Axle positions
Where each axle actually sits, measured rather than taken from a brochure. Two trailers with the same model number can differ, and a few inches at the tandem is a few hundred pounds at the scale.
Rolling it out
One lane, one month, and then a decision.
A rollout that starts with the whole board is a rollout that fails quietly. This one starts with the four measurements everything else depends on, and ends with a written account you can take to whoever signs.
- Four weeks
- Nothing switched off
- About an hour a day
The month
Four weeks, and the first one has no planning in it at all.
That is deliberate. A pilot that starts planning loads on day one is a pilot that spends week three arguing about numbers that were wrong before the first load was built.
Nothing is switched off
Your existing process runs untouched for the whole month. The point of the pilot is the comparison, and a comparison needs both answers.
- 01
Week one — set up the equipment
Your real tractors and trailers go in: axle positions, slider travel and hole spacing, tare weight and how it distributes across the axles, tire and axle ratings. We do this with you on calls rather than sending a form, because everything the system says afterwards inherits whatever is wrong here. Nothing is planned this week.
- 02
Week two — run one lane in parallel
You keep planning the way you plan today, and change nothing. Every load on one chosen lane also goes through here, and the two answers sit side by side. Your dispatcher spends about an hour a day on it. If the tool is slower than the way they already work, we want to know that in week two, not in month six.
- 03
Week three — reconcile the disagreements
Where the two answers differ, we settle it against a certified scale rather than an opinion. Most disagreements turn out to be equipment data, and fixing one usually fixes a class of loads behind it. The ones that are not equipment data are the interesting ones, and they get written down either way.
- 04
Week four — the board
What the month found, in writing: loads planned, disagreements found and resolved, which ones would have been written up at a scale, what it cost in dispatcher time, and an honest list of what did not work. You take that to whoever signs. Sometimes the right answer in that room is no.
Week one, in detail
Four measurements decide whether any of this is worth reading.
Everything the system says afterwards is downstream of these four. This is the part fleets underestimate, and it is the part we refuse to take from a form.
Slider travel
How far the tandem slides, how many holes it has and how far apart they are. This is what turns a correction into an instruction someone can carry out in the yard.
Tare distribution
Not just what the empty combination weighs, but how that weight sits across the steer, drives and trailer group. The empty truck is already using part of every limit before any freight is loaded.
Ratings
What the tires and the axles are rated to carry. On plenty of loads the binding limit is not the statute at all, and a verdict that never checks these will pass loads that should not pass.
By the end of week one, your yard exists in it.
Tractors, trailers and the combinations they run in, each with the geometry that the arithmetic actually uses. Nothing has been planned yet, and that is the correct state to be in on the Friday.
If a measurement cannot be obtained — a trailer is out on a run all week, say — it gets marked as unknown rather than estimated. An unknown is honest. An estimate becomes a number somebody trusts.
axleguard.app/dashboard
What the month costs you
Fifteen hours of one dispatcher, spread over four weeks.
This is the whole ask in the only currency that matters during a busy month. It is written down here so it can be held against us in week three.
Your time, week by week
One dispatcher's hours across the pilot
hours- Week one · equipment, on calls with us4 hours
Two calls and a tape measure. No loads are planned this week.
- Week two · one lane, planned both ways5 hours
About an hour a day, beside the way they already work
- Week three · reconciling disagreements5 hours
The same hour a day, plus a few scale tickets
- Week four · the written account1 hours
One honest meeting, and a decision either way
Counted from the commitments made on this page rather than from a case study. If the real total starts running past this, something has gone wrong and it is ours to fix rather than yours to absorb.
Fifteen hours of one dispatcher's month, and the right answer at the end of it is sometimes no.
What we need from you
Five things, and none of them is a procurement process.
If the list gets longer than this during a pilot, something has gone wrong and it is our problem to fix rather than yours to absorb.
One lane
a real one, ideally one you argue about
About an hour a day
from one dispatcher, in week two and three
Access to the equipment
or somebody who can measure it
A few scale tickets
to settle the disagreements with
One honest meeting
at the end of week four
What goes wrong
Four ways a pilot wastes a month.
Every one of these is avoidable if it is named in week one, so it gets named in week one.
An unknown is honest. An estimate becomes a number somebody trusts.
The equipment data is wrong, and it takes a week to find out
This is the most common one by a distance. A trailer measured from a spec sheet rather than with a tape gives confident answers that are quietly off. It shows up in week three as a pattern of disagreements that all lean the same way, and the fix is a measurement.
The lane chosen is too easy
A lane that never has problems will produce a clean month and teach nobody anything. Pick the lane with the awkward freight, the multi-stop run, or the state line that has caught you before.
The dispatcher was not asked
A pilot decided above the person who has to use it fails in week two and nobody says why. The planner should be in the first call and should have the right to say the tool is slower than what they do now.
Nobody agreed what a good outcome looks like
Decide in week one what would make this worth continuing and what would make it not. Writing that down in advance is the only way week four is a decision rather than an argument.
Practical questions
What operations managers ask before saying yes.
01Does anything have to be switched off?
No, and we would push back if you offered. The whole value of the month is the comparison between two answers, which needs both of them running. Nothing moves off your existing process during a pilot.
02How much of our time does this actually take?
A few hours in week one to get the equipment right, then about an hour a day from one dispatcher in weeks two and three, and one meeting at the end. If it starts taking more than that, something is wrong and we would rather stop and look at it.
03What if the two answers disagree a lot?
That is the interesting outcome, not the bad one. Most disagreements are equipment data, and each one you fix usually fixes a whole class of loads behind it. The ones that survive that are the ones worth a conversation with your compliance people.
04What happens after week four?
You decide, with a written account in front of you. If it goes wider, the equipment work extends to the rest of the fleet and the rule sets extend to the other states you run in. If it stops, it stops, and the account is still yours to keep.
05Can we start with more than one lane?
You can, and we usually advise against it. One lane is enough to find the equipment problems, and the equipment problems are the ones that would poison a wider rollout. Widening after week three is easy; unpicking a bad start is not.
Read next
Before you commit a month to this.
Three pages worth reading before configuration starts: pricing, integrations and security.
Next step
Pick the lane you argue about.
The one with the awkward freight or the state line that has caught you before. That is the lane a month on this is actually worth spending.