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chain, which is why we put them in every load possible.
“They are more expensive, but over the long run, it pays massive dividends in claims prevention. For example, we piloted a program for one of our customers putting them on all of their loads, and we have seen tempera- ture-related claims drop to 0.1 percent of loads, which is astounding,” he says.
“Tracking and tracing is really about how companies are getting information in to react
and respond,” says Robert Goldstein, presi- dent, Genpro, Inc., Rutherford, NJ. “On the asset side, if you’re a trucking company or a rail provider, they’ve been providing this informa- tion for a long time through GPS and satel- lite tracking. If you’re a middleman, a service provider, such as a broker, you don’t own the asset so you have to get information in and have integration and be efficient with being able to do that and manage that process and relay information.”
“When you tie into a guy’s cell phone, that’s a driver who supposedly is carrying your load. But what happens when he switches loads?
You have a load going from California to Chicago and you’re getting reports from a driver in Ohio.”
— Fred Plotsky, Cool Runnings
It is becoming more common for customers to be proactive with what they do with that information so they can make better decisions and monitor risk.
Des Moines Truck Brokers, headquar- tered in Norwalk, IA, relies on tempera- ture-control devices. “We use them as much as possible,” says Ben Batten, the company’s vice president of operations. “We’re seeing companies that are requiring their vendors to put those on a load, and there are fines
54 / MARCH 2019 / PRODUCE BUSINESS