At NEXT, we are proud to work alongside the hard working and dedicated individuals on the road everyday. Truck drivers are an essential part of our lives, as they are dedicated to driving our economy forward.

In celebration of National Truck Driver week, we connected with a few of our drivers to shed light on their stories. We spoke with 3 drivers to find out why they made the switch to trucking and what they love about their jobs.

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Here is our first story, with Dionisio Juan Wade, a company driver for NEXT who has been in the industry for over 20 years and living out his dream of driving across the country. 

Dionisio Juan Wade

1. Tell us about your journey in trucking.

For the past 20 years, I have been living out my childhood dream. My first two years of driving provided me with one of the most unique lifestyles that I never could have imagined of seeing; different states, different people, experiencing all four seasons. It has been an overwhelmingly positive journey and I am grateful for everything I have been able to experience along the way.

2. What challenges have you faced while building your career in trucking? 

Being a professional commercial truck driver can be challenging at times, you are constantly driving as both a defensive and offensive driver. Making sure that you are safe and everyone around you is safe, can be very stressful at times especially when coupled with times of extreme fatigue. Advice to both new and old drivers, be sure to follow DOT rules and regulations and drive safely.

3. How has NEXT helped you in your job, day-to-day?

Next Freight Solution has been one of the best companies I have worked for. The company strives to merge the old with the new. NEXT is bringing technology to an outdated industry and revolutionizing trucking in an all new way.

4. What do you love most about driving?

The independence and the modern technology, provided by NEXT. Everything that we as consumers enjoy [about technology] had to make its way into trucking and I’m proud to say I had a part to play in that change.

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Here is our second story, with Juan Velasco who made the switch to NEXT for the freedom and flexibility port loads provide him. 

Juan Velasco

1. Tell us about your journey in trucking.

Before, I used to work in a warehouse, packing orders for 8 hours a day. It was exhausting, and I would go home every night extremely tired. During this time, I started to work on getting my class A driver’s license to become a truck driver. Now, I am able to work my own schedule.

2. How has NEXT helped you in your job, day-to-day?

NEXT has helped me a lot in giving me the opportunity to work my own, more flexible, schedule with loads in and out of LA and LB. I am able to take multiple port loads that are less than 2 hours around the city and really love my daily job.

3. What do you love most about driving?

What I love most about trucking is the flexibility, ability to work by myself, it’s less tiring than a 9-5  job and I get paid well.

For several months, NEXT has been hard at work building a feature within ATLAS, our proprietary Transportation Management System (TMS), designed to automate the most time-consuming parts of the accessorial (fee) identification and payout process. The primary goal in building this feature has always been to introduce automation into our payment processes, so that we may bill Shippers sooner, to ultimately pay Carriers faster.

Today, we’re excited to announce the launch of Suggested Accessorials, the first milestone in a larger Accessorial Automation initiative designed to fully automate the accessorial identification, confirmation and payout process – a process in logistics that has long relied on an archaic, heavily manual, and error prone approach. 

With Suggested Accessorials, time-consuming phases of the accessorial payout process will be automated, reducing the effort and manual work required of our internal teams. This allows NEXT to pay out a higher volume of Carriers, in less time. In addition, with this first milestone, we’re able to drastically reduce errors around accessorial identification and payouts, leading to faster billing for Shippers, and even faster and more accurate payouts for Carriers.

We look forward to providing updates on our progress as we continue to build out this feature and bring full automation to the accessorial identification and payout process.

If you’re a Carrier looking for loads in lanes that fit your schedule – check out the newest features in the NEXT mobile app now.

If you’re a Shipper looking for reliable capacity and full visibility into the status of every container email us at sales@nexttrucking.com.

Our engineering team rolled out another massive project this month, bringing automation and machine learning to the critical first step of the container delivery process – Delivery Order (DO) submission and dissemination. 

What is DO Automation?

With the DO Automation release, the engineering team introduced three major improvements to NEXT’s proprietary TMS system, ATLAS;

• Through intelligent automation, information from a DO is now automatically extracted and generated in ATLAS. Whereas before NEXT Operators would have to manually upload and input DO information into ATLAS, we are now able to ingest a DO from various sources including EDI, and automatically gather the necessary data to create a shipment within seconds. 

