We are in what has been called The Information Age. Phrases such as “The Information Super Highway”, “Information Systems”, “Satellite Tracking” and “Computerized Dispatch” are heard every day, and lead us to the false assumption that we know everything we need to know.

It’s true, the flow and flexibility of electronic information makes it easy to share needed information with everyone involved – but – all the electronics and programming in the world cannot provide information that has not been provided to the system to be shared. In other words, we are dependent on the people who gather and enter information into the system. Our system will only work as well as people provide information into it. We’ve all heard the term, “Garbage In, Garbage Out”. This holds particularly true in trucking, where communication happens on the fly, at great distances, making it very easy for things to go wrong.

So, who gathers our load, pricing, billing, customer requirement, ETA, direction, etc, information? We all do! Customer service initially books the load, getting a large portion of the needed information, but it doesn’t stop there. The driver gains a huge amount of knowledge about that particular shipment as well as the customer. The driver is the one person who actually sees the freight. Are the dimensions right, is the freight damaged, what is the weight, does the information on the bill of lading match the information on the load screen, do I know how to tie this load down? The fleet manager makes delivery appointments and knows if a driver is on schedule. Is all of this information being communicated? Who else needs to know what YOU know, and have you communicated it? Has it been entered into the electronic system so everyone who could possibly need to know this information will have access to it?

And what should we do if we need information and don’t have it? Ask questions! The old saying “no such thing as a stupid question” is really true in this business. If we don’t know and don’t ask, we make mistakes that cost everyone time, frustration and money. No one should have so much pride that they think they know it all. Ask the questions and share the information!

Gary Stang, Vice President, ATS Specialized, Inc.

"Rolling Along" presents thoughts from a member of the ATS Management team.

Website Update
In our effort to answer the needs of our customers and to continually improve our website, ATS announced that images are now available online via the website for it’s customers.

This will allow ATS customers to display and print signed Bills of Lading, Original Freight Bills and Shipping Orders for all orders shipped with Anderson Trucking Service, Inc’s, Specialized, Heavy Haul and Van Divisions

Powered by WebDirect software from Pegasus Transtech, the new software is available to our customers simply by logging on to their customer website. If images for the shipped load are available, the word “Images” displays for the load as an available action. The customer clicks on this “Images” link and then chooses to download or view the images. NO more waiting for confirmations, images are loaded into our system on a daily basis.(46,668,325)

Our marketing video is available online to our employees and customers. We will be completing more videos and hope to have them online soon.