The Trucking Nerd

I am pleased to announce John Starks as a guest writer for the Trucking Nerd.  John has an array of experience and a tall resume with some very well known companies.  After working with John for a stint, I can attest to his expertise and knowledge of trucking, particularly from an operational and management perspective.  He will be crafting articles periodically for the Trucking Nerd to add some additional perspective and insights.  His content may not necessarily be technical in nature, but will always be relevant to the trucking industry.  His first article relating to operations and technology is published.

When I first started the blog, I also had registered TruckingNerds.com in the event that additional perspectives would be added to the blog.  I encourage anyone else who enjoys writing and is interested in technology and / or trucking, feel free to drop me a line!

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How many of you have experienced an IT project where at the end of the day either the program that was created does not do what it originally was intended to do so no one uses it or it does exactly what is needed but there is a new “fire” today so again no one uses it? 

During my career in transportation, I have been fortunate enough to work with a large, mid-sized, and small carrier.  A carrier as large as 9000 trucks down to a carrier of 150 trucks.  I’ve seen and experienced many things but one thing that I’ve seen in common at all these companies, relative to relationship between IT and Operations, is how these departments work together. 

Many times I’ve seen operations requesting reports, new applications, improvements, customized programming, etc. that, in the heat of the moment, they “need” but 2 weeks later has fallen to the wayside with the latest fire. 

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As I’ve come to learn more about blogging, I realize that the trucking blogsphere is somewhat slim pickings, there just isn’t a whole lot out there.  I’m always on the lookout for feeds that make my shortlist and am particularly interested in other trucking and or technology related blogs.

There are a few blogs out there I enjoy, as mentioned the Private Fleets blog and a few of the others I link to here.  There is also another author, Dan Goodwill, a transportation consultant / author.  He recently posted an article highlighting some popular trucking related blogs.  I recommend checking it out if you are looking for blogs to subscribe.  I also recommend periodically checking for new blogs which enter the arena which it seems a few more here and there keep popping up.  You can leverage blogged.com and technorati to help you out!

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I am normally a moderately conservative implementer of new technology into production environments at work.  There is one decision we made back in 2005 however that was a little before the mainstream, but has worked out rather well.  I recently read this article from eweek regarding the cost savings and growing number of VOIP implementations.  Being a relatively early adopter of VOIP, I can attest that it is a worthwhile venture…and a little less risky now.

I get asked from time to time about our phone system and why I like it so much and why I’m so eagerly awaiting the next release of it in 2008 which we’ve got plans to upgrade to.

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I had the pleasure of chatting with Trevor Dunsford, a software developer from Canadian based Bison Transport last week.  The topic of our discussion was a software application they had written to extend TMW Systems TMWSuite application to allow advanced appointment scheduling.

TMW’s Order Entry application leaves a little to be desired when it comes to the ability to optimize the appointment scheduling process.  The scheduling abilities in Order Entry are confusing and not intuitive.  It also doesn’t take into account any sort of ability to administer appointment workflow when multiple people are responsible for setting appointments.  Bison realized this gap and took matters into their own hands by developing a slick add on application they call the Appointment Queue (AQ) .  Trevor has written a nice blog entry detailing the application.

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When it first dawned on me that the deadline for analog cell service was coming to a closure in 2008, I didn’t think much about it.  After all, it is reported that only 1% of the cell phone population use a cell phone that is analog only, so what’s the big deal?

The big deal is that there are millions of devices around the US that rely solely on analog, and many of them are not phones, they are devices like OnStar, GPS tracking systems, alarm system devices, etc.  When the analog service is shutoff, these devices will be rendered useless.  This could happen as early as February 18th, 2008 since this is the date the FCC says it is ok for cell companies to shutoff analog services.

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Aaron Huff who runs the Private Fleets blog has just posted an interesting article based on an presentation from Dr. Joseph Salvo, the manager of the Pervasive Decisioning Systems at the GE Global Research Center. In this article Dr. Salvo discusses the end of the information age and the beginning of the systems age. He also makes reference to the fascinating topic of swarm intelligence and gives some real world insight to how these concepts apply to the transportation industry and what the future will hold, some very cool ideas and concepts!

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I posted over at LifeOnTheRoad a brief article discussing the ever popular and useful Google SMS service. 

I’m surprised to find that there are still a lot of IT people who don’t what this is nor have ever attempted to experiment with it.  If you’re in IT and don’t know what it is, stop right now and go click this link to learn more.  In short, you can shoot Google short SMS messags and get answers quickly back regarding just about anything such as phone numbers, weather, sports, stocks, flights, movie times, directions and tons more. 

If you’re in IT at a trucking company, you’re drivers will appreciate all the tips you can give them, let them know about Google SMS, it’s a great tool when you’re out on the road!

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I recently partnered with Life on the Road.  They are a collective blogging group that is geared toward a variety of trucking topics.  I will occasionally make posts in their forum in addition to the Trucking Nerd when it makes sense.  While the Trucking Nerd is more focused on technology from a companies perspective, Life on the Road has a strong driver following, so I’ll try to post in the forum that best suites the post.

My inaugural post over at Life on the Road discusses the time zone conundrum we face not only in trucking, but across this planet.  

With the flattening of our economy in this day and age, I fail to understand how we can continue to have so many different labels for a single point in time, all based upon the location of the globe you happen to be at for that particular point in time.  This is particularly perplexing for the trucking industry, in addition to the computer industry where time is an integral part to how both function.

I pose a few questions and delve into the topic deeper in my post there, if you are interested, here’s the link to the post.

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