October 10, 2025 • 40 mins
In this captivating episode, Richard Savoie, founder of Adiona, takes listeners on a deep dive into the world of AI-powered logistics, sharing how his innovative platform is reshaping the trucking and delivery industry. From solving personal commuting challenges to revolutionizing global delivery networks, Rich’s journey as an engineer and patent holder highlights the transformative potential of humanistic AI. With compelling stories, like enabling a driver to finally take a vacation after three years, and groundbreaking concepts like "radius routing," this episode reveals how technology can prioritize both efficiency and human needs while paving the way for sustainable practices like electric vehicle adoption.
Key Takeaways 👇
✅ Revolutionizing Logistics with AI: Richard Savoie, engineer, patent holder, and founder of Adiona, dives into how humanistic algorithms are transforming the trucking industry, from semi-trucks to e-bikes, optimizing delivery routes with a human-centered approach.
✅ From Personal Problem to Industry Solution: What started as a solution to his sister's inefficient commute grew into a platform that slashed Coca-Cola's delivery distances by 48%, showcasing the power of practical AI applications.
✅ Empowering Drivers: A compelling story of a driver unable to take vacation for three years due to a complex route, solved by Adiona’s AI, which simplified the route enough for any casual driver to cover, highlighting the human impact of technology.
✅ Radius Routing Innovation: Adiona’s AI uses "radius routing" to cluster deliveries around optimal parking spots, mimicking real-world courier behavior for practical, frustration-free routes that maintain efficiency.
✅ Electric Vehicle Integration: Rich explains how commercial EV routing differs from diesel, accounting for payload weight, road grade, and temperature, enabling confident transitions to greener fleets with significant emissions reduction potential.
✅ Global Expansion and Industry Trends: Fresh off winning the Australian Startup World Cup, Adiona is adapting its AI for global markets, addressing cultural and geographic nuances while identifying opportunities like specialized EV maintenance networks at industry conferences.
✅ Try It Yourself: Visit https://www.adionatech.com/ for a free trial to compare your current routes with Adiona’s optimized alternatives and experience the future of delivery logistics.
Interested in being a guest on the podcast? Click here to join the conversation!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Today we're diving into how AI, cleaner tech and
transforming a trucking not justbig rigs, but also delivery
vans right down to e-bikesmaking their last stop On this
episode of that's Delivered.
I'm your host Trucking, ray,and our special guest today is
Richard Savoia.
He's a patent holding engineerand founder of Adionia, an AI
(00:26):
platform optimizing routes foreveryone, from fleet operators
to delivery drivers.
If you ever wonder how tech isreshaping a driving experience,
this is the episode for you,richard, glad to have you on the
show.
How are you doing?
Very good, ray.
How are you, richard?
Glad to have you on the show.
How are you doing?
Very good, ray.
How are you All right?
(00:46):
I wanted to be right by you andsay the name of the company
that you're working for there.
I mean that you're making bigthings happen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Adiona.
Did I say that right?
Yeah, adiona, as we were justjoking around backstage.
You know, just imagine it in anItalian accent.
It really helps, adiona.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Adiona, yeah, I got to put the gesture with it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Edeonia, Pretend you're ordering with some pasta.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I love it.
So, man, I mean most of thetime we get things started
warmed up.
Here, we talk about a littlebit of the backstory and some of
the motivation as to where youare today I mean the CEO and
engineer you're on a greatjourney here.
You got some passion behindthis with the logistics and
stability.
What made you get into thisindustry or what drove you here?
What can we learn about whatyour dream was to start out with
(01:33):
?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a weird story how we got here, because
originally my background I wentto school for engineering.
I was making medical devices,cardiology, cardiovascular
equipment totally not related tologistics at all, but a lot of
manufacturing.
So you know, I was working inthese companies that were
manufacturing hardware andshipping it globally, and all
that based out of Bostoninitially, and now I'm in
(01:57):
Australia.
I was kind of wrapping up withone of those medical device
companies and thinking aboutwell, I think I'm ready to go
and start my own venture, but Idon't know what it's going to be
, and any engineer that you'veprobably met has like a million
ideas of things that they wantto build, and some of them are
good ideas and most of them areterrible ideas.
That's fine, that's normal.
So I had a lot of terribleideas and I had a couple of good
(02:18):
ideas and went out and startedjust kind of workshopping some
of them.
And one of them was around mysister, who is she still lives
in Boston and has always workedin retail, and so the story that
got me was that she was drivingpast three instances of the
same grocery store like the samechain to get to the one that
(02:39):
she worked at and I was likewell, why don't you try and get
like a transfer or something tothe one that's closer to you
(03:09):
no-transcript company?
They feel like they're beinglooked after, and then the
company benefits because theyhave lower recruitment costs,
less turnover, less training andall that stuff from churn, from
employee churn and then ofturnover, less training and all
that stuff that you know fromchurn from employee churn.
And then, of course, the restof us benefit too, because then
(03:30):
the transport network the roads,the bus network, the train
network, all that, less peopleon it, going less distances,
less emissions.
It's just like this reallywinning scenario.
But of course, to make a longstory a little bit shorter, it
didn't work For many reasons.
Like we were trying to get thebusiness up and running, we had
a lot of interest and it wasn'treally working.
But I met my co-founder throughthat process and he is a PhD in
(03:53):
optimization, so he's the realbrains behind this organization
and he had all this capabilitiesto build optimization models
and was a specialist in machinelearning and AI.
So we got an introduction toone of the Coca-Cola bottlers
here in Australia and they saidoh well, you know, you guys seem
(04:15):
to be really clever withoptimization.
Can you optimize all thesedifferent parts of the Coke
ecosystem?
You know, placing products incoolers, how do you maximize
revenue, how do you minimizethings being thrown away and
waste and all that?
But the one that really stoodout to us because of the
emissions reduction componentwas fleet management and
logistics.
(04:35):
And they said could you applythe models and the work that you
did for that previousexperiment, basically the
previous business that we weretrying to stand up, could you
apply that to trucks, todelivery trucks?
And we said, well, we'll giveit a try.
And because we were outsidersfrom the industry, I think we
came at it from a differentangle than they'd seen before
(04:55):
and basically we built like acustom route and optimization
engine for them.
And then, since 2021, we'vebeen just building on that and
commercializing it and sellingit to all sorts of different
companies.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Now Wow, I mean, man, that's a huge breakdown.
I mean there's a lot of movingparts and how do you guys keep
it all together?
I mean that's a lot to consumefor optimization and to be able
to get those results, like yousaid, for a company like
Coca-Cola, to get them what theyneed.
What were some of the initialsteps that you have to take?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, it's a great question because basically, this
is where having a great teammeans everything right.
So my co-founder he's reallyjust so skilled in optimization
and algorithm development and AI.
My job really is to translatethat into stuff that the real
world can work with right.
The gap between what he has inhis head and what an allocator,
(05:51):
a dispatcher or delivery driveris going to use in the field is
quite different, you know.
So really we had to think quitecarefully and work with our
early customers to say, well,what is it that drivers actually
need?
Like what makes a drivabledelivery route that they want to
drive versus one that's justsuper efficient and optimized.
(06:12):
Because I think a lot of theprevious software and solutions
over the last 20 years in thisindustry and trucking generally
have been not great and there'slots of different reasons and
that's probably something we canunpack over a beer sometime.
But like the end result beingthat there's this big gap
between what a delivery driverwants to do in the real world
(06:36):
versus what a software will tellthem and that's a beautiful
application of AI to say, well,actually we can use AI to do
both.
We can create really efficient,beautiful solutions on paper,
but we can also be looking atwhat drivers want to do and what
dispatchers and allocators wantto do and warehouse managers
want to do, and then use that tothen train the algorithms to
(06:58):
provide a more humanistic result.
So that was kind of the NorthStar guidance that we followed
to say we've got all thesemoving parts, we've got all
these variables to consider.
At the end of the day, what'sthe best mashup of efficiency
plus usability?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Nice.
So you got to find the striketo balance in there and make the
impact that's be mostsuccessful and save money and
drive revenue.
I mean that's huge.
Can you just drive and describea standout implementation?
Let's say, with Coca-Cola orPepsiCo that save fuel, time and
stress, or either one, just one.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, all of the above usually.
But also you hinted atsomething too.
Like you know, we're we'retrying to help people save money
, and by saving money they savehours, they save fuel, they can
be more efficient, they canincrease revenue by delivering
more products in the same amountof time, or less time use less
vehicles.
All of those cost savings.
