3Gtms is a transportation management solution designed to serve small to mid-sized shippers that typically don't have a large staff of planners and sophisticated enterprise systems working to smooth out their supply chains, says Wiggins. "These companies need the high-value features in these big systems, but they can't afford the millions of dollars it takes to stand them up, so we decided to bring to market a software for the masses with high-value features that can be easily installed," he says.
A big difference with smaller businesses is that they do not have supply chain planning and optimization systems in place to figure out the most efficient shipping patterns and the most economic order quantities, he says. "Large enterprises, for example, have entire programs to get customers to order full truckloads or carloads. Small companies don't have that luxury. They are in more of a reactive mode and shipping is more irregular."
A TMS serving this market has to be able to react quickly to changes, Wiggins says. "You can figure out a perfect plan, but that plan may change as soon as it is done," he says. For example, a preferred carrier might not have the 10 trucks needed for a shipment but can supply five trucks. "A TMS needs to be smart enough to instantly react and find the next best alternative for that needed capacity," says Wiggins.
