Harnessing TMS to boost efficiency, drive growth

Founded in 2020, Novapath Supply Chain Systems, Inc., provides managed transportation services to a broad range of customers. Headquartered in Greensboro, N.C., the company acts as a third-party logistics (3PL) provider, handling everything from warehousing to distribution to transportation for its growing customer base.

Since inception, the 80-employee company has been investing in technology that positions it as a provider of data-driven and analytics-based solutions.

Two years ago, Novapath was looking for a strategic way to enter the marketplace and gain an instant competitive edge. Its founders knew technology would play a central role in the new 3PL’s operations, so they started looking for a transportation management system (TMS) to drive its day-to-day operations.

The company started out as a brokerage provider and then introduced its managed services offering two years later. “We knew that managed transportation was our core competency for our team, but we needed a TMS to support that aspect of our business,” says Robert Saffioti, director of managed transportation. “We wanted a TMS provider that could adapt to our needs as a growing company on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.”

That adaptability was important, says Saffioti, “because Novapath prides itself in taking an extremely calculated approach to the management transportation services market.” That approach includes a roadmap of organizational growth goals and business pivots based on customer need and market conditions.

“We had a list of criteria that we were looking for in our new TMS,” says Saffioti. “Our founders had been in the industry for a while, so we knew what we were looking for. We knew that we not only needed a TMS immediately out of the gate, but that the provider would have to be a true partner that could react to our needs and help us scale accordingly.”

Making the right choice

Novapath was in search of a solution that the company and its customers could use to quickly and easily manage their freight, route to carriers, and run reporting.

To enhance its offerings, the service provider also required a tool that would gather historical data needed to determine how much money its customers were saving.

This decision came after Novapath evaluated several TMSs on the market and couldn’t seem to find the right solution to fit their unique needs. Their technology division realized that this was a common issue in the industry and were confident they had the tools and expertise to solve it.

Saffioti and his team landed on Corsair from Rygen Technologies. The TMS is 100% cloud-based, AI-enhanced and focused on ease of use, operational efficiency, and configurable capabilities.

According to Saffioti, Corsair integrates all functions of Novapath’s business, including sourcing, procurement and networking with clients, who can connect into the TMS to gain visibility across their supply chains. In fact, Novapath’s clients work directly with its TMS.

In certain cases, supplier purchase order (PO) management occurs right in the platform, which further streamlines the transportation management process. All of the service providers less-than-truckload (LTL), truckload, expedited freight, and other shipments are managed in the TMS “from start to finish,” says Saffioti.

“The user-friendly TMS enhances transparency and allows for effortless configuration as well as reduces the amount of time spent on data collection, dealing with carriers, and tracking freight,” says Saffioti.

The new platform also gives Novapath a birds-eye view of the company’s year-to-date shipping metrics which, in turn, helps the team hone in on its core competencies, better understand its current situation, and ultimately make better decisions.

A breath of fresh air

Saffioti says he especially likes Rygen’s willingness to listen to its customers and then use that feedback to further tweak and improve its TMS platform. He’s used other TMSs in the past and found that most of them were “closed off” and not open to developing new functionalities in response to customers’ changing needs.

“The Rygen team has a strong background in transportation, but it’s also very open to user feedback,” Saffioti explains. “They do a very good job of interpreting our feedback as new functionalities are introduced, and then having us go in and test and provide feedback before the solution is updated. That’s been a breath of fresh air for us.”

According to Saffioti, the technology vendor’s flexible nature also helps Novapath adapt and flex for its own customers, which include consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies and manufacturers of heavy earth-moving equipment. Regardless of their specific industry or the type of freight that they need to move, companies all get set up and start using the TMS in the exact same way.

“The system adapts to those individual clients’ needs,” explains Saffioti. “And if the specific capability doesn’t exist yet, the TMS provider is very good about addressing the need and developing it swiftly to meet customer demand. This is a major win because our customer demand is all over the map, and our technology partner is able to meet or exceed expectations in most cases.”

According to Saffioti, Corsair gave Novapath’s clients a more customized approach to managing and integrating their systems. The managed service provider’s clients can leverage automation by using their existing software to send shipments and relevant data to Novapath, saving both parties time and money.

Novapath can fulfill operations while its clients can take a more hands-on approach and execute shipments right in the TMS platform.

“Data is power and time is money,” says Justin Murillo, senior operations specialist at Novapath. “The TMS empowers shippers to have more of both. It allows service providers to meet their client’s unique needs. The Novapath-client relationship through Corsair can be tailored to whatever makes sense for each business relationship.”

Operating in a high-demand, ever-evolving supply chain sector, Novapath has also benefited from its TMS provider’s high system uptime. As a result, this helps the service
provider keep the wheels turning across its end-to-end supply chain.

“We’ve had no system downtime, which I think is very important,” says Saffioti. “Everyone who’s ever experienced system downtime knows how frustrating and impactful that can be, but we’ve found a reliable TMS that we really don’t have to think about because it has worked so well for us.”

What’s next?

Looking ahead, Saffioti says Novapath has a “very aggressive roadmap” in front of it. The company plans to move into new markets and grow its customer base, both of which will require a strong, flexible transportation management hub. It will also require more human power amid an ongoing labor shortage, but Saffioti is confident in the company’s robust, user-friendly technology base.

“Being able to scale is very important to us, and the Rygen team has been very helpful when it comes to training people on how to start using the system quickly,” Saffioti explains.

The same rules apply for Novapath’s customers, who must also learn how to use and interact with the system in order to gain its full range of benefits.

“The platform is very easy to use and that’s a big benefit for us,” says Saffioti. “As long as someone has some knowledge of the transportation aspect of it—and knows the key elements that need to be entered in the system—the TMS takes it from there and manages the rest.”