• Utilizing Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, our systems are now able to recognize containers that were submitted at different times from various sources, and combine them under the same Master Bill of Lading (MBOL) in ATLAS. This service provides more organization around shipments, giving Operators the ability to see exactly what needs to go into ATLAS in a single view.

• We are now keeping our data in a relational database, which has led to much-improved performance, data reliability, decreased costs, better bandwidth, and more possibilities for improving our Delivery Order and Scraping services at NEXT.

What does this mean for NEXT?

Overall, these improvements resolve delays in finalizing shipments due to the manual work previously required from Operators throughout the DO submission and dissemination process. The automation of this process has led to a significant increase in productivity for NEXT Operators, empowering them to focus more on their core functions and less on time-consuming data entry. With DO Automation, NEXT is able to service more shipments, faster.

This week, we announced a new feature within our Shipper Portal; Customizable Reports.

With a comprehensive range of filters and data fields, Customizable Reports provides an unrivaled level of transparency and visibility. Customers have immediate access to an intuitive and fully customizable reporting tool, with options to create, edit, distribute, and schedule recurring reports on NEXT’s secure, proprietary platform. 

“The most common question asked of us by operations managers in our network is ‘How do I know where my container or shipment is?’” said Lidia Yan, Co-founder of NEXT Trucking. “With Customizable Reports, we are answering that critical question. In the post-pandemic economy, transparency in the movement of freight throughout the supply chain will be the difference between full and empty shelves – whether virtual, or physical.”

Prior to the introduction of the Shipper Portal, container and shipment information was traditionally accessible through legacy methods such as spreadsheets, emails, and phone calls. Now, shippers can communicate and track the real-time status of their freight quickly and efficiently in a streamlined digital format. Customizable Reports is the next step in the evolution of NEXT’s best-in-class container and shipment tracking technology.

With automated scheduling features, Customizable Reports allows Shipper Portal users to: 

• Download fully-customized reports as CSVs 
• Share reports within a secure, digital platform 
• Freely edit data fields, time ranges, and filters for each report
• Automate and schedule distribution via email
• Adjust reporting frequency and delivery method 

“Before the Shipper Portal, getting information about my containers and sharing that with stakeholders took a big chunk of my day,” said an Operations Manager with a top US retailer. “With Customizable Reports, once I select the information I need, I can just receive all my container status updates via email everyday. It has saved me at least an hour a day.” 

“With Customizable Reports, I feel more informed than ever about the whereabouts and details of all my containers” said the Director of Operations at a top global furniture retailer. “By automating these reports, I’m able to focus more on problem-solving and less on getting basic information about my containers.”

Users can access Customizable Reports directly within the Shipper Portal. Future iterations of the Shipper Portal will include expanded automation capabilities, AI-driven delivery order submission processes, and improved invoice management. 

For more, please reach out to one of our team members at sales@nexttrucking.com 

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View more information on NEXT’s Shipper Portal here.

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Lidia Yan, Co-Founder of NEXT Trucking discusses the importance of celebrating APPI month. Sharing her heritage, advice, and how to support and build a brighter tomorrow.

Building a product is no easy task, while it may seem functional and beautiful on the user end – there is much more that lies underneath. At NEXT, our engineering team is continuously working to better our products and the infrastructure that binds our technology together. 

We hope this brings to light the amazing work our engineering team is doing and uncover a bit of the magic they produce (and the impact it has) – under the hood. 

Introducing: Our New Carrier Infrastructure

The latest accomplishment from our engineering team is our new Carrier Infrastructure. With this new system developed and built within ATLAS (NEXT’s proprietary TMS system), we have taken a big step towards eliminating the functional limitations our teams faced while using disparate legacy systems to build Carrier-facing technologies. Now, any new feature or improvement to our Carrier-facing products built within the new Carrier infrastructure will have much more flexibility for the product features and services we build at NEXT. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities for what features and services we could build for our Carriers. Now, we can dream big!

