Transcripts
Welcome back to Unboxing Logistics.
Speaker:I'm your host, Lori Boyer of EasyPost, and I am beyond thrilled and excited and I know you as our
Speaker:community out there are as well because today's guest was our most popular guest of 2024, had
Speaker:amazing insights from Chris Caplice sharing about thoughts of what was going to happen in 2024.
Speaker:And so we've invited him back for 2025, you're going to be very excited to hear in
Speaker:order to tell us kind of his thoughts on maybe what happened last year and what's
Speaker:going on in the, in the upcoming year.
Speaker:Chris, can you introduce yourself to our guests who might not know you?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Thanks, Lori.
Speaker:I'm glad to be back.
Speaker:My name is Chris Caplice.
Speaker:I'm the two roles mainly.
Speaker:I'm at MIT Center for Transportation Logistics, where I'm the executive director of that center
Speaker:when I also created a lab up there called Freight Lab that looks at all things transportation.
Speaker:And I'm also the chief scientist at DAT Freight and Analytics.
Speaker:I was part of the Chainalytics side of a company that was acquired about
Speaker:gosh almost five years ago now by DAT.
Speaker:So I have two, wear two hats, but they overlap quite a bit.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:I love it.
Speaker:So one thing we're doing in this season, Chris, is I am asking everybody to share
Speaker:somebody or some role in the industry that you particularly admire and sharing why.
Speaker:I actually have two.
Speaker:Great.
Speaker:So yeah, the, the first one is a guy named Woody Richardson.
Speaker:He recently retired from Schneider.
Speaker:And he was there for his whole career, 30 plus years.
Speaker:And what I love about what Woody did is when he retired, he wrote a book.
Speaker:It's a Road Less Traveled.
Speaker:It's all about truckload transportation and procurement.
Speaker:Hopefully we can link to it in the credits of the, of this podcast.
Speaker:But he's he's done some great stuff.
Speaker:He's seen it all from a carrier side, and he took the time in retirement to write about it.
Speaker:And it's really worth reading.
Speaker:The other one is similarly got him Rob Haddock.
Speaker:Who just retired from Coca Cola for 40 years.
Speaker:And he did the exact same thing.
Speaker:You know, he wrote a book and it's called Adventures of a Food Shipper.
Speaker:And it talks about do's and don'ts.
Speaker:And it's, what I love about it, both these guys, Rob and Woody, they had their
Speaker:careers and they were doing great stuff, but they took the time afterwards to write
Speaker:it up and publish books that can be used to help people go forward to get educated.
Speaker:So those are guys that I admire.
Speaker:Cause it's not a, it's a non trivial task to write a book and publish it, especially
Speaker:when no one's pressuring you to do it.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And I love that whole idea of those in the ind- who have been in the industry for a long
Speaker:time, have so much freaking knowledge and information that the rest of us can learn from.
Speaker:Even if we have been in the industry 20, 30 years, you know, there's
Speaker:different aspects and that's amazing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They they're definitely thought leaders while they're in the industry.
Speaker:And now they kind of capstone that and captured everything.
Speaker:So it was great.
Speaker:Those are the two guys.
Speaker:That's perfect.
Speaker:Awesome We got a couple of book recommendations for our audience as well.
Speaker:So that is fantastic.
Speaker:That kind of draws me into our next segment.
Speaker:AI is a giant topic, obviously.
Speaker:We can't go anywhere in this industry without hearing about it constantly, you know, bombarded.
Speaker:And so this season, we're doing a fun little segment where we're kind of asking experts
Speaker:to help us do a little reality check on AI.
Speaker:AI is fun, and AI is great, especially ChatGPT, but, you know, you learn when you're an
Speaker:expert where it's got some holes, and where it might be right, where it might be wrong.
Speaker:So, I've asked it, Chris, I'm gonna pull it up, what ChatGPT anticipates or
Speaker:predicts will be the biggest trends in the logistics and freight industry in 2025?
Speaker:So, and I'm gonna toss them at you, and see what you think.
Speaker:So, number one, it said that we'll see an increase in use of regional
Speaker:fulfillment and carrier diversification.
Speaker:So, regional, regional distribution center, sure, that's, that's been increasing
Speaker:since ecommerce to get faster speed.
Speaker:Carrier diversification, I don't know exactly what they mean there.
