Daimler Trucks North America is launching a new online platform to match its contracted freight carriers in the U.S. with the company’s spot loads through an app.

DTNA teamed up with Loadsmart to develop a customized version of the platform, which was piloted with a small subset of DTNA’s carriers in late 2017. In the pilot program, the company saw dramatic improvements in the time to process a spot shipment – going from five hours to just 18 minutes on average. In addition, carriers received payments in two days instead of 30 days.

“To manufacture trucks, we need carriers to deliver components and parts to our plants,” said Lori Heino-Royer, director of business innovation at Daimler Trucks North America. “Offering a customized app to our contracted carriers gives them first access to our spot business and improves critical points in our supply chain.”

Loadsmart is a digital platform for spot loads - freight shipments that are outside of regularly scheduled shipments. Loadsmart offers an efficient digital platform that leverages data and machine-learning technology to match carriers with available loads.

“We saw Daimler Trucks North America’s participating fleet customers increase their average number of spot loads moved by more than 50% and improve their average time to accept, process, and deliver a spot shipment by over 90%,” said Ricardo Salgado, CEO of Loadsmart. “Working with the largest truck OEM is core to Loadsmart’s vision to build the future of logistics by interconnecting all players in a powerful platform.”