Cloud Logistics partners with project44 on APIs

The SaaS transportation management software provider will use project44’s less-than-truckload APIs to enable synchronous transactions and speed TMS implementation timeframes.    The transportation management system (TMS) provider Cloud Logistics said Wednesday it will use software-as-a-service (SaaS) enterprise integration technology provider project44 to provide application programming interface (API) to less-than-truckload (LTL) carriers.
   The use of project44’s APIs will help Cloud Logistics to be implemented with customers faster, the company said, since electronic data interchange (EDI) integrations have traditionally been an inhibitor. Cloud Logistics promotes its ability to implement quickly, sometimes same day, through its browser-based SaaS deployment model.
   “When this new integrated solution is released later this fall, shippers looking to deploy a TMS in record time can now execute synchronous API transactions with their entire network of LTL carriers for rating, dispatch, tracking and image retrieval,” the company said in a statement.
   Cloud Logistics told American Shipper that the new project44 LTL integrations will be deployed this fall, with one third-party logistics (3PL) customer already signing on to use APIs to connect through the Cloud TMS to its carriers. project44 has already developed APIs to connect with virtually all LTL carriers.
   APIs are the way most software systems communicate with each other in other industries, and provide a more dynamic, two-way platform for system integration than EDI does. EDI, however, is entrenched in the transportation and logistics industry, with shippers and logistics providers having spent time and money to develop EDI connections with their carriers, not to mention those companies’ familiarity and reliance on EDI message sets.
   project44 recently secured a $10.5 million round of funding from two venture capital groups.
   “When we founded Cloud Logistics, it was with the vision of offering a ‘self-service’ TMS solution to shippers and 3PLs who had grown tired of expensive, time-consuming and risky projects,” said Mark Nix, founder and CEO of Cloud Logistics. “project44 represents breakthrough technology that allows us to come closer than ever before to achieving that goal.”