SemiCab, a Collaborative Transportation Platform Provider, announced that India’s National Digital Freight Exchange (NDFE) platform went live on Wednesday.
More than 20 other multinational companies in vertical industries, such as manufacturing, consumer goods, food and beverages and pharmaceuticals have joined the platform, and more join weekly.
The NDFE platform is supported by supply chain leaders, and aims to improve the efficiency and capabilities of the supply chain.
“The idea for the NDFE started with one goal – to consolidate national shipping demand together on a digital platform in order to build a more efficient transportation network,” explains chief product officer, Vivek Sehgal.
The platform was created in response to India’s Prime Minister’s Gati Shakti National Master Plan – an initiative to create world-class, modern infrastructure and logistics synergy among varying modes of the movement of people and goods, as well as the location of projects. Members of this initiative include more than 40 national and multinational organisations in retail, fast-moving consumer goods, consumer durables and other verticals.
SemiCab used AI to develop the platform, allowing it to not only process data to assist in decision-making and predictions, but also in identifying specific actions and how to execute them in the best possible way. The platform uses data from the Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP), which includes data on transporters, trucks and visibility. By combining the capabilities of ULIP’s data and the SemiCab platform, the NDFE can complete capabilities including:
- Providing live tracking for every load.
- Achieving real-time compliance from drivers, trucks, and other transporters.
- Identifying, creating, and executing collaborative opportunities between transporters and shippers without human interference.
- Integrating with TMS systems for automated indenting, visibility, invoicing, emailing, information extraction and automated completion of repetitive tasks.
“Multi-enterprise collaboration is what we need to improve efficiencies and eliminate empty miles while achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of building a more efficient freight network,” says SemiCab CEO, Ajesh Kapoor.
The NDFE platform is expected to improve efficiency in the Indian road freight industries through a 70% reduction on empty miles, a 35% improvement for on-time deliveries and 99% improved real-time visibility.