Wiremind develops capacity optimisation technology for forwarders
16 / 11 / 2023
Nathanaël de Tarade, chief executive of Wiremind. Photo: Wiremind
Wiremind is developing its capacity optimisation technology to better meet the needs of freight forwarders.
The company said it is working closely with a number of forwarders and partners to enhance its SKYPALLET solution to accommodate the specific requirements of freight forwarders.
Due to be released next year, SKYPALLET 2.0, will in fact “pave the way for the necessary product enhancements to offer a forwarder-specific, dedicated workflow module”, said Wiremind.
Though originally developed to support airlines with space optimisation, SKYPALLET “could, and already does”, help forwarders optimise their own capacity management processes, explained the company.
Airlines and forwarders have similar needs in this respect, however their processes and use cases vary slightly. For example, when planning shipments, forwarders determine how much capacity needs to be procured from an airline, or how best to assign house airway bills across different allocations, Wiremind added.
Forwarders’ transport management systems also differ to those of airlines, the company pointed out.
“We have collaborated with freight forwarder customers for many years, and they often illustrate use-case scenarios that lend themselves perfectly to becoming additional SKYPALLET features,” said Nathanaël de Tarade, chief executive of Wiremind Cargo.
“Then, during the COVID-pandemic, when the pressure to make maximum use of available capacity was at its peak, two freight forwarders actively opted to use SKYPALLET to support their business processes.
“From their reported positive results and the many discussions we have had with a forwarder community increasingly interested in adopting digital solutions, Wiremind’s mission now is to create a freight forwarder SKYPALLET version that offers dedicated functionalities to support their specific workflows.”
Forwarders using the original SKYPALLET version, have already contributed to a number of enhancements such as: the functionality that instructs SKYPALLET to not split house airway bills, mandating that they must be fully accommodated within the requested capacity; the capability to build winged pallets that make use of the full contour and maximise build efficiency; and the possibility to optimise pivot – best balancing the distribution of cargo across the positions and their pivot weights.
Future enhancements will focus on supporting the broader capacity planning process, enabling forwarders to optimise their consolidation process by providing recommendations on how to assign shipments across multiple allocations.
