Optimizing Orders with AI
Discipline:
Collaborators:
MySpot Shipper is a browser application that connects companies to carriers, allowing companies to book freight so they can ship their products. MySpot Shipper was released as a minimum viable product, and since then has added more functionality, while onboarding businesses. As larger companies have started to use MySpot Shipper, there has been a need to make larger quantities of shipments more streamlined/automated.
User Stories
I work for a large company that has to ship our products around the country. Booking a large amount of these shipments is time consuming, especially when you have to watch cost and there's deadlines to meet. Often time there's an overlap of shipments where they share stops
The Challenge
Work with the MySpot Shipper product owner and the data team to optimize large amounts of orders into as few shipments as possible, saving users freight cost.
add image to show how orders become shipments
A company has a product they need to ship.
Company uses our TMS to find a carrier to ship their product.
Users then select from a list of available carriers.
The Approach
The approach began with conversations with the product owner, who had years of valuable logistics experience. Some of the main takeaways from those conversations:
- Most use cases involve optimizing anywhere between 10-50 orders.
- Users will need the ability to set constraints when optimizing.
- After the AI has optimized shipments, users need the ability to make edits before finalizing.
maybe show a graphic of the various constraints or a photo
The Solution
Give drivers the option to text in trailer pictures directly from their cell phones.
The carrier sales leader had a good idea with allowing drivers to upload pics through our mobile application. We don't want this to be the only way to confirm trailer pics though. Asking drivers to download our app, create a login, and then upload pics is a big ask. Our user feedback showed that one of the biggest complaints that drivers had was having to download apps for various logistics companies.