Case Study
Greenstone Freight Management Software Improves Efficiency for Cooperative Producers Inc.

When fall harvest comes to the intensively farmed ground in south-central Nebraska, anything that speeds the truck lines through the elevator for either receiving or shipping can be a godsend.

Three years ago, a new software package, oneFreight, did that kind of a favor for Cooperative Producers Inc. (CPI) based in Hastings, NE (402-463-5148).

The oneFreight truck dispatching system from Greenstone Systems, a Cultura company based in Alpharetta, GA (800-366-2474) has made harvest a smoother and faster process at CPI. While much of CPI’s grain is shipped by rail through five terminals, trucks carry grain to area processors, ethanol plants, and feed mills.

“oneFreight helps us regulate contracts with producers, and it speeds up the loading process at our truck scales,” says Lisa Peter, CPI transportation manager.

“The goal is loading the right truck with the right freight applied to the right contract,” she says.

System Features Full Integration

The oneFreight dispatching system offers full integration with other Greenstone products, including the AGRIS grain accounting and oneWeigh scale management systems. Among its features:

• The oneFreight system generates a unique load number for each load dispatched. All contract details associated with each truck are linked to this load number. This removes any operational guesswork.
• The system saves time by eliminating the need to create two tickets in AGRIS and overwrite the weights and grades of the load on each ticket.
• oneFreight easily creates freight vouchers and invoices directly, since all payment details are already in the system. Records in the AGRIS grain accounting system are updated automatically.
• Each detailed dispatch record appears online in a simple-to-read Excel-style spreadsheet. Information columns include: dispatch load number, date created, shipment start date, shipper, shipper vehicle ID, pickup location, inventory location, dropoff location, number of loads, dispatch order type, who last updated the record, date the record was last updated, contract number, product, name on the contract, number of trucks, and name to which the contract was applied. The workscreen also comes with a search tool.

Ed Zdrojewski, editor