Synergistic's growth came on the wheels of trucks

NEPTUNE BEACH -- Lee Wintrode is a different kind of entrepreneur. Wintrode, the CEO and founder of Synergistic Systems Inc. in Neptune Beach, doesn't dream of IPOs, mergers and acquisitions or asymptotic growth.

Since 1997, the 19-year-old company has maintained a steady $3.5 million to $5 million business designing and installing a range of software systems geared toward trucking and logistics. I'm not opposed to growth, but we're not going to grow for growth's sake," said Wintrode, whose company's software integrates wireless handheld computers to handle tasks such as routing, field service, dock operations and yard management.

But Synergistic's recent implementation of two new software products in the last three months with a third in development has the company poised to reach new customers in its core business while also creating a new market in the scrap recycling industry.

It was about three years ago that Alan Crouch, the president of River Metals Recycling LLC, based in Ft. Mitchell, Ky., learned about Synergistic's truck dispatching system -- Synergy Dispatch -- during a scrap metal industry convention and wondered if it could be adapted to help his company manage its trucking operations.

Steve McQuinn, transportation manager for River Metals, said the company wanted a system to help better track and use its assets, primarily containers of multiple sizes and uses. The company often spent considerable time trying to locate a container sitting idly at one customer's premises while another customer needed it.

"It's a major problem in the scrap recycling industry because we have different size boxes that can be at a customer's site for two days to a year," said McQuinn, who joined River Metals two years ago after nearly 30 years in moving and storage. "This industry is quite different than other trucking operations."

Wintrode said the project was a good opportunity to spin off its core competence.."We do well in any industry that is moving stuff on wheels," he said, though he said the scrap recycling business presented unknown challenges. "We needed somebody willing to be the guinea pig to get us going."

McQuinn, who works at River Metals' processing plant in Louisville, Ky., said the experiment has not been painless, but he credits Synergistic's software designers with being responsive to unforeseen snags.

"As with any new program, there were a few problems," he said. "Some were programming things we didn't think about. Synergistic has been real good about staying in touch and being quick to resolve problems. I've talked with them as late as one or two o'clock in the morning. They've been quite accommodating in understanding what we do."

McQuinn said the growing pains have been worth it, as the system is beginning to produce the returns his company had envisioned. "It's doing exactly what I was hoping," he said. "I don't know how they operated without something like this for as long as they have."

That's gratifying to Janet Cherinka, a programmer at Synergistic who worked on the scrap recycling software, now branded as ScrapBoss, since its inception. Cherinka left the IT department at a hospital six years ago to join Synergistic because she wanted to write programs.

"You get a lot of satisfaction, especially when you see them using the system and how it benefits them," said Cherinka, who is working on implementing ScrapBoss at two companies that are expected to go live with the system within the next two months.

Now that River Metals has negotiated the learning curve, McQuinn believes being the only scrap metal recycling company in its market using ScrapBoss gives the company a competitive advantage in pricing and customer service. But McQuinn believes it won't be long before other recycling companies catch on. "There's definitely a lot of business," McQuinn said. "This is something that's marketable worldwide."

In December 2004, Synergistic launched a new hosted version of its flagship Synergy Dispatch system geared for small and medium-sized businesses. Wintrode said he hopes that by offering the system as a hosted application the company will tap customers who can benefit from an automated truck routing and driver manager system but are too small to justify buying the information technology infrastructure needed to run the stand-alone version of Synergy Dispatch.

Wintrode said the software is important to his company on two levels. First, the company must keep up with evolving technology. Wintrode recalls when linking truckers with their dispatchers involved bulky computers that required sturdy brackets to mount."It used to cost about $4,500 per truck to outfit," Wintrode said. "Today, it's about $2,200 and falling."

By Tony Quesada

A Fast Delivery of Auto Inspection and Inventory Application for Gulf Caribbean Transport Earns Praise for Synergistic Systems

Gulf Caribbean Transport has completed the first phase of its rollout of an auto-inspection and inventory application written by Synergistic Systems. The installation of Auto Inspection Mobile in Port of Tampico in Mexico was completed just two weeks after Synergistics was given the project go-ahead.

