The problems that Loady is finally solving were already known 35 years ago. “Auf Achse”, a well-known board game from the 80s, allowed the team to experience many of the frustrating experiences in transportation first-hand.
Last Monday, Dennis Jantos, Elzbieta Wiankowska, Waldemar Waigel and our new colleague Vicente Manuel Suárez Silva played a game of “On the Move” after work. The classic board game — Game of the Year 1987 — is about transportation services and trucks. For us, this is an interesting opportunity to explore the feeling of road freight transport in the 80s in a fun and relaxed way.
What is “On the Move” about?
To win the game, you must make the biggest profit by accepting and completing transport orders. In order to fulfill the orders, you send your truck off to pick up goods. He then delivers the goods to the cities that are named on behalf.
But the road to successful delivery involves obstacles such as traffic jams, blocked roads and the actions of other players. Just like in real life, there are random events that have positive or negative effects on the outcome of the game.
The event cards in particular show that decades-old problems in the logistics sector are more relevant today than ever before.
Change the Game: With Loady, you run into fewer problems and become more efficient
With “Auf Achse”, we made surprising observations and it was a great feeling that we were bringing a fundamental improvement to the industry with Loady. In fact, it will never be the same again: the negative effects of the event cards would not happen this way with Loady, while the positive events represent a normal, not even significant occurrence.
“Win an extra turn”: Quick loading success factor
Fast charging increases transport efficiency, reduces truck downtime and makes it possible to carry out more trips with existing resources. We knew that back in 1987.
What is astonishing is that in 2022, the most common reasons for many truck rejections are still the following:
- No really reliable sources for up-to-date and verified information about (unloading) at the destination of transport
- Lack of documentation or equipment and, as a result, unnecessary waiting times
- Manual troubleshooting and finding solutions: by email, telephone, fax, involving 14-16 people in extreme cases
- Communication difficulties and misunderstandings due to language barriers
Benefits for shippers, customers and logistics service providers
Loady counteracts the above mentioned reasons for delay. And in a very simple way: Loady is a platform that is maintained by shippers and customers and makes reliable, up-to-date information on loading and unloading requirements easily accessible.
Loady is a standard in industry and simplifies the entire transport system, from freight purchase to freight order, transport planning and scheduling, to actual delivery.
“Go 1-3 additional fields”: Highly motivated drivers through better information and organization
One of the current main problems facing the logistics sector is the increasing shortage of drivers. There are already 450,000 truck drivers missing in Europe, a number that will double or even triple over the next 5-10 years.
The main reasons are poor working conditions, waiting times and the high level of frustration when dealing with organizational aspects of the job.
Loady makes the driver's job attractive again
Loady communicates the requirements of the respective locations at an early stage. This includes information in particular, which may not be relevant to the contract but is extremely important for local drivers. Where can I park, what facilities are there, what are the processes at each gate and establishment? Loady now provides drivers with the “Loady2Go” mobile view. Loady also overcomes language barriers, as it is already available in various European languages. This means fewer waiting times and fewer unexpected events — and, of course, fewer nerve-wracking clarifications and discussions with site personnel or plant security. Overall, the potential for frustration for the driver and everyone else involved is drastically reduced.
Bonus order: Because of your good reputation for timely and smooth delivery, your customer directly places an additional order with you
With Loady, there are fewer rejections: companies and freight forwarders increase their reliability.
If you gain the trust of your customers as a supplier or logistics service provider, that means in most cases that you will receive more orders. With Loady, your company is more trustworthy and reliable than your competition. Your customers will want to work with you. This goes hand in hand with more cooperative business relationships and more attractive pricing options.
After three games, “Auf Achse” taught us a few lessons:
Loady helps all partners in the logistics industry: Drivers are more motivated by better organization of processes; transport service providers can carry out their transports more reliably through faster and easier loading and unloading, while making more optimal use of their resources. Customers and supply chain managers receive more timely and reliable deliveries.
In the 1980s, there was no solution to these problems. Only with increasing digitalization can a platform like Loady enable such an interaction of business and logistics partners.
If Loady had existed as a standard 35 years ago, there would be other event cards and other random factors for “On the move.” The entire logistics sector would be better interlinked and the efficiency of logistics processes would be higher.
For our team, it was valuable experience that our product solves challenges that were identified decades ago and we are now more than ever convinced that Loady is changing communication in the entire logistics industry for the better and that the platform itself is becoming an international standard.