And that's a way to sneak inalso to the sustainability
(07:58):
picture to say, well, by doingall of that, we're actually
reducing the emissions that theycreate to do that same amount
of work.
We're actually reducing theemissions that they create to do
that same amount of work.
And then a big thing for us aswell is there's a lot of
companies that do want to movetowards lower emissions vehicles
.
So either hybrids, electric,hydrogen, and we allow them to
do that on the platform too.
So, kind of to double back toyour question, that initial
(08:21):
implementation that we did withCoke years ago.
What really got them excited isit was just an enormous
reduction in kilometers.
It was 48% reduction in milesto do the same amount of work.
So the amount of distance thatthey had to cover 48% reduction
was enormous.
And we all kind of didn'tbelieve that that could be, you
know, realistic until we put itto the test and got out there.
(08:43):
And you know, realistic untilwe put it to the test and got
out there and, and you know,rode along with the drivers and
saw the reason that the modelsthat we were creating, the
software we were creating, wasallowing them to really take
control over the operation in away that they hadn't before.
And I remember vividly thefirst ride alone I did, um was
with their bulk water delivery.
So you know, like, like thePoland spring style, cooler
(09:05):
water, these big bottles ofwater.
So Coke down here owns one ofthose companies, the biggest one
in Australia.
So I go out on one of thosetrucks and, um, you know, just
getting to know the driver andwe're driving around and we're
doing these deliveries and itwas a long day and, you know,
through the course of the dayI'm talking with him about just
his life and he was saying howhe hadn't had a vacation in
(09:28):
three years and the reason wasbecause his route was so
complicated that there was nocasual cover driver that could
do it to go on vacation.
He would just get blown up withphone calls and WhatsApp
messages of people, you knowtrying to trying to get him to
(09:50):
solve these problems and figureout, you know like, how to do
his route.
It just wasn't worth it.
So, like you know, this guy'sgot kids.
He hasn't been on a vacation inthree years with his kids.
It's crazy.
And he's working, like you know,12 hour days, and so that's
what was so exciting when wewere able to implement this
solution for them and see thathis total keep in mind too.
These are owner operatorcontract drivers, right, so
(10:12):
they're getting paid on a perpiece rate.
He gets paid per bottle ofwater that he delivers, do the
same amount of work, make thesame amount of money in like 30%
less time, and then have theroute to be so predictable and
(10:34):
repeatable that any casualdriver could come in and take
over for him for a day or a weekor two weeks was so cool
because it just, it literallychanged his life in such a
positive way and so saving money, reducing emissions, driver's
labs are improved.
It's just, it's a win-win.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Wow, yeah, I mean think about the impact for the
driver also, the customer righton down to you know that
provider in that area of helpingthat community.
So, yeah, that's a great impact.
It's making great changes formany places around the world.
Great job, you know, like youmentioned, you're in Australia,
(11:10):
so bringing that same mentalityfrom your area too can help
other countries, like here inthe US.
So I'm glad to talk with youguys and got that going.
Talk about radius routing,grouping stops nearby how does
that change for drivers day today?
I mean, like you know, maybethey could do that themselves or
(11:32):
is it something that the systemcan make easier for them?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You nailed it, ray.
That's exactly the insightthere.
So radius routing is somethingI'm really excited about because
it came from, it was an ideafrom our customers, especially
like uh couriers, like parcelcouriers.
So if you're in um, you knowyou're in Minnesota, right, and
you're you're, you got thisdense grid network in in
downtown and you're a parcelcourier, you work for any one of
(11:58):
the typical parcel couriers UPS, fedex, usps, whatever.
Um a routing system, typicallythe same type of systems that we
build.
It's only kind of aware ofevery individual drop, every
individual delivery that you'vegot to make, right, it doesn't
really know the relationshipbetween the different deliveries
.
So if you've got a big mall andyou've got a massive mall in uh
(12:23):
in minneapolis, right, therouting system's probably going
to take you to, like, the, thenorthwest corner because there's
a delivery up there, and thenif there's other deliveries on
the one-way streets on the wayto loop back around, it's going
to make you do all thosedeliveries and then loop back
around to, say, the southeastcorner.
Okay, do you know what I'msaying?
Like no, like it's going tojust take you on this trip to do
(12:46):
all these deliveries.
But any parcel car here willknow that if they get a parking
spot at that mall or whatever,they're going to park that one
spot and they're going to smashout as much as they can do on
foot with a two wheel dolly or acart or whatever, cause who
knows where they're going to getparking again that area,
especially if it's like themiddle of the day.
So what radius routing does iswe developed an AI algorithm to
(13:09):
look at the relationship, bothin distance and like if it's on
the same block or you knowconnecting block, so that it
guides them to the most likelyparking location and then says
cool, here are all thedeliveries that you can do on
foot in that area.
Park once, do as many as youcan on foot and then go off and
(13:31):
do your next job, and for acourier, that's matching what
they want to do, and so it'screating a world that actually
suits them.
It's efficient by the numbers,just to be really clear.
Maybe that's like 1% lessefficient than what an algorithm
would say to do.
Maybe it's 2% less efficient,but it's so much more important
(13:55):
in an instance like that to lookafter the driver and do what's
actually practical for them thansaving that extra 1% or 2%
because you're going to get thelong-term payoff of that
driver's happy.
They're happy with the work.
It makes sense.
The tools are helping themrather than just annoying them
like it's it's.
It's worth it to do that.
So those are the types oflittle things where, again,
(14:16):
using ai to be humanistic andand look after the people is
really important yeah, it closesthat gap and, like said, it
makes less impact on the driver.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
More human-like algorithms.
I think that's what we want.
I think it's.
You know, you just look at onething on the paper and then you
know in reality it's a wholedifferent picture.
So I was glad to see thatthat's important to a company
like yourself and to also thosecustomers that you're providing
it for so great.
Being a driver myself and alsoworking for a parcel company,
(14:49):
that is a big deal.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That's good to hear.
You know it's one of thosethings that we're always looking
for the best ideas from thepeople that use it.
You know it's not us justsitting in a lab or in an office
trying to figure this stuff out, which, you know, it's what's
happening in the real world.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Nice.
Any driver feedback orsurprised you when you drove, or
drove further updates thatmaybe say, hey, this is going in
the right direction.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, definitely, we're always talking to drivers.
It's kind of funny.
We're always talking to driversand it's it's kind of funny,
Like when we're talking with acompany in the early stage.
It's about implementation andthey're like okay, we want to do
this, but how do we test thatit's working and how do we know
that it's going to deliver theresults that we want?
That's usually where it startsis let's go talk to the drivers
(15:40):
and find out what's limitingthem right now, what's annoying
them right now, and oftentimesit's stuff that's not really
related to, maybe, theoptimization piece, but there's
other things that areproblematic, but we might be
able to still solve that forthem or improve it.
So it all starts with havingthose conversations, and you
(16:02):
also might appreciate that, likeyou know, some people are more
into technology than others.
Some people are more old schooland they don't want to use any
technology.
They just want to papermanifests and and or or no, you
know, and just go out and doeverything on their own and
choose their own adventure, andthat's fine too.
So we often start with saying,okay, well, find us the people
who are the most resistant tousing technology, and if they're
(16:24):
happy with the way that thistechnology works or everybody's
going to be happy.
Um, and oftentimes happy is areally interesting, you know, uh
, measurement too, because it'smore like if they don't hate it
and complain about it constantly, that equals happy.
It's like you know what I meanIf, if it's like, okay, cool,
(16:45):
this, this technology is fine,and and and it works, then
that's usually a good score.
Because there's just so manythings that can go wrong in the
real world with traffic andweather and you know, and line
halls coming in late.
There's a million things thatcould go wrong.
The last thing you want is forthe technology to be another
headache and another distraction.
You want those people who youknow, who use it, to tell you oh
(17:10):
yeah, this actually is fine andit works and helps me get
through my day faster or easieror whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, I mean, if a tool in your toolbox isn't good
or efficient, it typically goesto the bottom or to the back, so
that's great.
I mean you guys see that'simportant.
It's nice to know that, from aleadership standpoint, an owner
standpoint, that you see thatit's very valuable.
I mean I think that's going toresonate in how you produce your
quality of tools that they canuse out there.
(17:37):
I was thinking about yourecently released a report
stating electrifying commercialvehicles yield out size impact.
Why is EV trucking alow-hanging fruit?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Oh yeah, that's a really interesting one because
we did a big data analysis on umin the um, department of
transportation releases data, uh, on you know what types of
vehicles fleets use and whattheir efficiency is.
And then there's all this umvoluntary reporting that they
can do to the EPA so that um,you know they can be measuring
(18:13):
what their emissions scores are.
