FourKites Releases Automation and Communication Capabilities to Significantly Streamline Deliveries

Leading supply chain visibility provider FourKites today announced several new capabilities within its AI-enabled Appointment Manager solution that further automate distribution center, warehouse, plant and cross-dock pickup, as well as delivery calendar management, while simplifying communication between shippers, carriers and drivers.

Nearly 20% of appointments are rescheduled each year, resulting in costly and time-consuming delays, additional tasks and major interruptions to daily workflows. By consolidating delivery schedules and carrier communication into one streamlined platform, FourKites’ latest Appointment Manager enhancements provide supply chain partners with a more seamless appointment management process that saves time, increases on-time performance, improves auditing accuracy, reduces detention fees and slashes dwell times.

“Appointment Manager significantly decreases the amount of effort it takes to manage site schedules," says Florian Schoenle, Team Leader Transport Management at Teva. "With these new capabilities focused on easy communication and increased automation, this solution will drive significant efficiencies and grow top-line revenue.”
The latest updates to FourKites Appointment Manager include:

● Automated Rescheduling. Leveraging FourKites’ AI-powered Dynamic ETAs®, Appointment Manager will automatically reschedule early or late appointments as potential exceptions are encountered. This relieves frontline workers from tedious administrative tasks and allows them to focus on managing their daily activities.

For carriers, automated rescheduling eliminates the need to continuously and manually monitor freight for exceptions. Through Dynamic ETAs and carrier-provided ETAs, as needed, calendars are automatically updated and kept in sync, eliminating time-consuming calls and emails between shippers, carriers and drivers.

● Communication Hub. Now, shippers and carriers can easily communicate within the Appointment Manager tool itself for more efficient operations and faster auditing. Carriers can invite drivers to manage and collaborate on each appointment with a unique URL so that each party can add their own notes and updates, consolidating all communication in a single portal.

● Improved Carrier Access. Through deeper integration with each carrier’s TMS, shippers can now provide carriers access to detailed reporting, such as reschedule recommendations, carrier appointment compliance, facility metrics and more. This enables a self-service environment for carriers, streamlines communication and drives continuous improvement with shared metrics and enhanced shipper-carrier relationships.

“The chain of communication about appointment times between site, driver and carrier is critical for our business. But it’s often error-prone and slows down processes,” says Dirk Huetter, Chief Project Officer at Huetter Spedition. “FourKites’ Appointment Manager offers so much value because it brings these critical stakeholders together in an automated and transparent way. As a result, it creates an efficient, accurate and reliable way to do business while using existing data.”
Appointment Manager is the first appointment solution to integrate with all major TMS and ERP systems. Hundreds of the world’s leading brands now rely on Appointment Manager to slash manual processes and improve their bottom line. Over the last 12 months, FourKites has seen 65% growth in the number of facilities managed with Dynamic Yard® and Appointment Manager, and 247% growth in the number of appointments managed in Appointment Manager.

“Appointment Manager breaks down the silos between systems and teams to significantly reduce appointment bottlenecks,” said FourKites Chief Product Officer Priya Rajagopalan. “Now, shippers, carriers and drivers can all collaborate and communicate within one, integrated, AI-powered appointment system that enables greater productivity, agility and efficiency — and, ultimately, better decision-making in real time when exceptions arise.”

Today’s Appointment Manager enhancements are the latest innovations that demonstrate how FourKites is applying market-leading AI and machine learning to massive volumes of real-time internal and external supply chain data so supply chain partners can generate insights, identify shocks before they happen, streamline operations and improve the customer experience. Other recent innovations such as Fin AI (FourKites Intelligence Network) and My Workspace are supercharging customers’ real-time decision-making capabilities by leveraging all of the data in the FourKites platform and third-party data sources to provide answers to supply chain questions faster than ever.

Leading global supply chain visibility platform FourKites® empowers business leaders with comprehensive visibility into transportation, yards, warehouses, stores and beyond. Tracking more than 3 million shipments daily across road, rail, ocean, air, parcel and last mile, and reaching over 200 countries and territories, FourKites combines real-time data and powerful machine learning to help companies digitize their end-to-end supply chains. More than 1,200 of the world’s most recognized brands — including 9 of the top-10 CPG and 18 of the top-20 food and beverage companies — trust FourKites to transform their business and create more agile, efficient and sustainable supply chains. To learn more, visit https://www.fourkites.com/.