Evos SmartTools
EVOS SmartTools: Exploiting the Transition to a More Dynamic Transportation Marketplace

The transportation environment is rapidlychanging with carriers charging more for specialized services and different guaranteed delivery levels and with correspondingly higher and more complex and customer service demands. Legacy Transportation Management Systems (TMS) were built to serve the execution function of transportation management. They excelled at rating, dispatching and freight bill audit. But today they fall short in making mode and service level selections to optimize complex cost/service tradeoffs.

“More than ever before, good execution begins with good planning” states Tom Livernash, President and CEO of Evos SmartTools. Transportation professionals need to be able to access the greatest number of transportation options and quickly evaluate them to producethe optimum cost/service plan. Meeting this need is the goal set for themselves by Tom and Jim Heuer, CTO, of EVOS SmartTools. EVOS’ PlanTools™ product combines the ability to query the Internet for multiple transportation services with power of highly sophisticated decision support technology.

Evos’ PlanTools™ evaluates a wide range of possible transportation scenarios and options for every upcoming shipment. It goes far beyond simply considering the consolidation of LTL shipments into truckload. PlanTools™considers multiple transportation modes such as LTL, Truckload, Intermodal, pool cross-dock, dedicated fleets and continuous (round-trip) movements. Finally, PlanTools can evaluate different service offerings (including HazMat and refrigeration) from each carrier, including the ever expanding array of extra-cost accessorials, and different guaranteed service levels – each with its own rate premium. PlanTools™ is currently proving its worth across a spectrum of shippers, 3PLs and related transportation providers.

But such power is nearly useless in the static world of legacy TMS software.

PlanTools™state of the art ActivePlan™ technology dynamically allows for a continuous flow of new and changed customer orders into the planning process, with rapid response in automatically re-planning and optimizing routes, modes, rates, and service requirements as changes pop up throughout the day. “For example, we have a customer supporting over 25 facilities, with new orders arriving into PlanTools™ continuously 24*7, with frequent re-plans to handle new situations throughout each day,” explains EVOS’ CTO Heuer.

Such dynamism is also quickly disrupting the staid old world of freight rating. The transportation industry is rapidly adopting on-demand web-base freight rating tools, which will render obsolete the old “rating engine” tools of legacy TMS systems. Instead of relying on laboriously maintained tariffs in TMS systems, new technology like PlanTools™ taps into carrier rating systems via the Internet to get the latest contracted freight rates for every shipment.Today those rates are static, but in the future LTL and other carriers will compete in the open marketplace with flexible pricing much like today’s airline passenger fares… And PlanTools™ and LTLTools™ will be there to help shippers and 3PLs exploit this exciting new freight marketplace.

EVOS SmartTools’ software fleet includes BidTools™, a powerful e-commerce product supporting freight rate bidding events. Geared for speed and flexibility in bidding events ranging from a few hundred lanes and one mode to dozens of mode options and many thousands of lanes, it supports all modes of carriers, including truckload, less-than-truckload (LTL), intermodal, small package and air. BidTools™ leads the way to Strategic Sourcing where the full negotiating power of the enterprise or 3PL controlled freight can be brought to bear to maximize savings while focusing business with a core of preferred carriers.

EVOS won’t stop with these accomplishments. Transportation execution is one of the last bastions of mechanized, but not automated, processes – still involving lots of labor for essentially repetitive, routine work. EVOS intends to help revolutionize these inefficient processes with new products in the development pipeline.