Ultimately, the Carrier infrastructure will make developing Carrier-facing products faster and more streamlined with a cleaner, more centralized infrastructure. In addition to building more useful technologies that will empower our Carriers, we will now be able to provide better reporting capabilities to our Carriers. 

An Example of the Potential Impact 

In the context of how we qualify a newly onboarded Carrier today – there are certain elements required (Company name, truck registration, VIN, license plate, etc.). Our previous system required all information for that Carrier up front, causing major delays in onboarding. Now, with the new Carrier infrastructure, each of these required elements are broken down for the Operator so they may create the Carrier within our system immediately – with the freedom to add information as it becomes available with no delay to the onboarding process.

This means less wait time for the Carrier, a faster onboarding process, and the ability to have a new Carrier on the road and booking loads in far less time.

Recently, we announced the launch of our new Shipper Portal.

This new robust online portal streamlines and expedites communications with our shipper customers, reducing manual processes, and providing real-time visibility into the status of a container.
The NEXT Shipper Portal offers shippers an easy-to-use freight management platform to monitor, gather data, download reports, and take action on every phase of a container’s journey.

Full Control Over Freight 

Giving shippers full control over their freight, the new platform provides automated real-time shipment track and trace from vessel to termination, customizable reporting, scheduling capabilities, automated leveraging of at-risk containers, and a comprehensive dashboard with container ETAs, last free day, per diem, demurrage, and more.

“NEXT’s Shipper Portal is extremely user friendly and is a game-changer for anyone involved in the drayage industry,” said a senior executive from a top ocean carrier. “Previously, I was manually tracking 200+ containers for one customer alone to check if containers were on a vessel, unloaded in the port, outgated, or returned empty.”

More Data and Key Metrics 

Advanced reporting features allow shippers to configure personalized trends and insights, view risk-ranked containers for action, and automate container status reports.

“Businesses have long asked for more data about their shipments, as understanding key business metrics like on-time delivery and facility wait times is imperative,” said Lidia Yan, CEO and Co-Founder at NEXT. “Our Shipper Portal offers a robust, intuitive dashboard and data experience for shippers, who would otherwise spend hours manually assembling reports themselves. Additionally, it helps shippers identify priority containers that need attention, such as containers with an upcoming appointment time, past appointment time, soon to incur demurrage/per diem, and more.”

Looking Forward 

Future versions of the Shipper Portal will include an automated delivery order submission process using artificial intelligence and machine learning, real-time notifications about important changes/events to containers, and the ability to manage all invoices.

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Interested in hearing more about NEXT and our new Shipper Portal? Connect with us at: sales@nexttrucking.com

If you’re a truck driver in California, you may be asking, “When and how can I get the COVID-19 vaccine?” Great news: NEXT has compiled all the information you need about getting the COVID-19 vaccine. 

When the vaccine first began its roll out last month, only healthcare workers and long-term care residents were eligible to receive it. Now, there is a 3-phase plan for vaccine distribution. 

Transportation and logistics workers are in Phase 1B Tier Two, meaning drivers in the state of California will soon be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine: 

 

How Do I Register for the Vaccine?

To check your eligibility for the vaccine and to register for updates on when you can get vaccinated, visit https://myturn.ca.gov/.

Every Californian can sign up to be notified for up to date information on when it is their turn to be vaccinated.

I’m Not Sure About Getting the Vaccine. Where Can I Get More Information? 

For more information and updates regarding COVID-19, visit https://covid19.ca.gov/. Here you will find answers to frequently asked questions regarding the vaccine, including how the process works and much more.

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Su Elegibilidad para la vacunación COVID-19

Como conductor de camión en California, es posible que se pregunte: “¿Cuándo y cómo puedo recibir la vacuna COVID-19?” Tenemos muy buenas noticias: NEXT ha juntado toda la información que necesita para recibir la vacuna COVID-19 lo antes posible. 

Cuando la vacuna estuvo disponible por primera vez el mes pasado en Los Angeles, solo los trabajadores de servicios medicos y los residentes de hogares de anciones eran elegibles para recibirla. Ahora, hay un plan de tres fases para la distribución de vacunas COVID-19.