And what we found is that, youknow, articulated trucks, big
rigs, semis, things like thatthey're only 1% of the
population of vehicles.
So you know, for every vehicle,only one out of 100 vehicles in
the US is a big rig, butthey're responsible for 15% of
(18:33):
the emissions of all vehicles.
And that kind of makes sensebecause they're bigger of all
vehicles.
And that kind of makes sensebecause they're bigger, they
burn more fuel, they run longerhours, they do more miles, you
know, and so you compare thoseto passenger vehicles and of
course, they're going to emitmore.
But what we see is the focus onreducing emissions and,
(18:55):
especially in theelectrification of vehicles
world, mainly the money and theattention goes to the passenger
vehicles.
So you know, people talk moreabout passenger vehicles.
What if you are electrifyingvehicles with Tesla or Uber robo
taxis?
That'll be, you know, built onthe Tesla platform, be fully
electric and all that it's great.
But when you look at apassenger car I don't know about
(19:17):
your car, but my car sitsaround doing nothing for most of
the time, you know it's notrunning as many miles as a
delivery vehicle, right?
So that's where the low hangingfruit comes in, because you
know the amount of emissions isso much easier to address in a
vehicle that's running moremiles and doing more time, and
(19:40):
so if you can address it there,you can actually dramatically
reduce the amount of emissions.
But the way to do that is verydifferent.
Electrifying a commercialdelivery fleet is very, very
different from just selling yourHyundai or your Ford and
switching to a Tesla.
It's such a bigger conversationbecause you need to think about
(20:02):
electrifying the depot andcharge infrastructure and all
these other things.
So what we're trying to helpfleets do is stick with what
they have.
We're not anti-diesel oranything like that.
It's more about, again, thelong-term journey.
So let's optimize what you got.
Today.
We can help drive someemissions reductions and that's
cool.
But also our platform was one ofthe first in the world that has
(20:25):
native electric vehicle routingcapability, and I'll unpack
that for you just for a minute,like for people who aren't in
the field, it's not alwaysobvious that the way that you
would route a delivery route foran electric vehicle might be
very different from the way youwould route a diesel one, and
the main reasons are thetemperature, the um, attitude of
(20:48):
the road, the road angle so hishilly versus flat um and the
the payload, so like what's theweight that you're actually
carrying, and that can varydepending on the type of
deliveries that you're doing.
Right, parcels versus beveragesversus food versus other thing.
You get a different weightprofile, and so the main
differences are that an electricvehicle battery will deplete
(21:10):
much faster under a heavy loadthan a diesel will.
Okay, you won't burn quite asmuch of an increase in diesel as
you will deplete an EV batteryunder a heavy load.
Second thing is that attitude ofthe road piece, so some
electric vehicles can't evenstart on a hill that's above a
certain grade, and that getsmuch worse if they have a heavy
(21:32):
payload.
So you got to be really carefulthat you're not, like you know,
routing in San Francisco orsomething like that, where
you're on a hill and then thevehicle is going to get stuck
and stranded and then thetemperature being the other
biggest one, which is, you know,super cold versus super hot,
electric vehicles aren't goingto perform as well and they're
going to.
The batteries are going to getdepleted faster than, again, the
(21:54):
diesel equivalent.
So, having all of that in theplatform so that, as companies
do want to do experiments totransition to other types of
vehicles like electric orhydrogen, they can do those
experiments right within thesame platform, they can get all
the answers they need to plan itout and then they can do that
(22:15):
with confidence.
They can do it with confidencethat it's going to work and
they'll have a journey to dothat.
So we were working with somereally big retailers in
Australia, but also in the UStoo.
So we are growing in the US andthat's one of the key pieces is
just providing theexperimentation and simulation
platform for them to starthaving those conversations and
(22:36):
making some plans and then,obviously, once they get ready
to invest some real dollars indeploying it, they know that
it's going to be a success, nota failure.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Huge.
I mean you got to get used to anew system and get used to new
vehicles.
I mean you already have themused to your platform and all
they have to do is startthinking about how they can move
to the EV.
I mean that's great to helpthem with that transition
process.
I think that's going to be agreat tool for a lot of
companies to save costs.
(23:06):
So good foresight in doing that, that's good Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, it is a bit of a build it and they will come
type of strategy.
You know what I mean.
Sometimes you have to be alittle bit ahead of the curve
and then everything catches up.
But then you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Sometimes you have to be a little bit ahead of the
curve and then and theneverything catches up, but then
hopefully, you're in the rightplace to capture them and and
help them when they're ready.
That's what it's all about, heyman.
So yeah, when you're helpingpeople, you're, you're
definitely going to make changes.
Uh, because that's what we needin this world is, uh, that
teamwork and helping each otherout.
I mean, even you just coming onthe podcast too, from a whole
different time zone, I thinkthat's huge.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
So I appreciate that.
Thanks, ray, and honestly, youproviding a platform, especially
in this industry which is likeso under the radar for most
people.
You know, one of the things Ilove to do is talk to kids about
this stuff because they don'ttend to think, you know, like oh
, where does my Amazon deliveryactually come from?
And like how does it get to me?
Right.
But I think that awareness issuper important to kind of like
(24:03):
peel back that layer of thematrix and help them realize
like this is a huge, hugemachine that literally runs the
world Supply chain, is like theoperating system for the entire
global economy, and yet it'sjust not a dinner table
conversation, but I think itshould be yeah, I try to talk
with my wife quite a few timesabout it and you can see your
(24:26):
eyes glaze over right it mightdo.
It's just like they're like Idon't know what you're talking
about, but I feel like this isthis is the time in the world
right where it's good to talkabout these things.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Nice.
So the industry shows insightsYou've presented at Home
Delivery World Move America.
There's quite a few things youdo to get the word out there.
What feedback or trends havestuck with you throughout those
experiences?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, conferences are always really interesting,
those experiences, yeah,conferences are always really
interesting, move America, homeDelivery World being some of the
bigger ones that are focused onlast mile delivery, but also
just delivery generally.
And then there's ones likeManifest in Las Vegas.
There's lots of them out thereand we're always interested to
see the different ways thatpeople are addressing the same
(25:18):
problems.
So same problems, meaning thatyou know it's, it's pretty kind
of easy to understand thatyou've got raw materials that
get dug up from the ground orwhatever and they go to a
manufacturing facility and theyget turned into something and
that gets shipped to a warehouseand then that gets shipped to
you somehow and we all kind ofknow how that process works.
(25:39):
But there's so many differentangles to address different
parts of that problem.
And then there's this, theother thing that I really pay
attention to and might beinteresting for your audiences.
You know, in the software worldwhich a lot of these conferences
, right, it's a lot of softwarecompanies.
There's kind of this divisionbetween either you provide an
(26:01):
end-to-end platform that doeseverything, so maybe the most
famous ones being like SAP andOracle and Salesforce, right,
these really massive monolithicsoftware companies that they
literally will do everything,including optimization and all
sorts of stuff, right, butthey're super expensive, they
take a long time to configureand customize and all that.
(26:22):
And you've got all thesestartups at these conferences
that are kind of trying toreplicate that model, but to do
it better.
And then you've got the totalpolar opposite, which is more
companies like us I'd say we fitinto this opposite bucket where
everything we do is availableas what we call an API, an
application programminginterface.
So if you want to just optimizethe sequence of a route, you
(26:45):
could take that one little piece.
If you want to use AI to mineyour historical data, you can
take that one little piece.
If you want real-time estimatedtime of arrival tracking and a
link for your customers tofollow along with where the
truck is, you can have thatpiece.
You can have them allseparately, which suits bigger
organizations because they tendto have already this like
(27:07):
massive rat's nest of softwarethat they just want to like plug
different problem solutionsinto.
So that's what we learned andwe are getting feedback at these
conferences, like how arepeople approaching solving all
of these pretty well-knownproblems but in very different
ways, either end to end, orplugging and playing different
pieces, puzzle pieces along theway.
(27:28):
Yeah, everybody does it a littlebit differently, and of course,
it's different all over theworld too.
You know, one of the coolthings about Australia is that
it's about the same size as theUS geographically.
Is that it's about the samesize as the US geographically?
So continental US you couldoverlay it on top of the map of
Australia and they're about thesame size.
So we also have this problem of, well, how do you get
(27:53):
multimodal transport andregional carrier transport all
linked together for a truesolution?
And so those learnings aresomething that everybody's kind
of figuring out too.
It's like this disruption of itused to be more driven by these
major national end-to-endcarriers, but now there's this
massive increase in smallerregional carriers that are then
using technology to kind of linkthemselves all together.
