"If I didn't have DAT CarrierWatch, I wouldn't be sleeping." - Dave Taylor, CEO Midwestern Transit Service, Inc.

Midwestern Transit doubles carrier management efficiency

Midwestern Transit Service deployed DAT CarrierWatch® more than three years ago. "Knowing that this system updates our carrier information daily lets me sleep at night," said Dave Taylor, CEO of this leading broker firm. "That's the proof you want," he concluded. "Not one uninsured loss."

Taylor's company, which he and wife, Donna, founded in 1985, grew from a single small office to eight offices working with more than 14,000 carriers. They supply more than 500 customers with brokering services for van, reefer, flatbed, intermodal, LTL and air-freight as well as dedicated lanes for asset-based partners.

Without careful planning, Midwestern's growth might have drowned the company in paperwork, phone time and potential legal risks, especially in the area of monitoring carriers. Midwestern has no room for mistakes in validating carriers, especially since the Schramm v. Foster lawsuit, where a broker was held liable for a carrier's accident. "Some other brokers have had disasters from loading unsatisfactory carriers," noted Taylor. "We really had no good way to handle carrier qualification and monitoring before DAT CarrierWatch."

Before installing CarrierWatch, Midwestern verified a carrier's status through Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, summarizing time-consuming investigations of insurance, authority, and safety ratings. However, carrier status can change dramatically in just a few days.

"The opportunity to make a mistake and load an uninsured carrier was very great," said Taylor, "If we did not, on every load that we handled, pull that carrier file and recheck the insurance certificate, we had no way to verify that the carrier was still insured or that a safety rating had been modified."

Midwestern chose CarrierWatch. "There was nothing else out on the market that even touched it, especially since it integrates into our DAT Keypoint transportation management software," said Taylor.

CarrierWatch provides daily updates to Midwestern's carrier clearance staff, which greatly reduces the time it takes to accurately verify a carrier. Only verified carriers appear in CarrierWatch results, which greatly reduces the chance of choosing a questionable carrier. In addition, CarrierWatch's integration into Midwestern's TMS saves time.

At a Glance

David Taylor, CEO

Midwestern Transit Service, Inc. Ashley, Illinois www.midwesterntransit.com

Goal
Streamline broker operations and reduce or eliminate carrier compliance issues without increasing staff 

Scope
14,000 carrier base/500 customers /8 offices 

Solution
Replace time-consuming carrier exams and paperwork with DAT CarrierWatch 

Results
  • Enabled substantial company growth
  • Can manage two to four times as many carrier exams with the same staff
  • Added ability to easily mine new carriers from the DAT CarrierWatch database

"If we didn't have it, managing 14,000 carriers would have been prohibitive," he said, "We'd really open ourselves up to a disaster. It would have been impossible to keep track of our carriers."

Using CarrierWatch, Midwestern has maintained its high standards for carrier monitoring without adding staff. "Up until five years ago we cleared 5 to 10 carriers a day. Now we do 20 to 25, with the same amount of people. Without CarrierWatch we'd have had to add more staff and probably would see less productivity and accuracy."

Taylor's staff also uses CarrierWatch to "effectively mine additional carriers out of the large carrier database that have already been cleared." When customers ask Midwestern to handle lanes that they don't have a lot of history on, Taylor says CarrierWatch enables them to systematically select carriers by type of equipment, lanes they're running, and so on. "That helps us find the right carrier for the customer," he said.

DAT CarrierWatch increases Midwestern's efficiency

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