Speaker:I think adding a lot of the, like, alternative carriers, regional carriers, last mile
Speaker:carrier, going away maybe from the big four.
Speaker:When you say the big five, we're talking parcel here.
Speaker:Yeah, parcel in this case.
Speaker:Sure, sure, they're gonna, there's more of that going on, there's more players out there.
Speaker:To include Amazon, if you count Amazon as certainly in the big five.
Speaker:Yeah, sure.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I wouldn't call that the leading trend.
Speaker:That's kind of like,
Speaker:I wouldn't have either.
Speaker:I thought that was kind of crazy.
Speaker:It listed number one.
Speaker:Number two, it said the use of automation to address the labor challenges in the industry.
Speaker:Well, that's not new, that's been going on forever.
Speaker:And so, I mean, you've seen it if you go to a McDonald's, right?
Speaker:Because of even, you don't need high tech labor, just reducing labor.
Speaker:So we're seeing automation of things coming in everywhere.
Speaker:And robotics is getting really more advanced.
Speaker:So I think we're finding this and we're, I think we're starting to hit the levels
Speaker:like what Europe has, where Europe has a tighter space and things like that.
Speaker:So we have to have automation similar to that.
Speaker:And I think we'll have more automation in the DCs and things like that.
Speaker:I don't see automation happening in trucking anytime soon.
Speaker:I know a lot of people are, they're piloting it in Arizona and Texas, but I just don't see that.
Speaker:But robotics definitely happening in automation of tasks is happening a lot now.
Speaker:That's where one of the big promises of AI, generative AI, because we should
Speaker:talk about what is AI and what is not AI.
Speaker:There's a lot of fake AI out there, where it's really operations research, machine learning.
Speaker:So if we talk, when I say AI, I mean, large language models, generative
Speaker:AI, kind of as, as its own category.
Speaker:They're all great tools, but I, that's what we really mean by AI, in my opinion.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I, I love that.
Speaker:What are your thoughts on, you know, we've seen it with the port strikes and whatnot, an element
Speaker:of that was not wanting to have AI replace jobs.
Speaker:Oh, it's not even that.
Speaker:No, no, no, no.
Speaker:They don't want any automation.
Speaker:They don't want technology.
Speaker:They would like to have electricity turned off.
Speaker:It's ridiculous.
Speaker:So, you know, you can only, it's, it's so strange because there's only,
Speaker:these organizations have monopolies.
Speaker:They have a monopoly on the East Coast and Gulf, and on the West Coast.
Speaker:And so, the idea of having a non union port is next to impossible.
Speaker:But keeping technology out, advancement, is just so short sighted.
Speaker:It's just protecting, protecting jobs.
Speaker:And I understand that's a lot of what the union is there for, but it's,
Speaker:it's, yeah, it's not sustainable.
Speaker:You can't stop the tide of progress.
Speaker:I was so shocked when I saw that that was a big element of it, because I thought, oh my
Speaker:goodness, that, we can't, exactly what you said.
Speaker:We can't stop progress.
Speaker:We, every other country's using it, you know, automation's here.
Speaker:We need to learn how to work with it.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:Yeah, it's tough because there's, there's no competition.
Speaker:There's no competition to the port.
Speaker:I mean, if they have a monopoly on all those ports, it's, it's tough.
Speaker:Even Canada can't go around it.
Speaker:So we'll see.
Speaker:So that'll be interesting as it, as things.
Speaker:Was that one of the ones that they recommended?
Speaker:It said that automation would continue to be advanced to address labor issues.
Speaker:Sure, sure.
Speaker:And then the last one, sustainability will grow as a competitive advantage for companies.
Speaker:You know, it's funny because things have changed.
Speaker:The big change.
Speaker:DEI and ESG is kind of a on the downward cycle.
Speaker:It kind of peaked about two years ago, but my opinion, and this might not be politically
Speaker:correct, but a lot of the social and governance things were piggybacking off of environmental
Speaker:sustainability and, and, and everyone can look at environmental sustainability as a positive.
Speaker:No one wants to be, increase their emissions.
Speaker:There's so many ways to, to improve things.
Speaker:You don't have to have a hundred percent EV policy, which is kind of stupid.
Speaker:You should look for other solutions.
