C.R. England Updates Dispatcher Software
By Dan Leone, Staff Reporter
This story appears in the Aug. 30 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.
Truckload carrier C.R. England said it aims to improve efficiency by upgrading dispatchers’ computers.
C.R. England, Salt Lake City, has been running a heavily modified version of Innovative Computing Corp.’s dispatch software for more than two decades, said Ron Hall, the company’s director of operations for technology.
ICC’s software has a text-based user interface that sometimes is referred to as a “green screen.” It requires users to enter specific text strings to access different software functions. That functionality essentially has become a barrier to efficiency in the dispatch room, Hall said.
So, to help dispatchers spend less time navigating through text-based menus, C.R. England said it will install a graphics-based dispatch system that runs on the Microsoft Windows operating system.
“We had gotten to the point where the driver manager position was so complex that it really wasn’t a position that people could come in and easily succeed at,” Hall said.
Rolling out the new dispatch software will take “about 18 months,” Hall told Transport Topics.
C.R. England is replacing its custom ICC dispatch software with TMWSuite from TMW Systems, Beachwood, Ohio. In addition, C.R. England will purchase TMW’s maintenance software. TMW also owns ICC.
England adopted its current ICC dispatch software in the late 1980s and has modified the software extensively since then, which has led to a steeper learning curve for new users.
“It was really difficult for individuals to figure out where to go” using the modified ICC software, Hall told TT. C.R. England even “noticed our frontline employees were developing cheat sheets” to help them navigate through the interface of ICC’s dispatch software.
ICC’s dispatch software, which the company supports to this day, runs on the IBM Power Systems operating system — known as AS/400 when it launched in 1988.
IBM’s system has declined in popularity since the advent of graphics-based systems, such as Windows. However, the stability and security of IBM Power Systems, at least compared with Windows, has kept it in favor with many enterprise users, including several in the trucking industry, Hall said.
Meanwhile, C.R. England’s purchase of TMWSuite means that two of the carrier’s biggest operating units — the asset-based England North America and the non-asset-based England Logistics — are now running software from rival vendors.
Hall said that running opposing platforms won’t pose integration problems for C.R. England.
“We felt we could end up on two different platforms without a significant impact,” Hall said.
If England Logistics and England North America have to swap information, they can do so via electronic data interchange, which both TMWSuite and McLeod’s PowerBroker software understand, Hall said.
