Meet Today’s Supply Chain Challenges Head-On With Automated Polygon Geofencing

The list of today’s supply chain challenges is lengthy: constant disruptions, detention and demurrage fees, meeting sustainability goals, plus many more. A close look at these most prominent challenges reveals that automated polygon geofencing can be a partial or complete solution.

This edition of the Kestrel Insights newsletter offers a look at news stories that address modern supply chain challenges. If you’re interested in learning more about automated geofencing as a solution to these problems, get in touch with us.

A Look at Data-Driven Fleet Management

Data-driven fleet management is essential in 2024. Processes that were once manual and decisions that were once left to experience and knowledge alone can now be informed by data — if not fully automated.

Forbes recently wrote about best practices for data-driven fleet management for this year, including results from an industry survey. One of the survey responses was particularly telling, suggesting that “the most helpful technology would be one platform that provided the information they needed to manage their fleet.”

Integrations between applications are crucial in today’s logistics and supply chain landscape. If fleet managers and others are asked to bounce back and forth between various technologies as part of their day-to-day duties, it’s nearly impossible to keep up. At Kestrel Insights, we’re embracing the power of integrations by using open APIs to build our automated polygon geofencing into the industry’s leading platforms (like Motive).

The Spiraling Cost of Operating a Truck

One of the biggest challenges for shippers and logistics service providers is the growing cost of operating a truck. Research from the American Transportation Research Institute suggests that the cost of operating a truck in 2022 was $2.251 per mile. This was the first time in organizational history that this survey found a cost per mile of more than $2.

Fuel, repair and maintenance, truck and/or trailer leases, and driver wages are assumed to be the drivers of higher costs. While it may be impossible for shippers and logistics service providers to control those costs, they can find ways to create savings (like through the use of automated polygon geofencing).

Electrifying Fleets is More Challenging Than Expected

Supply chain sustainability is becoming an increasingly popular topic, partly due to stringent emissions regulations and because many organizations have implemented corporate social responsibility programs that address sustainability. Time magazine recently wrote about the challenges of decarbonizing long-haul trucking, including “three significant problems” related to “turning diesel-powered trucks into electric vehicles”:

1. The challenge of limited range.
2. The challenge of recharging the batteries to extend range — which is time wasted.
3. The challenge of carrying heavy batteries, which reduces the payload of goods a truck can haul.

There are alternatives to electrifying fleets while also decarbonizing long-haul trucking. We recently wrote about how automated polygon geofences help reduce emissions through improved route planning, reduced carbon footprints, reduced fuel consumption, and improved regulatory compliance.

What to Do About Carbon-Intensive Last-Mile Delivery

There are also sustainability concerns around last-mile delivery, which is notoriously expensive and emissions-intensive. In London, for example, delivery vans account for 19% of total miles driven but 30% of the city’s transport-related carbon emissions. This is another area where advanced polygon geofencing can serve as a part of a larger solution for last-mile sustainability.

The use of modern geofences helps keep costs low, helps manage effective last-mile programs, and also helps reduce carbon emissions. Read more about the benefits of automated polygon geofencing in last-mile delivery.

Slashing Detention and Demurrage Fees

Detention and demurrage fees became a hot topic during the pandemic as containers stacked up at maritime ports and per diem charges skyrocketed. The FMC stepped in to bring order to the per diem chaos, but shippers and logistics service providers can take other actions to minimize these costly fees.

We recently wrote about how detention and demurrage fees rise in volatile markets (like the one experienced around the COVID-19 pandemic). That article also outlines how manually drawn geofences perpetuate the detention and demurrage issue, making automated polygon geofences an attractive alternative.

Meet Your Challenges Head-On With Automated Polygon Geofencing

It’s hard for supply chain management professionals to keep track of today’s challenges, much less develop solutions for all of them. That said, automated polygon geofencing can be an essential tool in overcoming these challenges, providing full or partial solutions in many cases. Once you learn how modern geofencing works, you can pair your specific challenges with ways geofencing provides solutions.

Get in touch with us to talk more about what automated polygon geofencing can do for your business.

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