Speaker:But I think sustainability is becoming more important because a lot of these zero emission
Speaker:or minimized emission standards that CEOs promised are going to start coming due.
Speaker:So I think it is, and the challenge is the scope three emissions.
Speaker:And this is where you know, they're not the missions that you control.
Speaker:It's your vendor somewhere in your supply chain.
Speaker:So for shippers, these are your carriers, your for hire carriers.
Speaker:They have to be able to give that to you.
Speaker:And if you use brokers, it's two levels.
Speaker:So I think there is a huge opportunity to capture and measure this better.
Speaker:And I, whether will it be a competitive advantage for carriers?
Speaker:Maybe, maybe, but at all, but the, the happy coincidence in trucking certainly is
Speaker:the less fuel you use, the more efficient you are, you create less emissions.
Speaker:So the larger carriers that have newer equipment are doing a fraction of
Speaker:the emissions of the older equipment.
Speaker:And so there's a, there's a interesting challenge in that a lot of the pushes
Speaker:on you know, reducing the amount of emissions like what California is doing.
Speaker:But they're ignoring, they're waving the smaller carriers, which is where 90 percent of the problem
Speaker:is, because they tend to have older equipment.
Speaker:So it's one of these policies.
Speaker:It's a political solution.
Speaker:And it's really not hitting the heart of the matter.
Speaker:But that's a long, long winded reply to your idea.
Speaker:I do think sustainability is coming, becoming more important.
Speaker:Will it become a competitive advantage for carriers?
Speaker:I don't know, maybe for brokers, if they can actually help a
Speaker:shipper achieve those goals, maybe.
Speaker:I'm going to say that one of the great things with sustainability is that
Speaker:if you can do it right, it creates efficiencies for you as a business as well.
Speaker:And then it's a win win for everyone.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:One of the little sub points I had under sustainability was that it thought adoption of
Speaker:EVs for last mile delivery would accelerate.
Speaker:I think that's, it's already happened.
Speaker:It's already happened.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah, it's easy.
Speaker:So if you think of EVs and AVs, right?
Speaker:Electric vehicles and autonomous vehicles.
Speaker:EVs need to have a certain circadian rhythm.
Speaker:They need to, they can't go that far.
Speaker:Their range is limited.
Speaker:And this, this fits last mile delivery.
Speaker:Frito and Pepsi, I'd have this for their direct store delivery stuff.
Speaker:It's, it's perfect.
Speaker:And drivers love electric vehicles because they're quiet.
Speaker:They don't create a lot of pollution, they're, they're easy to operate.
Speaker:The acceleration is awesome.
Speaker:And so seeing it for that last mile delivery makes a ton of sense.
Speaker:You won't see it as much in the line hall point to point.
Speaker:Because that's, you know, it's irregular.
Speaker:It's not going on the same route.
Speaker:There's some trying to do it, but it'll take a longer time.
Speaker:You need a whole system to support that.
Speaker:And then if you look at AVs, it's just the opposite.
Speaker:Autonomous vehicles will happen point to point, like intermodal.
Speaker:It'll go terminal to terminal, hub to hub.
Speaker:You won't have an AV driving down in, in Boston city streets anytime soon.
Speaker:Maybe these roto, robo taxis are fine, but they're tiny.
Speaker:They're not 53 foot trailers.
Speaker:Have you seen one?
Speaker:I keep wanting to see one.
Speaker:I still haven't even seen one out in the wild.
Speaker:I've been in one years ago, in San Francisco back when it was partly owned Uber Freight
Speaker:had some ties to Waymo, and they were ties to Otto, OTTO, so I've done that.
Speaker:I've actually driven an autonomous Class 8 vehicle.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:That was scary.
Speaker:I was going to say.
Speaker:But you know, when the weather's nice, the road's pretty straight and traffic, it's pretty good.
Speaker:It's just when those strange things happen.
Speaker:So AVs are probably much more likely out on the kind of more rural freeway roads, point to point.
Speaker:Yeah, point to point.
Speaker:Nothing soon.
Speaker:Nothing soon.
Speaker:And it's going to be in the south, southwest.
Speaker:Where the weather's nice, the topography is nice, and the regulatory environment is friendly.
Speaker:Oh, love it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So those were its top three.
Speaker:All right, I'll say them again.
Speaker:It missed them.
Speaker:It missed the biggest one.