(28:15):
How is that going to play outin a future AI world?
We don't know, but we'refollowing it really closely,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow, yeah, I mean people forget that you know the
size of you know thosecontinents or how they play a
part with each otherlogistically.
You know the miles and the fuel, the cost to get things from
here to there.
We don't think about it and,like you said, we expose that to
get that out there and talkabout it.
(28:43):
That's huge.
Any antidotes from these eventsor driver conversations or any
aha moments that come aroundfrom starting these
conversations?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I mean, oftentimes at a conference you
meet so many interesting peopleand some of the ones that stick
with you are those human storieswhere you see the impact that
something has made.
You know, I'll give you onethat's maybe also a business
idea for your audience too inthe electrification space, which
(29:17):
is that there's, you know, allthis great activity and we talk
about EVs and things like thatat the conferences and one of
the things we realized from someconversations is that while it
seems really attractive toinvest in EVs, who's going to
service them?
You know they have a lot lessmoving parts than a combustion
engine, which is great, but theyalso still require maintenance.
(29:39):
They need tires, they needbrakes, they need, you know,
service and all that.
And there's no like dealershipnetwork or service network set
up around the U?
S to service all these.
So we were talking with a coupleof really massive companies and
they were like that's thebiggest limitation is they
really want to invest inelectrification but they don't
(30:03):
know how to handle the servicething.
So one of them, an interestingcompany I can't say exactly who,
but it's a name you'd know um,and they have a massive
footprint around the us.
They're actually building theirown service and training
company.
So they're basically likespinning out a company that will
almost be like a?
Um, like a trade school forelectric vehicle service
(30:26):
technicians, and they'llobviously use it for themselves,
but then they're gonna have itas a separate, wholly owned
company that will then doservice and maintenance for
everybody else's fleets too.
It was like, wow, that's,that's really cool to see that
the entire game is being changedthere and some companies are
going to come up with entirelynew businesses that they can
(30:48):
spin out.
So that was really eye-openingfor me, because you know we're
thinking more like oh yeah, youknow, you buy the vehicle, you
use the vehicle, you charge thevehicle, but the service
component is such a big missinggap that it's cool to see people
addressing.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Nice.
Yeah, the service industry isdefinitely taking a hit.
No-transcript and we just gotto buy a new one.
(31:30):
I mean, yeah, that'sfrustrating.
So it's good they're planningit.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, and you know, reskilling people in an AI world
, I think is so criticallyimportant and it's something
that as a society, as a world,we've kind of screwed up a bunch
of times.
You know, like since theoriginal industrial revolution
with the Luddites and stuff.
You know, people are scaredwhen there's a big change on the
horizon and they should bebecause their job might be under
(31:57):
threat.
My job might be under threat,your job might be under threat.
So, yeah, we all should bereally cautious about how a new
technology, any new technology,whether TVs or AI being the ones
we're talking about, are goingto impact the job market and the
ability for people to feedtheir kids.
I find that stuff to be superimportant and not often the top
(32:19):
priority of big companies, right, they just don't really care
oftentimes, unfortunately.
So, yeah, I think having thoseconversations around oh cool,
well, service industry that's areally good opportunity to take
people who are strugglingalready, like you said, it's a
shrinking industry.
How do we actually proactivelyreskill those people and give
(32:39):
them that ability to still havea trade that they can invest in
that can't be replicated by AIanytime in the near future, you
know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I think that's huge.
And enabling the, the bottomuser, to feel empowered, that
they have a future ahead of them, I think that's huge.
I mean, you think about amechanic.
If they were to operate like abarbershop where they just rent
the stall and they were able tohave their own personal
clientele.
That would come back to themand they get to know that
(33:12):
mechanic.
He can also project out hisfuture on the bottom end.
But a lot of times it gets put,like you said, a turn a grind
hard to retain drivers or evenemployees because they're not
happy.
It gets turned into a grind.
You know where.
They're just grinding outpeople.
So if we can just change itaround, where we empower people
(33:33):
to be more of the end user witha good result of reaping
production from their hard work,you know, I think that's going
to be huge.
I think that's going to playout.
And you know, if there's apublicly traded company that
can't make those moves, ifthey're able to diversify and
have a privately owned company,like you said, if they have that
(33:55):
little thing that they'retrying to do to get those
mechanics taught and trained towork on electric vehicles, I
think that's going to be greatgoes.
I think that's going to begreat.
So, um, kind of going off thesubject a little bit, but yeah,
I mean that's huge.
I mean we, we get excited whenwe see people do big things.
You know, um, big companychanges like that.
So yeah, there's also one to bescared, but also another to be
(34:16):
excited about when we see greatthings happen.
So, uh, champion, any companyout there that wants to look out
for mankind, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
So great job.
I love what you said about thebarbershop model too.
I think that's that's reallysmart because, um, it's a
personal relationship, you know,um, there's there's some things
that you can't replicate withtechnology, and and just the
ability to like, trust a certainperson that just kind of knows
what you want, um, you know, hasthat kind of that, that kind of
(34:42):
relationship with you that youuh feel comfortable with with
your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That's actually really important, and I think
you're right, companies shouldinvest in disrupting traditional
business models, but stillkeeping an eye on how to make
them personal, yeah, as acompany it's not just or a
business-minded individual isnot all about just making money,
but look at what the impact youcan leave behind, the footprint
(35:10):
that you can leave behind forgenerations to come.
I think that I mean, I alwaysget excited about that.
So when it comes to business,yeah, I love that stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, me too.
It's good to hear that.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, I mean, look at what you guys are doing so
optimizing, making things,change.
For that grind out there forthe driver, like you say, you
couldn't take a vacation forthree years and you're able to
make that change, so that's huge, thank you.
So, yeah, so for the next sixto 12 months, maybe what's the
future look like?
Do you have any partnerships ornew features that are coming on
the horizon?
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, we're really excited about the next phase of
our journey.
So you know, a little tidbitthat I can say right now,
because it just happened lastweek, is that we won the
Australian Startup World Cupwith Pegasus Ventures, tipping
in a million bucks in investmentif we win, which is really
exciting.
So give us a little bit ofpositive cheering in the
(36:20):
background, because that wouldbe transformative for us.
Transformative for us and, yeah, and the next phase of growth
is I think we've done a good jobof proving that this technology
works well here in theAustralian market.
But the Australian market isvery small.
It's, you know, about one 11ththe size of the American market,
and then if you start thinkingabout Canada and Mexico and
(36:42):
Central and South America andEurope, you know there's massive
markets out there that we cannow deploy to.
So we're really excited aboutstarting to address that more
seriously.
And that's one of the reasonsthat we have been spending a lot
of time over in the US atplaces like Home Delivery World
and these conferences, becausewe want to do it right and we
want to adapt it specificallyfor every country that we expand
(37:06):
into, and I think that's againwhere there's this amazing power
of AI to help you customizeculturally and geographically
and linguistically and all thatstuff for every market that you
enter into.
So we're working that out rightnow.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Beautiful, Great job, man.
Thanks for taking the time toexplain that and share that,
Something for us to get excitedabout.
I think there's great things onthe horizon for you guys.
Keep up the great work.
I think it's going to be a lotmore that we can look forward to
.
Like I say, AI is just makingthings a lot more easier,
accessible and something that alot of people may not have
(37:43):
thought about before.
But now they can play into thegame and make changes where
there's necessary.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Richard.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, thanks, man.
I really appreciate you havingme.
It was really a lot of fun totalk about this stuff with you.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, stuff that's passionate to you and it means a
lot coming from the heart, so Iappreciate you doing that, so
anybody that's interested inwhat's going on over there.
Thank you so much for unpackingthat from the AI, making things
safer, cleaner and smoother forfleets, drivers' wellness too,
like I said, for keeping drivershappy To our trucking audience.
(38:18):
If you get a chance to workwith tech like this, it may feel
like it's getting you know, itmay feel like getting a co-pilot
, so it will help you avoidgridlock and it's going to also
help where you can charge andkeep your electric vehicles up
to date and then where it counts, so let's finish the day where
(38:41):
it's less stress.
Why do we want to add more tothe plate, right?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
So any call of action that you want to put out there,
Maybe any last words of wisdomyou want to share with the
audience.
Just really grateful for theopportunity to talk about this
stuff and if anyone isinterested in not just what we
do but just really about theintersection of AI and supply
chain generally, reallyencourage them to reach out to
(39:07):
me personally.
