Velostics

The Team

Jermaine Bridges – Product Designer

Dan Lindsey – Developer

Idris Gagan – Product Manager

My Role

Product designer/researcher

The goal

Design a contactless app that will allow truck drivers to communicate with, and send documents to terminal and warehouse clerks without face-to-face contact..

My Responsibilities

• Research and discoveries
• Conduct workshops with stakeholders
• Design wireframes

The Problem

The fuel terminal business is a low-margin, high-volume business. Terminal operators struggle to move vehicles in and out of terminals quickly, eliminate errors from manual drivers information input and product key-in entry, as well as balancing loads between peak and off-peak hours.

Warehouse operators need help moving vehicles in and out of the facility grounds quickly, keeping doors open for loading and unloading, eliminating manual and paper-based processes that causes delays, and increased admin costs. Covid has introduced additional motivators to eliminate face-to-face interactions and improve safety for facility crews. The problems are similar across the 400,000+ warehouses in the US, but the 20,000 or so of the largest companies (100Ksqft +) are most impacted due to scale.

Challenges

Carrier Challenges (Terminal)

• No visibility into allocation of data causes delays on site – If the driver cannot load because the end customer is out of allocation, this may be a wasted trip. At best, it causes delays at the terminal while the driver waits in the bay to get a new load. At worst, it is a wasted trip and fewer shipments delivered, hurting driver and carrier revenue.
• No visibility into wait times at terminals – This causes drivers to have unexpectedly long wait times. This reduces the number of loads they can deliver in a day thus reducing their revenue and the carrier’s revenue.
• Delays to getting BOL – Carriers can only invoice for a job once it is complete and the documents makes it back to their office. Drivers usually do this weekly or rarely daily, increasing DSO and hampering cash flow.
• Misplaced loads (i.e., wrong customer, product, etc.) – Load information with errors delay payments and increase admin costs for each load, as it takes time to resolve errors and get corrected invoices out to customers.

Terminal Operator Challenges

• It takes time to enter an order manually – Drivers can take 38 seconds to 4+ minutes to enter their information. This depends on the number of products and how many orders they are hauling (one load vs. split load going to two stores).
• Manual entry is error prone – The driver could unintentionally enter the wrong code, charge the wrong account, load faulty products, and contaminate their vehicle or the facility. Sometimes the driver could enter the incorrect information intentionally.
• Paper BOL further delays trucks from leaving
• Long lines on city streets and highways during peak hours could lead to fines for terminals.

What Terminals Have Done or Are Currently Doing?

Terminals have taken several optimization steps and are continuously looking to reduce costs and improve throughput at the fueling terminal. Here’s some of what they have done:

• Implement Terminal Automation Systems (or Terminal Management System, TMS). This has automated most activities at the terminal, making it a largely human-free operation. TMS controls everything from inventory to loading to invoicing.
• Providing more products in bay loading stations. This eliminates the driver from having to dock at multiple bays to complete the load.
• Making products available on more loading arms. This enables multiple compartments to be loaded as needed, parallelizing the loading process and reducing delays.

The Solution

Velostics is a contactless logistics solution for fuel terminal and warehouse operators that eliminates manual and face-to-face check-in processes and paperwork. The resulting savings in gate-to-gate time and error reduction improve facility throughput and reduce admin overhead costs. Terminals can enhance throughput by 5-8%, realizing $235K+ per terminal in net profit improvement. Warehouses can reduce turnaround time by 20+ minutes, reducing detention fees and admin (receiving clerk) costs.

For Terminals, Velostics integrates with terminal management systems and carrier dispatch to bridge the gap between terminals and carriers, improve gate-to-gate time, and eliminate errors. For Warehouses, Velostics provides a contactless process that enables drivers delivering or loading at a warehouse to check in and out faster without face-to-face interactions and exchanging paper. Furthermore, delays are eliminated as critical, time-consuming BOL/PO prep work can be handled before the driver arrives at the facility.

Velostics Solution – Velostics Pass

Velostics enables a boarding pass-like experience for the terminal and truck drivers.