Speaker:Okay good.
Speaker:I was gonna say so give me the grade.
Speaker:You're gonna give it an F then.
Speaker:Oh, oh, no.
Speaker:No, I wouldn't give it an F.
Speaker:But they missed they missed all the large macroeconomic factors that
Speaker:drive supply, just like tariffs.
Speaker:Okay, so you tell me, what are your biggest, tariffs?
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:These are ones that'll have the biggest impact.
Speaker:The tariffs and then, boy, the global conflicts right now with Syria devolving over the weekend.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:And gone.
Speaker:There's such a vacuum here.
Speaker:So that's, there's a lot of,
Speaker:supply chain disruptions.
Speaker:I mean, that could be massive.
Speaker:I agree.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So give it a grade A to F.
Speaker:I think it's a gentleman's B.
Speaker:A gentleman's B.
Speaker:That was, I think that was nice of you, generous of you.
Speaker:Okay, we'll give it, it had some good issues, but I agree with you.
Speaker:Biggest issues coming down.
Speaker:But it's all about how you prompt.
Speaker:You gotta prompt it.
Speaker:And so there's an art to it.
Speaker:And to give generative AI, it has evolved so much in just the last couple years.
Speaker:It's kind of, it's such an interesting thing.
Speaker:And, and ChatGPT is one, but there's other ones out there that I do a better job at reducing the
Speaker:hallucination effect, which you're referring to.
Speaker:Like I always use Perplexity Which I think is great, Perplexity, it it gives citations.
Speaker:And so I found it to be very helpful if I just wanted to get something.
Speaker:To me, it's like what Wikipedia is.
Speaker:It's great place to start, but you don't want to finish there, but it gets you going.
Speaker:I find that with all of these, that they're a place to kick off, get ideas.
Speaker:And I love how you said it's about the way you prompt and it's about the way you refine things.
Speaker:So I always, for community out there, as you're listening and watching, if you're not
Speaker:familiar with things, start trying and playing with it because the more you do things, the
Speaker:more you get used to it and you can start to see, you know, how you need to refine.
Speaker:Yeah, it's got, it will, Gemini will replace Google, right?
Speaker:I mean, the idea of going, doing a search, you get a bunch of links.
Speaker:And they're already putting it in there.
Speaker:They give the AI, they're answering the question and telling you where to look to answer it.
Speaker:It's just the natural progression.
Speaker:Perfect.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So what do you feel like, I guess, as we're going into this 2025, let's start,
Speaker:you mentioned tariffs, you mentioned goal global conflicts, you know, what are you
Speaker:anticipating how that could impact the industry?
Speaker:I'll be, I'll start even more domestic.
Speaker:We are ending a four year cycle in the truckload market.
Speaker:Which the truckload market since late 1990s, early 2000s has been on a series
Speaker:of cycles, a tight market where capacity is tight and prices go up, right?
Speaker:Supply demand exceeds supply.
Speaker:And then it crashes back down and the opposite happens.
Speaker:And it usually is about a 36 to 42 month cycle.
Speaker:And this last one was 48, triggered by the pandemic.
Speaker:But since 2022, it's, rates were in a free fall and have been underwater and
Speaker:they're just starting to come back up.
Speaker:So the thing that I'm seeing in 25, the big thing is that the next cycle is starting.
Speaker:So we're entering an inflationary market.
Speaker:The cycles that a lot of times people new to the industry think the way that it is
Speaker:right now is the way it's going to stay.
Speaker:And it never does.
Speaker:And so the truckload market's so big highly competitive.
Speaker:So many players that it's constantly cycling in and out as capacity enters and exits, and as
Speaker:it matches demand, so the cycles will continue.
Speaker:And so we're entering this inflationary cycle.
Speaker:And so shippers need to change their strategy accordingly.
Speaker:You can't have the same strategy in an inflationary market as you
Speaker:have in a deflationary market.
Speaker:And so it's a time for them to reassess.
Speaker:That, to me, is the biggest focus for shippers, people who run transportation for the shippers.
Speaker:Get ready for an inflationary market where it's no longer a buyer's market.
Speaker:It still is for a while, but now it's the time to fix your roof before it starts raining.
Speaker:And so you want to get that done and have it in place by the, say Q2, Q3,
Speaker:when the market tightens up again.