Go to our website Our contactdetails are there and, again,
we're just really excited aboutthis next phase of the
technology in supply chain andlogistics and passionate about
it.
So happy to talk to anybodyabout it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And do I have that right?
Is there a free trial platformto take a look at?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a great point.
So anyone is welcome to go toour website and there's a free
trial button.
they can get immediate access tothe platform, upload data with
the CSV file you know, an Excelfile and start optimizing their
own routes immediately and theycan use that, you know for their
own personal use or forcommercial use and see what the
(39:53):
impact really is, and theplatform allows them to even
upload their historical routes,like what they did yesterday,
and then optimize it to see whatthe comparison would be.
So it's a really powerful wayto see what the results can be
with your own data.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Nice.
All right well, and you canalso find Richard on LinkedIn.
You can connect with him thereand also listen to his latest on
sustainability, fleetelectrification and also
logistics tech.
So thank you for listening in,and that's another episode of
that's Delivered.
Today we're diving into how AI, cleaner tech and
transforming a trucking not justbig rigs, but also delivery
vans right down to e-bikesmaking their last stop On this
episode of that's Delivered.
I'm your host Trucking, ray,and our special guest today is
Richard Savoia.
He's a patent holding engineerand founder of Adionia, an AI
(00:26):
platform optimizing routes foreveryone, from fleet operators
to delivery drivers.
If you ever wonder how tech isreshaping a driving experience,
this is the episode for you,richard, glad to have you on the
show.
How are you doing?
Very good, ray.
How are you, richard?
Glad to have you on the show.
How are you doing?
Very good, ray.
How are you All right?
(00:46):
I wanted to be right by you andsay the name of the company
that you're working for there.
I mean that you're making bigthings happen.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Adiona.
Did I say that right?
Yeah, adiona, as we were justjoking around backstage.
You know, just imagine it in anItalian accent.
It really helps, adiona.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Adiona, yeah, I got to put the gesture with it.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Edeonia, Pretend you're ordering with some pasta.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I love it.
So, man, I mean most of thetime we get things started
warmed up.
Here, we talk about a littlebit of the backstory and some of
the motivation as to where youare today I mean the CEO and
engineer you're on a greatjourney here.
You got some passion behindthis with the logistics and
stability.
What made you get into thisindustry or what drove you here?
What can we learn about whatyour dream was to start out with
(01:33):
?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
It's a weird story how we got here, because
originally my background I wentto school for engineering.
I was making medical devices,cardiology, cardiovascular
equipment totally not related tologistics at all, but a lot of
manufacturing.
So you know, I was working inthese companies that were
manufacturing hardware andshipping it globally, and all
that based out of Bostoninitially, and now I'm in
(01:57):
Australia.
I was kind of wrapping up withone of those medical device
companies and thinking aboutwell, I think I'm ready to go
and start my own venture, but Idon't know what it's going to be
, and any engineer that you'veprobably met has like a million
ideas of things that they wantto build, and some of them are
good ideas and most of them areterrible ideas.
That's fine, that's normal.
So I had a lot of terribleideas and I had a couple of good
(02:18):
ideas and went out and startedjust kind of workshopping some
of them.
And one of them was around mysister, who is she still lives
in Boston and has always workedin retail, and so the story that
got me was that she was drivingpast three instances of the
same grocery store like the samechain to get to the one that
(02:39):
she worked at and I was likewell, why don't you try and get
like a transfer or something tothe one that's closer to you
(03:09):
no-transcript company?
They feel like they're beinglooked after, and then the
company benefits because theyhave lower recruitment costs,
less turnover, less training andall that stuff from churn, from
employee churn and then ofturnover, less training and all
that stuff that you know fromchurn from employee churn.
And then, of course, the restof us benefit too, because then
(03:30):
the transport network the roads,the bus network, the train
network, all that, less peopleon it, going less distances,
less emissions.
It's just like this reallywinning scenario.
But of course, to make a longstory a little bit shorter, it
didn't work For many reasons.
Like we were trying to get thebusiness up and running, we had
a lot of interest and it wasn'treally working.
But I met my co-founder throughthat process and he is a PhD in
(03:53):
optimization, so he's the realbrains behind this organization
and he had all this capabilitiesto build optimization models
and was a specialist in machinelearning and AI.
So we got an introduction toone of the Coca-Cola bottlers
here in Australia and they saidoh well, you know, you guys seem
(04:15):
to be really clever withoptimization.
Can you optimize all thesedifferent parts of the Coke
ecosystem?
You know, placing products incoolers, how do you maximize
revenue, how do you minimizethings being thrown away and
waste and all that?
But the one that really stoodout to us because of the
emissions reduction componentwas fleet management and
logistics.
(04:35):
And they said could you applythe models and the work that you
did for that previousexperiment, basically the
previous business that we weretrying to stand up, could you
apply that to trucks, todelivery trucks?
And we said, well, we'll giveit a try.
And because we were outsidersfrom the industry, I think we
came at it from a differentangle than they'd seen before
(04:55):
and basically we built like acustom route and optimization
engine for them.
And then, since 2021, we'vebeen just building on that and
commercializing it and sellingit to all sorts of different
companies.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Now Wow, I mean, man, that's a huge breakdown.
I mean there's a lot of movingparts and how do you guys keep
it all together?
I mean that's a lot to consumefor optimization and to be able
to get those results, like yousaid, for a company like
Coca-Cola, to get them what theyneed.
What were some of the initialsteps that you have to take?
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Well, it's a great question because basically, this
is where having a great teammeans everything right.
So my co-founder he's reallyjust so skilled in optimization
and algorithm development and AI.
My job really is to translatethat into stuff that the real
world can work with right.
The gap between what he has inhis head and what an allocator,
(05:51):
a dispatcher or delivery driveris going to use in the field is
quite different, you know.
So really we had to think quitecarefully and work with our
early customers to say, well,what is it that drivers actually
need?
Like what makes a drivabledelivery route that they want to
drive versus one that's justsuper efficient and optimized.
(06:12):
Because I think a lot of theprevious software and solutions
over the last 20 years in thisindustry and trucking generally
have been not great and there'slots of different reasons and
that's probably something we canunpack over a beer sometime.
But like the end result beingthat there's this big gap
between what a delivery driverwants to do in the real world
(06:36):
versus what a software will tellthem and that's a beautiful
application of AI to say, well,actually we can use AI to do
both.
We can create really efficient,beautiful solutions on paper,
but we can also be looking atwhat drivers want to do and what
dispatchers and allocators wantto do and warehouse managers
want to do, and then use that tothen train the algorithms to
(06:58):
provide a more humanistic result.
So that was kind of the NorthStar guidance that we followed
to say we've got all thesemoving parts, we've got all
these variables to consider.
At the end of the day, what'sthe best mashup of efficiency
plus usability?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Nice.
So you got to find the striketo balance in there and make the
impact that's be mostsuccessful and save money and
drive revenue.
I mean that's huge.
Can you just drive and describea standout implementation?
Let's say, with Coca-Cola orPepsiCo that save fuel, time and
stress, or either one, just one.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, all of the above usually.
But also you hinted atsomething too.
Like you know, we're we'retrying to help people save money
, and by saving money they savehours, they save fuel, they can
be more efficient, they canincrease revenue by delivering
more products in the same amountof time, or less time use less
vehicles.
All of those cost savings.
And that's a way to sneak inalso to the sustainability
(07:58):
picture to say, well, by doingall of that, we're actually
reducing the emissions that theycreate to do that same amount
of work.
We're actually reducing theemissions that they create to do
that same amount of work.
And then a big thing for us aswell is there's a lot of
companies that do want to movetowards lower emissions vehicles
.
So either hybrids, electric,hydrogen, and we allow them to
do that on the platform too.
So, kind of to double back toyour question, that initial
(08:21):
implementation that we did withCoke years ago.
What really got them excited isit was just an enormous
reduction in kilometers.
It was 48% reduction in milesto do the same amount of work.
So the amount of distance thatthey had to cover 48% reduction
was enormous.
And we all kind of didn'tbelieve that that could be, you
know, realistic until we put itto the test and got out there.
(08:43):
And you know, realistic untilwe put it to the test and got
out there and, and you know,rode along with the drivers and
saw the reason that the modelsthat we were creating, the
software we were creating, wasallowing them to really take
control over the operation in away that they hadn't before.
And I remember vividly thefirst ride alone I did, um was
with their bulk water delivery.
So you know, like, like thePoland spring style, cooler
(09:05):
water, these big bottles ofwater.
So Coke down here owns one ofthose companies, the biggest one
in Australia.