Trucks arriving for loading and unloading at terminals can get loaded faster with the Velostics Pass QR code, which contains all information that the driver would otherwise have to enter manually – driver ID, carrier, customer, ship-to, shipper ID, products and quantities, equipment IDs, etc.

Benefits

• Save 1-3+ minutes of order entry time (out of an average of 15-18 minutes gate-to-gate standard)
• Cut loading time for split loads by 50% with parallel loading (currently requires two separate loads)
• Improve throughput and revenue by 5.5%+
• Groa Net Profit by $200K+ per terminal ($0.01/gallon profit @ 8,400 gallons/truck @ 150 loads/day
• Reduce wait time at peak hours from 1+ hours
• Eliminate 100% of driver entry errors (currently 6.7+ per 10,000 loads)
• Less experienced drivers perform like veterans (faster and error-free).
• Eliminate misplaced loads – trailer surfing, account fishing
• Reduce admin and accounting costs – no invoice errors and rebills

Warehouse Challenges

• PO Reconciliation against BOL actuals. It can be as little as a minute or two to 20-30 minutes+. It is a manual process involving comparing product names on paper vs. PO items on the screen. Different companies call the same product differently, which is only sometimes straightforward. For small loads with 1-2 items, it is easy. But you can have large loads of 2-3 pages of line items that can take up to an hour or more.
• It takes time to check in drivers – they are checked in in order and can wait in line a long time for the clerk to process them. Especially with COVID, this is a safety issue.
• Drivers walking to and from trucks and receiving desks take 2-5 minutes up to 15 minutes in extensive facilities.
• Drivers are often not wearing masks (50%).
• Several paper-based processes and checklists (QA reports, tally sheets, etc.) duplicate work and take time to fill out.

Carrier Challenges (Warehouse)

• Delays on site – The carrier allows for a standard wait time per load – typically 1-2 hrs. Any time beyond this can lead to detention charges (if the warehouse is at fault), lost money (the driver is not driving on the next load but waiting), or disputes to determine who is at fault.
• Delays to getting BOL – Carriers cannot invoice for a job done until paper makes it back to their office.
• Visibility into the status of brokered loads. The owned fleet is managed by EDL/fleet management systems (FMS), so there is good visibility into the status and ETAs to help dispatch. Brokered loads do not have such access.
• Drivers will usually provide BOLs/PODs to their own company weekly, and then it takes some more to make it to the broker, which increases DSO and hampers cash flow.

What Warehouses Have Done or Are Doing Already

Warehouses have taken several optimization steps and are continuously looking to reduce costs and cut delays and paperwork. Here are some of what they have already done:

• Implement Warehouse Management Systems (WMS). This has automated some receiving and inventory-keeping activities. WMS tracks receiving and updates inventory. However, since this is usually deployed to the receiver via a scan gun, it is difficult to input data such as shortages, overages, and damages, so paper reports are still used.
• Implement Appointment Scheduling. This allows for load balancing and eliminates the opportunity for long waits if everyone shows up at once. To enforce the schedule, early, late, or no appointment fees are charged to drivers/carriers.

Velostics Solution for Warehouses – Velostics Contactless Logistics

Velostics enables a contactless delivery experience for warehouses and truck drivers.

Drivers arriving for loading and unloading at warehouses can use Velostics Pass or text a short code number to check in. A mobile system helps them provide their BOL and other paperwork digitally and contactless. Receiving clerks work from a worklist that allows them to check drivers in, reconcile BOLs, collect signatures, and check them out.

Benefits

• Receiving clerk time savings can translate to 1-2 FTE savings per facility
• PO/BOL reconciliation could be done upfront, before trucks arrive at the facility, reducing gate-to-gate significantly by up to 1-2 hours
• Significant simplification of the check-in and check-out process
• Safety is improved, and no face-to-face contact is needed

Wireframes

Wireframes

See prototypes

Click here to view the prototype Velostics Pass

Click here to view the prototype Facility