Los trabajadores de transporte y logística se encuentran en el Nivel Dos de la Fase 1B, lo que significa que los conductores en el estado de California pronto serán elegibles para la vacuna COVID-19:

Source: https://covid19.ca.gov/

¿Cómo me registro para la vacuna?

Para confirmar su elegibilidad para la vacuna y registrarse para recibir notificaciones sobre cuándo puede vacunarse, visite al sitio web https://myturn.ca.gov/.

Cada californiano puede inscribirse para recibir información actualizada sobre cuándo es su turno de vacunarse.

No estoy seguro si quiero la vacuna. ¿Dónde puedo obtener más información?

Para obtener más información y actualizaciones sobre COVID-19, visite https://covid19.ca.gov/. Aquí encontrará respuestas a preguntas frecuentes sobre la vacuna, y tambien informacion sobre el proceso y mucho más.

On December 19th, the team at NEXT met for the 3rd installment of the NEXT Carrier Alliance. 

The NEXT Carrier Alliance (NCA) is a customer advisory board of truck drivers in the LA and LB area. The purpose of the NCA is to gather deep insights into the difficulties drivers face on the road, the inefficiencies in their roles, and the opportunities NEXT has to improve their professions. Simply put, the goal is to build products and operations that improve driver’s lives – with direct input from drivers. 

A Virtual Impact

This meeting took place virtually due to COVID-19. However, despite the stay at home orders, we had a remarkable turn out with 16 owner operators and fleet owners tuning in from their homes or the cabs of their trucks.

For 5 hours, we discussed topics including: 

• What NEXT does right and where we fall short for drivers and fleet owners
• How drivers and fleet owners want to plan their workdays and find loads
• Biggest challenges drivers and fleet owners face
• What role NEXT can play to help them solve those challenges
• What fleets and drivers need to take their profession to the next level. 

Additionally, we wanted to hear everything drivers have had to go through this year and beyond – it goes without saying that this has been a complicated year for truck drivers across the country as they worked through the highs and lows of being an essential worker though a global pandemic.

“One of the best things about working with NEXT is being able to participate in these meetings. You guys at NEXT really care about us drivers. No company has ever invited me to meet with their CEO, heads of Operations, Marketing, and other teams. It’s amazing to get to voice my concerns, share my troubles, and know that the decision makers not only listen, but will follow up with me about those things.” – Owner Operator in Los Angeles and NCA Member

Moving Forward Together

With the insights we gathered from the NCA meeting, the next step is to make the wishes of drivers and fleet owners a reality. The NEXT team is hard at work analyzing the insights, building action items, and putting processes in place to ensure that we build the things our drivers and fleet owners need to earn more, and enjoy their work. 

To celebrate National Truck Driver Appreciation Week (September 13-19, 2020) and show our immense gratitude to truck drivers, NEXT provided free truck washes to 200 drivers. As well as reusable masks and hand sanitizer to 1,000 drivers at Harbor Truck Stop in Long Beach, CA.

 

 

With local guidelines in mind, NEXT team members wore masks and headed out to Harbor Truck Stop to thank individual drivers for their hard work and dedication. Even washing a truck or two themselves! 

Additionally, NEXT partnered with Apple Spice, a local bakery specializing in delivered box lunches, to provide free meals to 200 truck drivers in Long Beach on Wednesday. 

Furthermore, NEXT launched a bonus incentive for new drayage Carriers.

“During the pandemic, truck drivers have kept our supply chain and economy moving by delivering essential goods and we are pleased to offer them additional incentives,” said Lidia Yan, CEO and Co-Founder of NEXT. “It is important for the industry to collectively show appreciation for the extraordinary hard work and efforts of truck drivers and their overall commitment to making deliveries safely across the country every day.”

There is still time to take advantage of the current bonus incentive. New or renewed drayage Carriers who sign up with NEXT Trucking are eligible to receive the $500 bonus incentive.

The incentive is paid out in two phases:

• $100 upon signing up and completing the first load; and
• An additional $400 upon completing 10 total loads within 21 days of being approved.
• Carrier must be approved by October 9, 2020

Interested in claiming your $500? See details here.