So I go out on one of thosetrucks and, um, you know, just
getting to know the driver andwe're driving around and we're
doing these deliveries and itwas a long day and, you know,
through the course of the dayI'm talking with him about just
his life and he was saying howhe hadn't had a vacation in
(09:28):
three years and the reason wasbecause his route was so
complicated that there was nocasual cover driver that could
do it to go on vacation.
He would just get blown up withphone calls and WhatsApp
messages of people, you knowtrying to trying to get him to
(09:50):
solve these problems and figureout, you know like, how to do
his route.
It just wasn't worth it.
So, like you know, this guy'sgot kids.
He hasn't been on a vacation inthree years with his kids.
It's crazy.
And he's working, like you know,12 hour days, and so that's
what was so exciting when wewere able to implement this
solution for them and see thathis total keep in mind too.
These are owner operatorcontract drivers, right, so
(10:12):
they're getting paid on a perpiece rate.
He gets paid per bottle ofwater that he delivers, do the
same amount of work, make thesame amount of money in like 30%
less time, and then have theroute to be so predictable and
(10:34):
repeatable that any casualdriver could come in and take
over for him for a day or a weekor two weeks was so cool
because it just, it literallychanged his life in such a
positive way and so saving money, reducing emissions, driver's
labs are improved.
It's just, it's a win-win.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Wow, yeah, I mean think about the impact for the
driver also, the customer righton down to you know that
provider in that area of helpingthat community.
So, yeah, that's a great impact.
It's making great changes formany places around the world.
Great job, you know, like youmentioned, you're in Australia,
(11:10):
so bringing that same mentalityfrom your area too can help
other countries, like here inthe US.
So I'm glad to talk with youguys and got that going.
Talk about radius routing,grouping stops nearby how does
that change for drivers day today?
I mean, like you know, maybethey could do that themselves or
(11:32):
is it something that the systemcan make easier for them?
Speaker 2 (11:36):
You nailed it, ray.
That's exactly the insightthere.
So radius routing is somethingI'm really excited about because
it came from, it was an ideafrom our customers, especially
like uh couriers, like parcelcouriers.
So if you're in um, you knowyou're in Minnesota, right, and
you're you're, you got thisdense grid network in in
downtown and you're a parcelcourier, you work for any one of
(11:58):
the typical parcel couriers UPS, fedex, usps, whatever.
Um a routing system, typicallythe same type of systems that we
build.
It's only kind of aware ofevery individual drop, every
individual delivery that you'vegot to make, right, it doesn't
really know the relationshipbetween the different deliveries
.
So if you've got a big mall andyou've got a massive mall in uh
(12:23):
in minneapolis, right, therouting system's probably going
to take you to, like, the, thenorthwest corner because there's
a delivery up there, and thenif there's other deliveries on
the one-way streets on the wayto loop back around, it's going
to make you do all thosedeliveries and then loop back
around to, say, the southeastcorner.
Okay, do you know what I'msaying?
Like no, like it's going tojust take you on this trip to do
(12:46):
all these deliveries.
But any parcel car here willknow that if they get a parking
spot at that mall or whatever,they're going to park that one
spot and they're going to smashout as much as they can do on
foot with a two wheel dolly or acart or whatever, cause who
knows where they're going to getparking again that area,
especially if it's like themiddle of the day.
So what radius routing does iswe developed an AI algorithm to
(13:09):
look at the relationship, bothin distance and like if it's on
the same block or you knowconnecting block, so that it
guides them to the most likelyparking location and then says
cool, here are all thedeliveries that you can do on
foot in that area.
Park once, do as many as youcan on foot and then go off and
(13:31):
do your next job, and for acourier, that's matching what
they want to do, and so it'screating a world that actually
suits them.
It's efficient by the numbers,just to be really clear.
Maybe that's like 1% lessefficient than what an algorithm
would say to do.
Maybe it's 2% less efficient,but it's so much more important
(13:55):
in an instance like that to lookafter the driver and do what's
actually practical for them thansaving that extra 1% or 2%
because you're going to get thelong-term payoff of that
driver's happy.
They're happy with the work.
It makes sense.
The tools are helping themrather than just annoying them
like it's it's.
It's worth it to do that.
So those are the types oflittle things where, again,
(14:16):
using ai to be humanistic andand look after the people is
really important yeah, it closesthat gap and, like said, it
makes less impact on the driver.
Speaker 1 (14:26):
More human-like algorithms.
I think that's what we want.
I think it's.
You know, you just look at onething on the paper and then you
know in reality it's a wholedifferent picture.
So I was glad to see thatthat's important to a company
like yourself and to also thosecustomers that you're providing
it for so great.
Being a driver myself and alsoworking for a parcel company,
(14:49):
that is a big deal.
So thank you.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
That's good to hear.
You know it's one of thosethings that we're always looking
for the best ideas from thepeople that use it.
You know it's not us justsitting in a lab or in an office
trying to figure this stuff out, which, you know, it's what's
happening in the real world.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Nice.
Any driver feedback orsurprised you when you drove, or
drove further updates thatmaybe say, hey, this is going in
the right direction.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Yeah, definitely, we're always talking to drivers.
It's kind of funny.
We're always talking to driversand it's it's kind of funny,
Like when we're talking with acompany in the early stage.
It's about implementation andthey're like okay, we want to do
this, but how do we test thatit's working and how do we know
that it's going to deliver theresults that we want?
That's usually where it startsis let's go talk to the drivers
(15:40):
and find out what's limitingthem right now, what's annoying
them right now, and oftentimesit's stuff that's not really
related to, maybe, theoptimization piece, but there's
other things that areproblematic, but we might be
able to still solve that forthem or improve it.
So it all starts with havingthose conversations, and you
(16:02):
also might appreciate that, likeyou know, some people are more
into technology than others.
Some people are more old schooland they don't want to use any
technology.
They just want to papermanifests and and or or no, you
know, and just go out and doeverything on their own and
choose their own adventure, andthat's fine too.
So we often start with saying,okay, well, find us the people
who are the most resistant tousing technology, and if they're
(16:24):
happy with the way that thistechnology works or everybody's
going to be happy.
Um, and oftentimes happy is areally interesting, you know, uh
, measurement too, because it'smore like if they don't hate it
and complain about it constantly, that equals happy.
It's like you know what I meanIf, if it's like, okay, cool,
(16:45):
this, this technology is fine,and and and it works, then
that's usually a good score.
Because there's just so manythings that can go wrong in the
real world with traffic andweather and you know, and line
halls coming in late.
There's a million things thatcould go wrong.
The last thing you want is forthe technology to be another
headache and another distraction.
You want those people who youknow, who use it, to tell you oh
(17:10):
yeah, this actually is fine andit works and helps me get
through my day faster or easieror whatever.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, I mean, if a tool in your toolbox isn't good
or efficient, it typically goesto the bottom or to the back, so
that's great.
I mean you guys see that'simportant.
It's nice to know that, from aleadership standpoint, an owner
standpoint, that you see thatit's very valuable.
I mean I think that's going toresonate in how you produce your
quality of tools that they canuse out there.
(17:37):
I was thinking about yourecently released a report
stating electrifying commercialvehicles yield out size impact.
Why is EV trucking alow-hanging fruit?
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Oh yeah, that's a really interesting one because
we did a big data analysis on umin the um, department of
transportation releases data, uh, on you know what types of
vehicles fleets use and whattheir efficiency is.
And then there's all this umvoluntary reporting that they
can do to the EPA so that um,you know they can be measuring
(18:13):
what their emissions scores are.
And what we found is that, youknow, articulated trucks, big
rigs, semis, things like thatthey're only 1% of the
population of vehicles.
So you know, for every vehicle,only one out of 100 vehicles in
the US is a big rig, butthey're responsible for 15% of
(18:33):
the emissions of all vehicles.
And that kind of makes sensebecause they're bigger of all
vehicles.
And that kind of makes sensebecause they're bigger, they
burn more fuel, they run longerhours, they do more miles, you
know, and so you compare thoseto passenger vehicles and of
course, they're going to emitmore.
But what we see is the focus onreducing emissions and,
(18:55):
especially in theelectrification of vehicles
world, mainly the money and theattention goes to the passenger
vehicles.
So you know, people talk moreabout passenger vehicles.
What if you are electrifyingvehicles with Tesla or Uber robo
taxis?
That'll be, you know, built onthe Tesla platform, be fully
electric and all that it's great.
But when you look at apassenger car I don't know about
(19:17):
your car, but my car sitsaround doing nothing for most of
the time, you know it's notrunning as many miles as a
delivery vehicle, right?
