Around the world, the transportation industry is experiencing phenomenal changes thanks to new technology and shifting trends.
One example of this was the recent announcement of a new partnership between Eco Marine Power (EMP) and the Japanese shipowner Hisafuku Kisen K.K. of Onomichi, which will test the world’s first integrated rigid sail and solar power system for ships. Another example is Drayage TMS. Using their service, companies willing to export via containers can find the best drayage to the port, at the best price in an uber-like setup, improving efficiency and expenditure for everyone involved.
Closer to home, here in Eastern Europe, the Sofia based startup, Transmetrics, hopes to bring the power of Big Data and predictive analytics to the transport industry, changing the industry forever, solidified with a promising new partnership with NileDutch.
In order to streamline their empty container flows and increase efficiency, one of the largest container shipping companies in the world, NileDutch, is now collaborating with Transmetrics. With extensive experience in demand forecasting and predictive optimization for cargo transport industry, Transmetrics was selected by NileDutch as the best company to implement its logistics software. With the start of the cooperation, Transmetrics also will launch its new product AssetMetrics.
Anna Shaposhnikova
“The project with NileDutch is strategically important for us. The container still is a symbol of globalization and it revolutionized the way how transportation works worldwide. With machine learning and intelligent algorithms we now want to revolutionize how empty container handling and relocation is organized. Our envisioned goal for the project with NileDutch is to reduce the cost of empty container logistics by 10-15 percent,” says Anna Shaposhnikova, CCO and co-founder of Transmetrics.
NileDutch already started the migration of data into the predictive IT tool at the beginning of January 2018. The rollout of AssetMetrics will begin in March 2018.
Carlo Zaalberg
AssetMetrics uses historical data of the shipping company and improves those data sets to the extent that the intelligent algorithm can produce reliable predictions. In earlier test projects, Transmetrics was able to increase the data quality by around 75 percent during this enrichment process. Afterwards, the system will create a demand forecast model, which is then optimized by the algorithm. With its technology, Transmetrics was achieving from 25% to 50% higher forecast accuracy than the in-house teams of their customers. This approach allows the rebalancing of assets across the whole NileDutch network at minimal cost. It takes into account maintenance costs, the future demand at each location, the cost to reposition and the assets that will be returned. AssetMetrics will be connected to the TMS-system of NileDutch to secure a constant exchange of information.
“We had been looking for a partner who could help us streamline our empty container flows for a long time. There are different IT solutions on the market, but we chose Transmetrics over other providers because they proved their technical expertise and also demonstrated a deep knowledge of the logistics industry and container shipping in particular, which is very difficult to find,” says Carlo Zaalberg, Global Director Logistics at NileDutch.
Smart empty container repositioning is one of the areas where NileDutch is seeing a large potential for improvement by using predictive analytics and artificial intelligence.