Car Delivery Network (CDN), which provides electronic proof of delivery (ePOD) applications for outbound finished vehicle movements, has built a free industry application for the dealer network that simplifies the storage and availability of vehicle delivery information. CDN plan to commence marketing the Dealer Portal early June.

The latest application is an open industry portal where any dealer can gain visibility of their inbound vehicles in real time along with past deliveries. It builds on CDN’s ongoing development of ePOD data technology for the outbound vehicle sector. The automotive software company rolled out its vinDeliver app with Chrysler and a number of finished vehicle carriers back in 2014.

“Today, CDN’s ePOD solution is delivering 10%, or approximately 1.8m vehicles, annually to thousands of US dealers,” explained Wayne Pollock, managing director and co-founder of CDN. “There are many different transport companies making these deliveries and we see this growth continuing rapidly. We figured that the dealers needed a single place to view delivery information regardless of which transport company delivered the vehicle.”

Pollock went on to explain that finding that information should be as simple as searching for the vehicle identification number (VIN) – the unique code that includes the serial number used to identify individual vehicles.

“In addition, we figured dealers would be interested in seeing the ETAs on inbound vehicles to their dealership, which would reduce the need to contact the carrier to request such information,” said Pollock. “This also has advantages for the carrier, helping streamline their customer support.”

According to CDN, dealers will now be able to see their vehicle from the moment the trucking company dispatches the load to their driver or sub contractor. From that moment the dealer has complete visibility of the vehicle, including the trucks ETA at dealership set by the driver. In addition, the portal provides a single repository of all deliveries and corresponding ePODs for their vehicles.

“Nothing is archived and today the portal holds the millions of VINs delivered since the CDN cloud launched back in July 2014,” said Pollock. “Today the CDN cloud processes circa 41,000 vehicles a week. CDN expects this to double in the near future as more and more carriers are getting their drivers connected.”

CDN is no stranger to solving outbound supply chain data issues and its ePOD application is used throughout the delivery process, including at the rail terminals, which traditionally required paper-based inspection data, up to the last mile. The company has added an electronic gate-out process to the delivery driver’s ePOD app.
“The good news is outbound vehicle logistics is starting to evolve and change is underway,” said Pollock. “More and more dealer deliveries are being made using ePOD and it is delivering visibility to the last leg of the outbound supply chain.

Delivery from the last compound to the dealer has been the least visible but this is rapidly changing due to ePOD initiatives by the carriers and OEMs.”