So that's where the low hangingfruit comes in, because you
know the amount of emissions isso much easier to address in a
vehicle that's running moremiles and doing more time, and
(19:40):
so if you can address it there,you can actually dramatically
reduce the amount of emissions.
But the way to do that is verydifferent.
Electrifying a commercialdelivery fleet is very, very
different from just selling yourHyundai or your Ford and
switching to a Tesla.
It's such a bigger conversationbecause you need to think about
(20:02):
electrifying the depot andcharge infrastructure and all
these other things.
So what we're trying to helpfleets do is stick with what
they have.
We're not anti-diesel oranything like that.
It's more about, again, thelong-term journey.
So let's optimize what you got.
Today.
We can help drive someemissions reductions and that's
cool.
But also our platform was one ofthe first in the world that has
(20:25):
native electric vehicle routingcapability, and I'll unpack
that for you just for a minute,like for people who aren't in
the field, it's not alwaysobvious that the way that you
would route a delivery route foran electric vehicle might be
very different from the way youwould route a diesel one, and
the main reasons are thetemperature, the um, attitude of
(20:48):
the road, the road angle so hishilly versus flat um and the
the payload, so like what's theweight that you're actually
carrying, and that can varydepending on the type of
deliveries that you're doing.
Right, parcels versus beveragesversus food versus other thing.
You get a different weightprofile, and so the main
differences are that an electricvehicle battery will deplete
(21:10):
much faster under a heavy loadthan a diesel will.
Okay, you won't burn quite asmuch of an increase in diesel as
you will deplete an EV batteryunder a heavy load.
Second thing is that attitude ofthe road piece, so some
electric vehicles can't evenstart on a hill that's above a
certain grade, and that getsmuch worse if they have a heavy
(21:32):
payload.
So you got to be really carefulthat you're not, like you know,
routing in San Francisco orsomething like that, where
you're on a hill and then thevehicle is going to get stuck
and stranded and then thetemperature being the other
biggest one, which is, you know,super cold versus super hot,
electric vehicles aren't goingto perform as well and they're
going to.
The batteries are going to getdepleted faster than, again, the
(21:54):
diesel equivalent.
So, having all of that in theplatform so that, as companies
do want to do experiments totransition to other types of
vehicles like electric orhydrogen, they can do those
experiments right within thesame platform, they can get all
the answers they need to plan itout and then they can do that
(22:15):
with confidence.
They can do it with confidencethat it's going to work and
they'll have a journey to dothat.
So we were working with somereally big retailers in
Australia, but also in the UStoo.
So we are growing in the US andthat's one of the key pieces is
just providing theexperimentation and simulation
platform for them to starthaving those conversations and
(22:36):
making some plans and then,obviously, once they get ready
to invest some real dollars indeploying it, they know that
it's going to be a success, nota failure.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
Huge.
I mean you got to get used to anew system and get used to new
vehicles.
I mean you already have themused to your platform and all
they have to do is startthinking about how they can move
to the EV.
I mean that's great to helpthem with that transition
process.
I think that's going to be agreat tool for a lot of
companies to save costs.
(23:06):
So good foresight in doing that, that's good Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
Yeah, it is a bit of a build it and they will come
type of strategy.
You know what I mean.
Sometimes you have to be alittle bit ahead of the curve
and then everything catches up.
But then you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
Sometimes you have to be a little bit ahead of the
curve and then and theneverything catches up, but then
hopefully, you're in the rightplace to capture them and and
help them when they're ready.
That's what it's all about, heyman.
So yeah, when you're helpingpeople, you're, you're
definitely going to make changes.
Uh, because that's what we needin this world is, uh, that
teamwork and helping each otherout.
I mean, even you just coming onthe podcast too, from a whole
different time zone, I thinkthat's huge.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
So I appreciate that.
Thanks, ray, and honestly, youproviding a platform, especially
in this industry which is likeso under the radar for most
people.
You know, one of the things Ilove to do is talk to kids about
this stuff because they don'ttend to think, you know, like oh
, where does my Amazon deliveryactually come from?
And like how does it get to me?
Right.
But I think that awareness issuper important to kind of like
(24:03):
peel back that layer of thematrix and help them realize
like this is a huge, hugemachine that literally runs the
world Supply chain, is like theoperating system for the entire
global economy, and yet it'sjust not a dinner table
conversation, but I think itshould be yeah, I try to talk
with my wife quite a few timesabout it and you can see your
(24:26):
eyes glaze over right it mightdo.
It's just like they're like Idon't know what you're talking
about, but I feel like this isthis is the time in the world
right where it's good to talkabout these things.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Nice.
So the industry shows insightsYou've presented at Home
Delivery World Move America.
There's quite a few things youdo to get the word out there.
What feedback or trends havestuck with you throughout those
experiences?
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Yeah, conferences are always really interesting,
those experiences, yeah,conferences are always really
interesting, move America, homeDelivery World being some of the
bigger ones that are focused onlast mile delivery, but also
just delivery generally.
And then there's ones likeManifest in Las Vegas.
There's lots of them out thereand we're always interested to
see the different ways thatpeople are addressing the same
(25:18):
problems.
So same problems, meaning thatyou know it's, it's pretty kind
of easy to understand thatyou've got raw materials that
get dug up from the ground orwhatever and they go to a
manufacturing facility and theyget turned into something and
that gets shipped to a warehouseand then that gets shipped to
you somehow and we all kind ofknow how that process works.
(25:39):
But there's so many differentangles to address different
parts of that problem.
And then there's this, theother thing that I really pay
attention to and might beinteresting for your audiences.
You know, in the software worldwhich a lot of these conferences
, right, it's a lot of softwarecompanies.
There's kind of this divisionbetween either you provide an
(26:01):
end-to-end platform that doeseverything, so maybe the most
famous ones being like SAP andOracle and Salesforce, right,
these really massive monolithicsoftware companies that they
literally will do everything,including optimization and all
sorts of stuff, right, butthey're super expensive, they
take a long time to configureand customize and all that.
(26:22):
And you've got all thesestartups at these conferences
that are kind of trying toreplicate that model, but to do
it better.
And then you've got the totalpolar opposite, which is more
companies like us I'd say we fitinto this opposite bucket where
everything we do is availableas what we call an API, an
application programminginterface.
So if you want to just optimizethe sequence of a route, you
(26:45):
could take that one little piece.
If you want to use AI to mineyour historical data, you can
take that one little piece.
If you want real-time estimatedtime of arrival tracking and a
link for your customers tofollow along with where the
truck is, you can have thatpiece.
You can have them allseparately, which suits bigger
organizations because they tendto have already this like
(27:07):
massive rat's nest of softwarethat they just want to like plug
different problem solutionsinto.
So that's what we learned andwe are getting feedback at these
conferences, like how arepeople approaching solving all
of these pretty well-knownproblems but in very different
ways, either end to end, orplugging and playing different
pieces, puzzle pieces along theway.
(27:28):
Yeah, everybody does it a littlebit differently, and of course,
it's different all over theworld too.
You know, one of the coolthings about Australia is that
it's about the same size as theUS geographically.
Is that it's about the samesize as the US geographically?
So continental US you couldoverlay it on top of the map of
Australia and they're about thesame size.
So we also have this problem of, well, how do you get
(27:53):
multimodal transport andregional carrier transport all
linked together for a truesolution?
And so those learnings aresomething that everybody's kind
of figuring out too.
It's like this disruption of itused to be more driven by these
major national end-to-endcarriers, but now there's this
massive increase in smallerregional carriers that are then
using technology to kind of linkthemselves all together.
(28:15):
How is that going to play outin a future AI world?
We don't know, but we'refollowing it really closely,
yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Wow, yeah, I mean people forget that you know the
size of you know thosecontinents or how they play a
part with each otherlogistically.
You know the miles and the fuel, the cost to get things from
here to there.
We don't think about it and,like you said, we expose that to
get that out there and talkabout it.
(28:43):
That's huge.
Any antidotes from these eventsor driver conversations or any
aha moments that come aroundfrom starting these
conversations?
Speaker 2 (28:54):
Yeah, I mean, oftentimes at a conference you
meet so many interesting peopleand some of the ones that stick
with you are those human storieswhere you see the impact that
something has made.
You know, I'll give you onethat's maybe also a business
idea for your audience too inthe electrification space, which
(29:17):
is that there's, you know, allthis great activity and we talk
about EVs and things like thatat the conferences and one of
the things we realized from someconversations is that while it
seems really attractive toinvest in EVs, who's going to
service them?
You know they have a lot lessmoving parts than a combustion
engine, which is great, but theyalso still require maintenance.