Speaker:And I don't think it's going to be like the pandemic cycle that just skyrockets
Speaker:up, it's kind of like a slow boil.
Speaker:But it is, it is going to start tightening up.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So would you recommend while rates are good right now that people try to lock in longer
Speaker:term rates, I guess, what, what do you recommend that they do to try to take advantage
Speaker:now while things are still a little soft?
Speaker:So you can do a couple things.
Speaker:One is, you know, a pre award where you say, okay, carrier, you're on these lanes,
Speaker:these importantly, it's not just the run of the mill lanes, but the important ones.
Speaker:Say I, instead of putting these out to bid and you might have the potential to lose them.
Speaker:Why don't we just say increase rates by I don't know, 1 percent 2 percent, do
Speaker:something, won't even put them out to bid.
Speaker:So it's a pre award.
Speaker:So what you do is you take things out when you're trying to take some
Speaker:of the risk off the table, right?
Speaker:So that's one thing to do.
Speaker:Another is when you run a transportation bid, you always, you never take the low cost solution.
Speaker:No one takes a low cost solution.
Speaker:Because you'll end up with one carrier on all these, you know, carriers
Speaker:getting one lane or something.
Speaker:So you're always giving back.
Speaker:You're finding a business optimal.
Speaker:And so when the market's tightening, you might want to give back a little more.
Speaker:So what you're doing is not squeezing it down as much, give a little more back, so
Speaker:your carriers are aligned and in place.
Speaker:The third is actually contracts.
Speaker:You might not want to go as long.
Speaker:So the question is, what, you know, what's going to, what's going to happen with
Speaker:these, with these, with these contracts.
Speaker:And see how long they're going to go for, but start putting in place like the mechanism for
Speaker:to do deal with dynamic rates for spot rates.
Speaker:Everything can't be a contract.
Speaker:So you can kind of tie with that as well.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Those are all fantastic.
Speaker:So outside, so the number one thing you see happening inflationary, exactly.
Speaker:So shippers.
Speaker:That's you in my audience.
Speaker:Be aware.
Speaker:We've been taking advantage of all those really great rates and lots of capacity.
Speaker:Yeah, but to be fair the 20 to 22 were just a nightmare for shippers
Speaker:where the rates went up so much.
Speaker:So it always comes back.
Speaker:The market always reverts.
Speaker:And so we're down, if you draw a straight line from like 2015, we're at about a three to three
Speaker:and a half percent compounded annual growth rate.
Speaker:But just the market swings go up and down around that.
Speaker:But the general direction is in base inflation of about three and a half percent.
Speaker:Okay, perfect.
Speaker:All right, so what would be the next thing then that you would say for 2025?
Speaker:So tariffs will probably have a big impact.
Speaker:We'll see how that plays out because you can't, you don't know what
Speaker:Trump says and what Trump will do.
Speaker:What'll actually get through the Senate.
Speaker:We'll see how that goes.
Speaker:But if tariffs really do increase dramatically I don't think it'll
Speaker:change demand that much, maybe slightly.
Speaker:It might change the how things enter the country.
Speaker:So that might ship some of the drayage, but I don't know how dramatically it'll
Speaker:shift the overall shipping patterns.
Speaker:We'll see.
Speaker:But then coupled with, and I figure what the number, the tariffs were going to be
Speaker:for China, but that could shift more to Mexico, but they're having their own issues.
Speaker:So we haven't seen as much, I think there's been more reporting on it than
Speaker:actually happening for that, but we'll see.
Speaker:We'll see what how that goes.
Speaker:Do you feel it's more likely that the Chinese tariffs pass versus the, I
Speaker:know there's like Canada, Mexico stuff?
Speaker:Yeah, it'll, it'll happen.
Speaker:It's one of the few things that both parties agree on.
Speaker:So any recommendation for people right now?
Speaker:I know a lot of people.
Speaker:Well, it's already happening.
Speaker:I was going to say, they've already been bringing stuff in, but.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:So, the, the advance, I mean, shippers aren't stupid, right?
Speaker:Carriers aren't stupid.
Speaker:So when the ILS, ILA strike was pending in earlier this fall everyone, the big
Speaker:shipping months were July, August, September, which was like two months ahead of normal.
Speaker:And it was to avoid the strike, which still isn't settled yet, right?
