Modern Transportation

Modern Transportation, a Pittsburgh-based bulk carrier operating 350+ drivers across 22 terminals in 13 states, faced compounding operational inefficiencies that eroded margins across its chemical, liquid bulk, and industrial freight supply chains. Physical trip sheets and scale tickets were causing systematic under-invoicing of payloads — a recurring revenue leak with no automated catch. Accessorial pay verification and equipment compatibility checks for dispatch assignments consumed 2–3 hours weekly per driver pay and billing cycle, multiplied across a large and growing driver base. As shipment volumes scaled, manually applying fuel surcharges for even a single major customer — processed individually for roughly 50 shipments per month — became unsustainable. The cumulative cost of these manual gaps was eroding both revenue recovery and operational capacity.

In September 2024, Modern Transportation deployed the BeyondTrucks cloud-based, multi-tenant TMS across 20 of its terminals, replacing an on-premise system. The platform used robotic process automation to eliminate manual touchpoints across load building, dispatch, payroll, and billing. BeyondTrucks integrated with Samsara onboard technology, Microsoft Power BI, Great Plains accounting, TMT maintenance, UKG workforce management, EDI systems, EBE Technologies enterprise process management, and Vector yard management software. A key integration with Breakthrough Fuel Recovery automated market-based fuel surcharge calculations — accounting for exact prices, timing, taxes, and geography — replacing reliance on inaccurate national or regional averages. The modernization also triggered downstream system upgrades: Modern Transportation migrated its ERP to Acumatica, its ELD to Platform Science, and its payroll system to Paylocity as part of the broader technology consolidation.

Modern Transportation achieved approximately $5 million in annual savings following the BeyondTrucks implementation. Savings came from three sources: eliminated payload invoice errors that had been causing ongoing revenue leakage, reduced cloud hosting and update costs versus the prior on-premise TMS, and administrative time recovered across load building, accessorial pay verification, dispatch, and driver billing. Key operational improvements included:

• Fuel surcharge processing: scaled from ~50 manual shipments per month to hundreds of automated transactions per day
• Driver pay and billing cycles: 2–3 hours of weekly administrative time per cycle eliminated
• Asset utilization: improved through automated compatibility checks and reduced under-invoicing of payloads

The platform also enabled three parallel technology migrations — ERP, ELD, and payroll — without disrupting terminal operations.

• Closing revenue leakage from under-invoiced payloads often requires system-level automation, not process adjustments — manual verification at scale is structurally unreliable.
• Integrating market-based fuel recovery tools (rather than national averages) directly into TMS workflows improves load acceptance decisions and reduces shipper disputes.
• Cloud-based TMS platforms create compounding savings: lower hosting costs, reduced bolt-on maintenance, and faster integration with third-party systems.
• A TMS migration can serve as a forcing function for broader technology modernization — ERP, ELD, and payroll system upgrades become tractable when unified data flows are already being rebuilt.
• Quantify administrative time per workflow cycle before implementation; it establishes a measurable baseline for ROI that compounds across a large driver network.