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Carl D’Emilio

A year ago in this space, I mentioned the economic situation of the past few years was a healthy catalyst to rein in some of inefficiencies of large-scale information technology projects. Companies across all spectrums of the supply chain have been forced to become more efficient and do more with less.

In the area of technology solutions, doing more with less isn’t always bad. Another way to say it is to process more data and transactions with a lower cost, yet more productive, system or solution. One way companies are implementing solutions more efficiently is through hosted and shared community applications. Facebook and other social networking sites prove the concept of processing information through a community system provides great efficiencies. Our industry also proved it with the DVIR -- the Driver Vehicle Inspection Report -- process that linked many companies together though a single system to successfully manage these new reporting requirements.

I see the trend toward collaborative computing expanding rapidly this year into other areas of the supply chain. It’s easy to imagine companies linking together through community systems to integrate the transportation network. Processes such as dispatching and move confirmation, maintenance and repair, and appointments and operations planning will be more efficient as service providers in the industry link together with extended networking systems.

This community, shared-service approach not only greatly lowers the cost of entry for each member company, but expedites the process of linking companies in the supply chain. The concept of establishing a new EDI trading partner and mapping messages will be a thing of the past. Signing up a new trading partner will be reduced to a simple click of a button to “friend” your new supplier or customer and instantly share data.