma said, adding that Loadsmith’s autonomous model will create unprecedented opportunities for independent owner-operators especially.
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