Speaker:We still get another bite of the apple.
Speaker:Postponed.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So we'll see what happens with that.
Speaker:A lot of interesting flipping of unions loyalties between parties, kind of interesting.
Speaker:But, and so we saw the same thing for the tariffs.
Speaker:A lot of advanced shipping in, you hear the stories of especially small shippers bring
Speaker:in a lot now just to stock up for the year.
Speaker:So we're going to see a lot of heavy inventory costs in, cause it's not free.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:It's not, you gotta pay for it.
Speaker:Is it, do you feel like it's going to clog up some of the ports or, you know, slow things down
Speaker:as people are bringing in extra inventory early?
Speaker:I haven't seen it.
Speaker:I haven't, you know, tracking, I've not caught wind of that if that's happening now.
Speaker:We'll hope it won't happen then.
Speaker:What about global conflict which we know will happen and is happening?
Speaker:Supply chain disruptions, you know, what what what's going on there?
Speaker:Yeah, it really depends on how things escalate.
Speaker:I mean it could go so many different ways, you know, we saw that the Houthis were
Speaker:impacting travel lanes and that, that changed things, but shippers, carriers, they adapt.
Speaker:And so all it does is means longer lead time.
Speaker:So therefore you have to carry a little extra inventory.
Speaker:So the, the supply chain, the global supply chains are so dynamic and flexible, but
Speaker:there's always a little bit of adjusting time.
Speaker:It's similar when there's like a disaster, a natural disaster, like a hurricane.
Speaker:There's always a sharp shock, but it's usually bounded geographically and
Speaker:temporally because this system recovers.
Speaker:We're very good at self healing.
Speaker:Like remember the Baltimore bridge when that was a code and damaged.
Speaker:It didn't.
Speaker:I mean, the people who were mainly affected were the people living in
Speaker:north of Baltimore commuting into D.C.
Speaker:every day, right?
Speaker:But as far as freight impact, it was contained and they adjusted.
Speaker:So the I think the days of the 90s where we get caught flat footed and people are putting all
Speaker:their stuff through one port, those days are gone.
Speaker:And so we're much more savvy, information is much more available, a lot of advanced information.
Speaker:There's companies like Resilinc out there that are keeping companies
Speaker:apprised of potential things happening.
Speaker:I think people have been burnt by the pandemic so much, we, we still have our antennas
Speaker:out and we're starting to say and be more reactive, which makes us much more nimble.
Speaker:So I think a lot of lessons were learned during the pandemic, not all
Speaker:decision making slowed back down again.
Speaker:But I think when, when crisis happened, I think we're better at adapting and reacting much faster.
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:What do you?
Speaker:So let's say somebody is kind of new to the industry.
Speaker:Maybe they haven't learned all the lessons.
Speaker:In terms of resilience and risk management and all of that, are there some tips you
Speaker:have that you could recommend to people?
Speaker:You know, how did they?
Speaker:Is it diversification of different routes?
Speaker:And is it, you know, having, going through scenarios?
Speaker:What do you recommend people do if they're wanting to make sure that they're ready to be resilient?
Speaker:I think the big thing is it's, it's, it's the attitude and understanding, getting
Speaker:your organization with the right mindset.
Speaker:Up here at MIT we've done a lot of work in the scenario planning where, where
Speaker:you envision, instead of doing a forecast where you're forecasting what the future
Speaker:will be, you're saying, okay, if the future looks like X, you know, what would I do?
Speaker:If it looks like Y, what would I do?
Speaker:So it's more responsive.
Speaker:So as opposed to boxing, it's judo, right?
Speaker:And so but people confuse that sometimes with being a forecasting method, and it's not.
Speaker:It's really just a training tool.
Speaker:It's like doing calisthenics or box drills or something for a sport.
Speaker:It gets your organization to think, to do two things.
Speaker:One is pay attention to things beyond their four walls, you know, start paying attention.
Speaker:And then getting used to being able to make these quicker decisions and be able to pivot.
Speaker:And so if you look at it, you really have robustness and flexibility, right.
Speaker:And so robustness, I can add more inventory, add more capacity.
Speaker:It costs something but you know That's one way to cover uncertainty.
Speaker:The other is being more flexible.
Speaker:And that's where like dual contracting having more creative contracts
Speaker:and in terms that you can change.
