Thursday, May 26, 2005

New Horizon Includes Advanced Shipment Tracking

May 26th, 2005 - Winston-Salem, NC - Melton Technologies' new version of their flagship Horizon trucking software includes advanced shipment tracking, allowing users to view billing and settlement details faster than ever before. To be released on June 1st, 2005, the Horizon Shipment Tracer lets users drill-down into a single shipment by providing any trackable number, either a billing of lading #, shipment number or even PO#. The drill-down includes all activity on the shipment, including the invoicing, payments and settlement information.

Companies using owner operators or doing brokerage also benefit from the ability to see when any person was paid was on the related shipment. "Shipment Tracer has always been one of our most popular features," said Andrew MacNeill, Technology Marketing Manager for MTI. "Being able to search for any shipment with any number from within any part of the application gives companies the ability to provide better service to their customers, to their drivers, to anyone they do business with."

Shipment Tracer appears on every Horizon application and is accessible while users are performing other activities. Users may enter any combination of tracking information, including customer, reference numbers, drivers, tractor and even containers for intermodal carriers. The results are displayed instantly in an on-screen report that may be printed or sent directly to whoever was inquiring about the information. The view may be customized to show more detail about each activity, including location or product details. It is compatible with all operations, including truckload, long haul, short haul, LTL and brokerage operations.

Joseph Michetti, co-owner of AmeriLine Transportation, of Cleveland, Ohio, agrees. "I used to keep books where I would file all of my old driver pay records but now I just pull it up on screen. When someone calls looking for a payment, I can find it instantly", he explains, noting the time savings and quick response that his drivers appreciate.

Horizon Dispatch is the core operations tool for MTI customers, providing dispatchers with valuable tools for load planning, route optimization, asset tracking and automated Dispatch through Circle of Service and mobile communications. Companies can configure the Horizon product line to highlight critical information so work can be completed faster in a more productive environment. Horizon also provides software for managing invoicing , driver and carrier settlements, maintenance, fuel tax reporting and driver log maintenance.

Melton Technologies (MTI) has been a provider of transportation software since 1984, helping trucking companies manage a combined total of over 10,000 trucks nationwide. More information about MTI may be found on their web site at http://www.mtihorizon.com or by contacting Melody Latimer at 1-800-888-1246 x202 or sales@meltech.com.

Making the Right Decision for the right reason$

Yesterday, Bill Uniack and I went through a gut-wrenching conversation (at least on my part) with a prospect who, in the end, decided not to choose Horizon. I say gut-wrenching because we had come up with a solution that would have worked but it was simply not economical for a smaller fleet.

I feel for Bill because as a sales team, we always want to "get the sale" and bring a new customer on board but the fact is, one product does not suit every person - even with a product as customizable and configurable as Horizon.

The conversation wasn't a nasty one and I felt ended on a very positive note. We want advocate customers, I want the best solutions for our customers, our partners and if we can't provide that, I want to at least put them on the right path, be it with some ideas for managing their business with a spreadsheet or other software that will suit their needs. In this case, it was particularly troubling because there simply isn't software (at least available today) to do what they wanted to accomplish. As the prospect said = "we're very specialized - there aren't many people who do what we do."

Still, after working with so many of our customers on providing them with custom solutions that DO work for them using the Horizon trucking software (tanker operations, mail carrier and more), I'm disappointed we couldn't make it work.

It may happen with our new product that will be revealed later this year but I can't give out more details until a bit later...

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

New Poll - Dispatching Challenges

Our new poll is all about challenges.

Tell us what challenges you face in Dispatching - We've offered several ideas based on comments we've heard from customers - things like finding new loads, or getting a plan in place , even slip seating. But you're the experts - so you tell us.

What part of dispatching do YOU find the most challenging?

Private fleets rank fuel number one issue

Fuel costs are the number one concern of private truck fleet owners - so how are you managing them?

I just had a great conversation with Joe Michetti, one of our customers with Ameriline Transportion of Ohio. He's one of the best testers of our new Horizon trucking software release, coming out in June. While he was really excited about the new dispatching features and enhancements in Shipment Tracer, he wasn't aware of the new Billing Surcharges feature, now built into Horizon Billing - a GREAT benefit to trucking companies faced with constantly changing fuel prices and costs.

Billing Surcharges lets companies set up a spreadsheet of surcharges with start and end dates, specific to individual billing codes. Surcharges can be based on percentage or per mile calculations - so you can be sure to get the most out of your invoicing needs.

So I showed Joe how to set this up. Now when I first mentioned it to him, his comment was that his surcharges were fairly complex and that they changed every week - so it was always something they felt they could do better manually.

Within 15 minutes, we had set up Billing Surcharges for two of this customers and the rates were instantly being re-calculated just by changing the delivery date. As a result, Ameriline will be able to free up a lot more time billing loads, turning it from a calculation process into more of a monitoring one where the billing clerk reviews the charges but spends less time calculating them manually.

Fuel costs are changing daily - and fuel surcharges are just one of the ways trucking companies can meet that challenge. Horizon's new Billing Surcharges features can help you recoup those costs.

Private fleets rank fuel number one issue

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

Load/Truck Posting Services

Over the past few weeks, customers and visitors to the web site have been telling us what load/truck posting services they were using.

Looks like DAT has the competition beat so as we start looking at linking with these various services, DAT should be first on our list.

If you're interested in testing this out or have some comments on what you'd like to see in that level of integration, please send me an email at amacneill@meltech.com.

Weekly Poll