Time has run out for hockey players and hockey fans in the United States and Canada, as the NHL imposes a league-wide lockout for the second time in eight years. The NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman, warned the players last season there would be a lockout if a deal between the NHL Players’ Association and the league was not reached. Unfortunately for everyone, the deadline has passed and players from all 30 NHL teams are waiting to see if they will be able to get back on the ice in October. The road is not clear as to when a new deal will be reached, and in the world of sports and hockey, this is nothing new. In fact, many players have a backup plan and decided to go to Europe to play in other leagues while the details are settled. In a different industry, that of transportation and delivery, there is no time for time-outs, fall-outs or lockouts. Con-way is a leading transportation and logistics services company that understands time is of absolute importance. The company operates through three primary companies: Con-way Freight, Con-way Truckload, and Menlo Worldwide Logistics. Con-way and its subsidiaries deliver services from more than 500 locations across North America and in 20 countries.
Con-way cannot afford for anyone to freeze the puck because the company needs their trucks and freights scoring goals and making deliveries on time. Just as NHL players want to play the game they love while negotiations are settled, Con-way needs some processes taken care of without interference. That is where TIBCO enters the rink. Con-way uses TIBCO to monitor 10,000 daily shipping appointments, along with corresponding truck movement. When Con-way trucks head out for delivery, dispatchers can see the road ahead, including factors that could threaten a timely arrival. This is thanks to a TIBCO system that analyzes the relationships between millions of shipment-related events to find significant patterns and deliver immediate alerts. TIBCO’s ease of use and flexibility enables Con-way to get the jump and adjust quickly to last minute changes when necessary.
TIBCO’s complex event processing (CEP) technology aggregates information from distributed systems in real time and applies rules to discern patterns and trends that would otherwise go unnoticed. Con-way drafted TIBCO’s business integration software based on the TIBCO team’s strong performance on evaluation tests, as well as the flexibility of TIBCO’s software and its standards-based approach. Lengthy negotiations and lockouts were not necessary when choosing TIBCO; the decision was easy. Supported by this solution, Con-way reduced misloads, streamlined planning, and increased performance of the entire freight network. Essentially, Con-way scored a hat trick for transportation.
Con-way had originally begun working with TIBCO for business integration, to streamline its collection process. Customer data was spread out across the four Con-way companies, making the process inefficient and time-consuming. TIBCO’s solution, which connected Con-way’s disparate AR systems in real time, significantly accelerated the collections process, and Con-way noted an immediate leap in productivity. The TIBCO initiative saved millions, ensuring event-based architecture would be the systematic backbone for every project. The NHL wants its players on the ice and Con-way wants its trucks on the road. With TIBCO, the company has easily won the Stanley Cup of transportation and logistic services.
