The trucking industry is a highly regulated industry and running a trucking company that adheres to those regulations can be difficult. Managing everything from driver certifications to trailer registrations is a daunting task and requires a good amount of organization. Dispatch Commodity has worked with trucking companies large and small over the years to make a comprehensive trucking company management software. We are going to go through some of the most tracked items that we help our customers and you and your company manage and how they integrate with the rest of our system.

Dispatching is one of the most important jobs at any trucking business. Dispatch Commodity helps our customers make the most out of every dispatch in a variety of ways that we have developed over the years. Whether you are an owner operator looking to move away from dispatching your loads out of a spreadsheet, or work with a company that uses outdated software and are looking to update, we are going to go through some of the features to look for in your next dispatching software.

        Working from home has become increasingly popular due to the pandemic. With this increase in people working from home, having a solid desktop workstation is a worthy investment. Dispatch Commodity has created a quick parts guide for our friends and family working from home. We know that not everyone is tech savvy enough to build your own PC, so shopping for a new home workstation might be challenging. We also included a prebuilt option for a quick and easy desktop solution if you do not want the extra DIY work. We tried to keep the total budget under $1500.00 which may seem like a lot, but the lists include everything you would need to operate a PC like a mouse, displays, and keyboard, which you may already have.

        No matter what your trucking company is hauling, being able to track drivers can increase efficiency and help give your hauling company an edge on the competition. With so many different methods of data collection, it can be hard to decipher what data give the most value to you and your customers. Dispatch Commodity has created multiple ways to convey this data to not only your back-office staff but to your customers as well. We are going to breakdown the many ways that we collect this data and explain the benefits we can give you and your trucking company. 

Driver Tracking with Map Views 

        Managing driver schedules can be hectic for trucking companies especially during recent times with HOS/ELD regulations and Covid-19. Knowing who is working and their availability is essential to maximizing dispatches and minimizing downtime. Unfortunately, finding a software package for a trucking company that ties your driver scheduling and dispatching together can be difficult and require costly integration. Knowing what features to look for is important when you are looking for a software solution. Let’s check out some of the highlights we think will help make the most out of your dollar.

Technology has slowly been integrated into the trucking industry with everything from ELDs to GPS navigation. Of course, just like all recent technology, it is great until it stops working out in the field costing valuable hours and frustration. With ELD mandates taking effect recently, it is more important than ever to be able to get your tech working reliably. Over the years, Dispatch Commodity has worked with a wide variety of devices out in the field, and we have four tips and tricks to fix them up fast so you can get back to work. 

        When I first started out in crude oil dispatch for my company, we were using carbon copy paper tickets. We went through a local Colorado print shop for the paper tickets. We changed the crude oil ticket template around four to five times before we settled on the best format for our operator and producer marketers. My day-to-day operations would center around chasing the drivers for their crude oil ticket copies for all my reports. I would then enter the data into a spreadsheet on my laptop and send an email to the customers. I spent at the minimum a tank and a half of gas driving around gathering the paper tickets. And at the time we were servicing near 70 trucks. This made it very difficult to meet our destination crude oil allocations due to the fact we were finding days old crude oil tickets in drivers’ trucks.

Electronic ticketing software relies on equipment hardware that can be deployed out in the field, rugged enough to weather continuous usage in all conditions, and simple enough to navigate. Most ticketing software solutions have an extremely strict set of requirements for the equipment that can be utilized. In some cases, this means that a proprietary hardware must be purchased that is limited to that software, and it is usually more expensive than generic tablets and or handheld devices. This means more upfront cost for carriers that owners either must add into the operating rate they bill their customers, or they must pass the expense along to the drivers.

 In 2010, Maverick Taylor founded Capital Technology Solutions, LLC. (CTS), and subsequently, Dispatch Crude (DispatchCrude.com or ‘DC’ for short). At the time, the field of crude oil transport was still struggling to go paperless and electronic with their dispatch and ticketing. It was the most complicated problem to solve for several reasons. Many areas in the oil field have limited or no cellular coverage, and there is a fair amount of complex calculation that needs to be completed in the field, when the oil is loaded. Due to this situation, DC was solving the most difficult challenge in the entire bulk transportation space. Many trucking companies were working with software companies who came from the moving and storage portion of dispatch and logistics solutions, as well as other competing start-ups.