Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
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commercial carrier journal | october 2015 41 D uring his keynote address at the TMW TransForum 2015 user conference, David Wangler spoke of a "maker movement" taking hold in the country. The evidence of this can be seen in the rise of local craft breweries, farm-to-table restaurants, the hit reality TV series Battlebots and more. Perhaps it comes from a renewed pride in America's manu- facturing heritage or nostalgia for the rural family farm, Wangler surmised. Whatever the source of the movement, the product is well defined: "a blend of computer-hacker culture with the skills of traditional craftsmen and inventors, designers and tinkerers," he said. TMW Systems and it parent company Trimble get the concept "because that's what we do, day in and day out," said Wangler, president of the transportation management software provider. The point of his talk was not about making software, however. "It's easy some- times for people to pigeonhole transpor- tation as just a service industry, like real estate or accounting, because we don't make anything, right?" he asked. Time for business intelligence A few hours later in one of the 300 classroom sessions held at the event, an attendee lamented about how much time he is spending on creating reports for his employer, a 150-truck bulk carrier based in Utah. The attendee said it takes about six hours a week to pull information from separate databases to create custom spreadsheets. "I just need better analytics," the attendee said. He would like to start using a business intelligence tool called TMW Data Warehouse Explorer. The attendee – who wished to remain anon- ymous – told CCJ the tool probably could save him at least five hours per week. Business intelligence can save time and focus company resources on new and more profitable opportunities. In a sense, BI is a movement of its own that continues to lead the evolution of transportation management systems from digitized filing cabinets to analytical platforms for big data. As a large and diversified software provider, TMW Systems sees an opportunity to deliver a greater volume, variety and velocity of information to customers. The clear message at the TransFo- rum conference was the expansion of its business intelligence offerings. "We are embarking on a journey to create an entirely new realm of possibilities driven by data," Wangler said. Big data platform TMW is mapping out new opportunities to address customers' needs using Data Warehouse Explorer and other tools designed to assemble and present data from across an enterprise and the industry at large to drive decisions. The effort is being led by the company's new chief technolo- gy officer, Tim Leonard, who has 30 years of experience in big data analytics. He was most recently an IT executive for General Motors. TMW has a Value Engineering group that consults with customers, assessing their current state of analytics and designing roadmaps to use Data Warehouse Explorer to reach greater levels of maturity, Leonard said. "Analytics by itself won't drive anything," he said. "It's the data that really fuels the capability with various maturity levels of analytics itself. In the future, we are going to evolve the methods and capabilities of how you drive data." TMW Systems is creating its own big data analytics platform Making the latest technology developMents work for your fleet by AAron Huff technology Making more time TMW Systems shows fleets how with business intelligence Maker MoveMenT: tMw systems sees 'a blend of comput- er-hacker culture with the skills of traditional craftsmen.' verTical analyTics: the plat- form can be used to predict certain behaviors within the industry using structured data. For everyone: while larger car- riers are most likely to use business intelligence offerings, smaller fleets can benefit. David Wangler, TMW Systems president, presents his keynote address at the TMW TransForum 2015 user conference.