In today's rapidly evolving logistics landscape, the Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) freight market faces unprecedented challenges and opportunities. The inefficiencies of traditional models, information asymmetry, and growing customer demands urgently require digital transformation across the industry.
Recently, BlueGrace Logistics, a non-asset-based third-party logistics (3PL) company headquartered in Tampa, Florida, announced that its Chief Commercial Officer Adam Blankenship has been appointed to the Digital LTL Council. Blankenship will focus on fostering collaboration and standardization among LTL freight stakeholders to accelerate digital adoption.
The Digital LTL Council: A Collaborative Platform for Industry Transformation
Established in November 2020, the Digital LTL Council brings together over 20 industry leaders including carriers, logistics service providers, shippers, and technology vendors. Its core mission is to develop unified industry standards covering electronic bills of lading (EBL), shipment visibility and tracking, freight exception handling, and other critical areas to support scalable automation in LTL freight.
The council's leadership has observed significant market shifts, with embargoes becoming increasingly common in short-haul and last-mile delivery operations. These changes present both challenges to traditional LTL models and opportunities for digital transformation.
Brian Thompson, Chief Commercial Officer of SMC³, stated: "On behalf of the Digital LTL Council membership, we welcome Adam and BlueGrace Logistics to the organization. Adam's years of experience leading cutting-edge technology applications at BlueGrace Logistics will make important contributions toward achieving our mission of developing the first set of scalable, unified standards around digital LTL automation."
Interview: The Core Principles and Pathways of Digital Transformation
Logistics Management Group news editor Jeff Berman recently interviewed BlueGrace's Blankenship about the Digital LTL Council's objectives and his role in advancing them. Key excerpts follow:
LM: What do you consider the core practices for future LTL freight automation?
Blankenship: For the past two decades, the LTL industry has addressed challenges in a fragmented way, with carriers operating independently, resulting in systemic inefficiencies.
LM: How does this manifest specifically?
Blankenship: Inconsistent communication protocols, documentation requirements, and information exchange between shippers, consignees, vendors, and intermediaries create operational chaos. A primary council goal is identifying common ground to eliminate non-value-added processes through standardized governance rules. We're asking: "Why not create consistent web service connections that enable machine learning/AI while minimizing human intervention to reduce common LTL errors?"
LM: This seems like a longstanding industry issue?
Blankenship: Unfortunately, manual paper processes and document handling have been legacy problems. This initiative seriously addresses these issues through digitization, creating an environment with fewer errors. Streamlined digital practices will unlock data flows enabling advanced capabilities like business intelligence and predictive analytics for carriers and 3PLs to enhance customer value propositions.
Ultimately, customers benefit through higher-quality deliveries, thoughtful supply chain solutions, reduced error rates, improved billing experiences, and efficiency gains that strengthen relationships across the ecosystem.
LM: How does the council promote carrier/broker-shipper collaboration amid tight capacity?
Blankenship: The entire supply chain community faces the same reality: freight volumes exceed handling capacity. Labor shortages compound these challenges. We're seeking opportunities to create efficiencies in fragmented systems that struggle to meet current supply chain demands. This is particularly critical for the undercapitalized LTL sector that needs to reinvest in fleet upgrades and technology infrastructure.
LM: What are the next steps?
Blankenship: This is a pivotal moment for the LTL community to become healthier through reinvestment. By focusing council efforts on fundamental process improvements, we can redeploy resources toward value creation and expand service capacity with fewer errors - benefits that extend to 3PLs, carriers, shippers, and truckload providers alike.
LM: What progress has the council made on EBL, visibility, and exception standards?
Blankenship: Our core focus addresses error-prone systemic issues in exception management that cause rework and customer dissatisfaction. This involves process reengineering and standard development. Web service integration and data standardization are foundational - when we speak the same digital language through EBL standards and API/EDI connections, visibility and tracking naturally improve as platforms become interconnected.
LM: Why does this interconnectivity currently lack?
Blankenship: Even growing vendor portfolios often represent 10-30 non-plug-and-play relationships requiring standardization. Many mid-to-large shippers lack single-source data truth due to non-standardized processes. The council's approach creates standardized documentation and electronic interface roadmaps as starting points for data sharing. Many current billing, claims, and service issues stem from inadequate data connectivity - we should be more interconnected than we are today.
LM: How does this work given members compete commercially?
Blankenship: The council operates as a neutral, non-competitive environment focused on foundational business improvements. These standards address customer frustrations that undermine long-term relationships across the industry. As all parties face hiring challenges and growing supply chain complexity, we collectively recognize that brute-force staffing solutions are unsustainable - making digital transformation imperative.