Speaker:So having a mix of those two things is the way to think about it.
Speaker:Where do I build in robustness, redundancy, those kind of things?
Speaker:Where do I build in flexibility and having options?
Speaker:And between those two, you just want to set things up.
Speaker:So for transportation in my area.
Speaker:Think about the portfolio of dedicated fleet that you own the assets as a shipper,
Speaker:a contract where you have some kind of one way contracts and then dynamic.
Speaker:So you probably want a mix of all three of those, depending on the type of
Speaker:transportation network that you have.
Speaker:So the dedicated stuff is stuff you control, you have total control over it.
Speaker:And so that's good in case something happens, you can keep your product flowing.
Speaker:And the other side, if you need to have some kind of dynamic, set of capacity in,
Speaker:in your portfolio because stuff happens and you need to be able to tie into that.
Speaker:So we're seeing a lot of innovative stuff happening between brokers and shippers where
Speaker:they're setting up contracts where they don't know the rate but they will, the shipper
Speaker:will say, hey, here's a, here's a load.
Speaker:It's on a small lane that doesn't happen that often.
Speaker:And the brokers will come back instantly with a price sale guarantee.
Speaker:So that requires a couple of things.
Speaker:One is the, the broker or the, that provider needs to have technology
Speaker:to be able to auto generate a rate.
Speaker:And the shipper needs to have a way of reaching multiple at one time.
Speaker:It's like a private network, a private marketplace.
Speaker:Instead of setting up a contract for everything, because most of those contracts
Speaker:for infrequently traveled lanes fail anyway.
Speaker:So I think the big answer I, kind of going around to answer your question, I think the
Speaker:biggest thing that an organization can do to be resilient is to improve the quality of the people
Speaker:and get them thinking in a resilient mindset.
Speaker:And to do that you go through contingency drills.
Speaker:You do scenario planning, you plan for something because if if you plan for
Speaker:one type of disaster and something else happens, all the things you learned about
Speaker:how to react to a disaster can still apply.
Speaker:You don't have to train for every potential type of disaster or event.
Speaker:It's the idea of being able to react to events, process them, set up
Speaker:the communication, make decisions.
Speaker:That's what's important.
Speaker:Like I said, it's calisthenics.
Speaker:It's not forecasting for one certain type of event to happen.
Speaker:So just like calisthenics, it's something that needs to be kind of
Speaker:ongoing, not just a one time and done.
Speaker:Do you have a recommended cadence, or you say quarterly you should test?
Speaker:I don't have anything top of my mind, but I think doing something, you know,
Speaker:once a year type thing or quarterly, part of the regular training exercise.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And then do a debrief afterwards of what, what happened, what worked, what didn't work.
Speaker:A lot of times stuff happens and there's no debrief.
Speaker:There's no learnings afterwards.
Speaker:And you can do a lot of this.
Speaker:You know, most schools will have different programs you can do,
Speaker:different things that you can run.
Speaker:So it's something that can be done with, with different organizations.
Speaker:Oh, that's awesome.
Speaker:So, okay.
Speaker:So we talked about the market turning.
Speaker:We talked about tariffs.
Speaker:We talked about supply chain disruptions and resilience when it comes to, you
Speaker:know, global conflict and whatnot.
Speaker:Any other trends that you kind of see 2025, kind of earlier with looking
Speaker:at the ChatGPT stuff touched on you know, on automation and sustainability.
Speaker:Well, it's funny that that they didn't look at AI itself.
Speaker:Yes!
Speaker:You know, the incorporation of AI into, into different processes.
Speaker:It's starting to come.
Speaker:You know, chatbots and those kind of things.
Speaker:How well do you think companies are doing at actually implementing it?
Speaker:Or, on the flip side, where do you think it's actually usable right now?
Speaker:It's, I, I'm, I know of many pilots, some fail, some successful.
Speaker:The ones that seem to be the most successful are the ones that are identifying a problem and
Speaker:saying, hey, gen AI might work here rather than I've got a gen AI hammer, let me find something.
Speaker:And so I think that the things where, as I best understand, I'm no expert at, at
Speaker:AI is where there's a lot of unstructured data and you need to make sense of it.
Speaker:For example, in DAT, we use something internal called Glean and it's, it's meant
Speaker:for just for the inside of an organization.