(29:39):
They need tires, they needbrakes, they need, you know,
service and all that.
And there's no like dealershipnetwork or service network set
up around the U?
S to service all these.
So we were talking with a coupleof really massive companies and
they were like that's thebiggest limitation is they
really want to invest inelectrification but they don't
(30:03):
know how to handle the servicething.
So one of them, an interestingcompany I can't say exactly who,
but it's a name you'd know um,and they have a massive
footprint around the us.
They're actually building theirown service and training
company.
So they're basically likespinning out a company that will
almost be like a?
Um, like a trade school forelectric vehicle service
(30:26):
technicians, and they'llobviously use it for themselves,
but then they're gonna have itas a separate, wholly owned
company that will then doservice and maintenance for
everybody else's fleets too.
It was like, wow, that's,that's really cool to see that
the entire game is being changedthere and some companies are
going to come up with entirelynew businesses that they can
(30:48):
spin out.
So that was really eye-openingfor me, because you know we're
thinking more like oh yeah, youknow, you buy the vehicle, you
use the vehicle, you charge thevehicle, but the service
component is such a big missinggap that it's cool to see people
addressing.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Nice.
Yeah, the service industry isdefinitely taking a hit.
No-transcript and we just gotto buy a new one.
(31:30):
I mean, yeah, that'sfrustrating.
So it's good they're planningit.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
Yeah, and you know, reskilling people in an AI world
, I think is so criticallyimportant and it's something
that as a society, as a world,we've kind of screwed up a bunch
of times.
You know, like since theoriginal industrial revolution
with the Luddites and stuff.
You know, people are scaredwhen there's a big change on the
horizon and they should bebecause their job might be under
(31:57):
threat.
My job might be under threat,your job might be under threat.
So, yeah, we all should bereally cautious about how a new
technology, any new technology,whether TVs or AI being the ones
we're talking about, are goingto impact the job market and the
ability for people to feedtheir kids.
I find that stuff to be superimportant and not often the top
(32:19):
priority of big companies, right, they just don't really care
oftentimes, unfortunately.
So, yeah, I think having thoseconversations around oh cool,
well, service industry that's areally good opportunity to take
people who are strugglingalready, like you said, it's a
shrinking industry.
How do we actually proactivelyreskill those people and give
(32:39):
them that ability to still havea trade that they can invest in
that can't be replicated by AIanytime in the near future, you
know, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I think that's huge.
And enabling the, the bottomuser, to feel empowered, that
they have a future ahead of them, I think that's huge.
I mean, you think about amechanic.
If they were to operate like abarbershop where they just rent
the stall and they were able tohave their own personal
clientele.
That would come back to themand they get to know that
(33:12):
mechanic.
He can also project out hisfuture on the bottom end.
But a lot of times it gets put,like you said, a turn a grind
hard to retain drivers or evenemployees because they're not
happy.
It gets turned into a grind.
You know where.
They're just grinding outpeople.
So if we can just change itaround, where we empower people
(33:33):
to be more of the end user witha good result of reaping
production from their hard work,you know, I think that's going
to be huge.
I think that's going to playout.
And you know, if there's apublicly traded company that
can't make those moves, ifthey're able to diversify and
have a privately owned company,like you said, if they have that
(33:55):
little thing that they'retrying to do to get those
mechanics taught and trained towork on electric vehicles, I
think that's going to be greatgoes.
I think that's going to begreat.
So, um, kind of going off thesubject a little bit, but yeah,
I mean that's huge.
I mean we, we get excited whenwe see people do big things.
You know, um, big companychanges like that.
So yeah, there's also one to bescared, but also another to be
(34:16):
excited about when we see greatthings happen.
So, uh, champion, any companyout there that wants to look out
for mankind, that's awesome.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
So great job.
I love what you said about thebarbershop model too.
I think that's that's reallysmart because, um, it's a
personal relationship, you know,um, there's there's some things
that you can't replicate withtechnology, and and just the
ability to like, trust a certainperson that just kind of knows
what you want, um, you know, hasthat kind of that, that kind of
(34:42):
relationship with you that youuh feel comfortable with with
your vehicle.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
That's actually really important, and I think
you're right, companies shouldinvest in disrupting traditional
business models, but stillkeeping an eye on how to make
them personal, yeah, as acompany it's not just or a
business-minded individual isnot all about just making money,
but look at what the impact youcan leave behind, the footprint
(35:10):
that you can leave behind forgenerations to come.
I think that I mean, I alwaysget excited about that.
So when it comes to business,yeah, I love that stuff.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Yeah, me too.
It's good to hear that.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah, I mean, look at what you guys are doing so
optimizing, making things,change.
For that grind out there forthe driver, like you say, you
couldn't take a vacation forthree years and you're able to
make that change, so that's huge, thank you.
So, yeah, so for the next sixto 12 months, maybe what's the
future look like?
Do you have any partnerships ornew features that are coming on
the horizon?
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Yeah, we're really excited about the next phase of
our journey.
So you know, a little tidbitthat I can say right now,
because it just happened lastweek, is that we won the
Australian Startup World Cupwith Pegasus Ventures, tipping
in a million bucks in investmentif we win, which is really
exciting.
So give us a little bit ofpositive cheering in the
(36:20):
background, because that wouldbe transformative for us.
Transformative for us and, yeah, and the next phase of growth
is I think we've done a good jobof proving that this technology
works well here in theAustralian market.
But the Australian market isvery small.
It's, you know, about one 11ththe size of the American market,
and then if you start thinkingabout Canada and Mexico and
(36:42):
Central and South America andEurope, you know there's massive
markets out there that we cannow deploy to.
So we're really excited aboutstarting to address that more
seriously.
And that's one of the reasonsthat we have been spending a lot
of time over in the US atplaces like Home Delivery World
and these conferences, becausewe want to do it right and we
want to adapt it specificallyfor every country that we expand
(37:06):
into, and I think that's againwhere there's this amazing power
of AI to help you customizeculturally and geographically
and linguistically and all thatstuff for every market that you
enter into.
So we're working that out rightnow.
Speaker 1 (37:23):
Beautiful, Great job, man.
Thanks for taking the time toexplain that and share that,
Something for us to get excitedabout.
I think there's great things onthe horizon for you guys.
Keep up the great work.
I think it's going to be a lotmore that we can look forward to
.
Like I say, AI is just makingthings a lot more easier,
accessible and something that alot of people may not have
(37:43):
thought about before.
But now they can play into thegame and make changes where
there's necessary.
So thank you so much for comingon the show, Richard.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah, thanks, man.
I really appreciate you havingme.
It was really a lot of fun totalk about this stuff with you.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
Yeah, stuff that's passionate to you and it means a
lot coming from the heart, so Iappreciate you doing that, so
anybody that's interested inwhat's going on over there.
Thank you so much for unpackingthat from the AI, making things
safer, cleaner and smoother forfleets, drivers' wellness too,
like I said, for keeping drivershappy To our trucking audience.
(38:18):
If you get a chance to workwith tech like this, it may feel
like it's getting you know, itmay feel like getting a co-pilot
, so it will help you avoidgridlock and it's going to also
help where you can charge andkeep your electric vehicles up
to date and then where it counts, so let's finish the day where
(38:41):
it's less stress.
Why do we want to add more tothe plate, right?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
So any call of action that you want to put out there,
Maybe any last words of wisdomyou want to share with the
audience.
Just really grateful for theopportunity to talk about this
stuff and if anyone isinterested in not just what we
do but just really about theintersection of AI and supply
chain generally, reallyencourage them to reach out to
(39:07):
me personally.
Go to our website Our contactdetails are there and, again,
we're just really excited aboutthis next phase of the
technology in supply chain andlogistics and passionate about
it.
So happy to talk to anybodyabout it.
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And do I have that right?
Is there a free trial platformto take a look at?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Yeah, yeah, that's, that's a great point.
So anyone is welcome to go toour website and there's a free
trial button.
they can get immediate access tothe platform, upload data with
the CSV file you know, an Excelfile and start optimizing their
own routes immediately and theycan use that, you know for their
own personal use or forcommercial use and see what the
(39:53):
impact really is, and theplatform allows them to even
upload their historical routes,like what they did yesterday,
and then optimize it to see whatthe comparison would be.
So it's a really powerful wayto see what the results can be
with your own data.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
Nice.
All right well, and you canalso find Richard on LinkedIn.
You can connect with him thereand also listen to his latest on
sustainability, fleetelectrification and also
logistics tech.
So thank you for listening in,and that's another episode of
that's Delivered.
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