The speed of change in today's global supply chain is forcing companies to constantly redesign their transportation networks. Capacity shortages, rising fuel costs, carriers entering and leaving the markets, and changing customer and supplier bases require that companies have the ability to deploy collaborative procurement processes designed to secure the best cost vs. service tradeoffs so that the value derived in the procurement process is realized throughout the term of the contract.

FreightMatrix Transportation Bid Collaboration™ is a set of software tools for periodic negotiation of transportation rates. Transportation Bid Collaboration (TBC) combines an optimization engine, web workflow, network analysis application, and bidding tool into a single suite to provide shippers and 3PLs with an effective means of awarding transportation contracts for their shipping network.

The Transportation Bid Collaboration process can utilize transactional shipment history and forecast data to create a network that is put up for bid by the shipper. In addition to the physical network, the shipper can communicate to the carrier origin-destination details, shipment volumes, shipment frequency, service requirements, equipment tradeoffs and seasonal variation. Carriers selectively bid on elements of the shipper's network individually or in bundles. A multi-round bid process is supported. The shipper can determine the lowest network cost using the optimization engine. "What-if" analysis can be undertaken by the shipper to identify cost tradeoffs for changes in the awarding of the network.
FreightMatrix Transportation Bid Collaboration enables:

• Reduced overall network cost
• Increased load acceptance
• “What-If” analysis
• Integration with i2’s Transportation Management System
• Complete network definition