Speaker:And cause if, I don't know if you use Slack or, you know, all these things, the problem is you
Speaker:remember you had a conversation with someone about this two months ago, you don't remember.
Speaker:And so what Glean will do, you can query and say, hey, who, who did I talk to about blah
Speaker:and what do it, it'll pull everything down.
Speaker:You can ask it to summarize a whole Slack channel so you can brief yourself.
Speaker:That is very useful.
Speaker:And that's something you know, we all have email, stuff buried there, buried in texts
Speaker:and it's able to pull all that together.
Speaker:To me, anytime you want to organize, synthesize unstructured data, it makes a ton of sense.
Speaker:I've had that, that makes sense.
Speaker:Where it doesn't make sense to me as much is and you're seeing a lot of this for TMSs where they
Speaker:have a ChatGPT or something is tied into it, where you're asking the TMS for recommendations.
Speaker:And the thing is with a TMS, the data is so structured.
Speaker:It's incredibly structured, so you, you know the questions you're going to ask.
Speaker:What lane should I be looking at?
Speaker:Which carriers are having a problem with?
Speaker:What regions are, you know the questions, it's not that hard.
Speaker:Now, as we tie into other unstructured data, maybe there'll be some insights.
Speaker:One thing that we're, that DAT is to helping a shipper, a broker, decide and, and find carriers
Speaker:that might be suitable for them give and that that might fit, that they have high security,
Speaker:you know, they, all these different things.
Speaker:Like niche and specific.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But to also make sure, you know, 'cause fraud is a, is a big issue right now, carriers.
Speaker:So being able to identify that and try and find trusted carriers, that
Speaker:makes a lot of sense for gen AI.
Speaker:Because there's a lot of unstructured data out there.
Speaker:So I think that's the hallmark, answer a question that's really, people are trying to solve.
Speaker:And if there's unstructured data there that you can leverage, maybe that makes sense.
Speaker:That's interesting, Chris.
Speaker:I love that because I've talked to a lot of people about AI, but that's the
Speaker:first time I've heard that specifically.
Speaker:Unstructured data really brings in a light bulb to me.
Speaker:And there's other things people do.
Speaker:We have projects up here at MIT where they're using it in procurement to kind of make sense to
Speaker:a lot of like indirect procurement and try to.
Speaker:Because there's a lot of garbage right there.
Speaker:You know that, and so to me that's that's where the the sweet spot is right now.
Speaker:Now that might change.
Speaker:But and where you're trying to span across multiple databases, sets things like that.
Speaker:And again, if it's unstructured, it's really good at making sense of those things.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Anything else that you feel like is going to be a trend?
Speaker:We're coming up towards the end of time.
Speaker:So anything you feel like we've missed that's going to be important in 2025?
Speaker:Oh, gosh, who knows?
Speaker:The the new administration is going to be really interesting.
Speaker:It's going to be a ride, huh?
Speaker:Wherever you fall on either side.
Speaker:There'll be some things shook up and we'll see how that how that reacts.
Speaker:I'm a, I'm a definitely an optimist when it comes to these things.
Speaker:So I'm excited to see what 2025 will look like.
Speaker:A lot of challenges out there, but no, I'm, I'm excited to see.
Speaker:Challenges are often just opportunities as well, right?
Speaker:Opportunities for us to find something new and to grow and to develop a
Speaker:new technology or something else.
Speaker:So that is awesome.
Speaker:Chris, thank you so much.
Speaker:This has been amazing.
Speaker:Any if anyone wants to follow you or if they want to learn about DAT or, or
Speaker:what you're doing over at MIT, you know, how, can they follow you on LinkedIn?
Speaker:How could they connect with you?
Speaker:Sure, I'm in LinkedIn.
Speaker:I don't think there's another Chris Caplice out there, so you can just look for me there.
Speaker:Or you can go to the podcast I do called Freight Vine that's released every other Thursday, and you
Speaker:go to DAT's site and find out information on that.
Speaker:Or go to MIT and you can look at the Center for Transportation Logistics.
Speaker:So I'm pretty transparent.
Speaker:I'm pretty much everywhere there.
Speaker:He's pretty fantastic.
Speaker:So thank you again for being here and have a fantastic 2025.
Speaker:Can't wait to see what happens.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Thanks.
Speaker:Appreciate it.