Auto Inspection Mobile was written in response to the Gulf Caribbean's need for an efficient and specialized program to monitor damage and inventory vehicles in transit–one that has no language barriers and can be implemented in widely separated ports with limited support facilities. Initially, the Auto Inspection Mobile system will operate at Gulf Caribbean Transport's Port of Tampico location, but over the next year, it will be installed at additional locations in Mexico and the United States.

The application scans the inbound vehicle identification number, provides an inspection screen and delivers information including the VIN, date, scanner, trailer number and inspection data through the Palm OS HotSync Conduit to two different files,one that automatically opens in a spreadsheet program and one to go directly to a desktop application. The program is implemented on the Symbol® SPT 1700 scanner, a ruggedized Palm OS device. Auto Inspection Mobile is the first Synergistic Systems application implemented by Gulf Caribbean Transport. Other applications are in development.

This Information is Copyright Protected 2001 by Maple Communications.

High-tech gadgets are cutting fuel costs and vehicle wear and making better use of haulers.

By Mike Vogel

Paul Zinn, a dispatcher at AAA Cooper Transportation in Pompano Beach, spent his days battling clutter on south Florida's jammed airwaves as he talked by two-way radio to 30-odd truckers making pickups and deliveries. Often a driver was out of earshot anyway–in the back of the truck or inside a customer's business. By the time Zinn got through, the driver was often miles down the road from the stop Zinn so urgently wanted him to make.

It's more than inconvenient. AAA Cooper, which handles shipments too large for courier companies such as UPS, estimates each of its drivers lost a half-hour per day because of communication problems.

To get that half-hour back, the Dothan, Ala., company rolled out a wireless computer system last year at its Pompano Beach center. Designed by Synergistics in Neptune Beach, it features a touch-screen, hand-held computer that drivers use to tell dispatchers like Zinn when they're en route, when they've arrived and who signed for a shipment.

Zinn, without any verbal communication, can track a driver's whereabouts and zip out new pickup instructions. "It just pops up" on the driver's screen, says Rex Quattlebaum, manager of AAA Cooper's field computer system.

A slew of tech outfits, including many small firms, has produced big savings for the trucking industry. Synergistics, for example, with $5 million in annual revenues and only 22 employees, is working on routing software to cut miles traveled and increase pickups, says owner Lee Wintrode. Designers there and elsewhere are working on other tech innovations intended to keep truckers under close supervision - they aim to make it impossible, for example, for a driver who wants to knock off early to claim he didn't hear the dispatcher's radio call.

Monitors also will allow fleet owners to cut fuel costs and vehicle wear by reporting when drivers speed, brake hard or shift improperly. A side benefit: Combating what some in the industry call "the Miami problem" - truck theft.

Terion, a 160-employee Melbourne application service provider, last year began selling a trailer tracker device that allows companies to keep tabs on its trailers through a global positioning system and, via an automated cell phone, to communicate when a tractor is idle, when its doors have been opened and to check its interior temperature, among other things. Back orders for the device total 40,000, says Terion market communications manager Kurt Kyvik.

The device helps to recover stolen trailers, but the primary payoff is in greater utilization of trailers, which cost $18,000 a piece - $45,000 for refrigerated units. So it behooves fleet owners to keep them in service, rather than sitting idle at a customer's business. "Lowest cost, highest quality," boasts Terion President Jeff Locke of his trailer tracker. Terion's financial backers include Harris Corp. in Melbourne and venture capital firms. Harris alums fill key positions at the 5-year-old company.

Terion last year also began selling two-way communication systems that bounce data signals off the ionosphere. Licensed from Harris, the technology is used by the military, ham radio operators and commercial airliners over oceans. It allows truckers and dispatchers to send data over long ranges at a lower cost than competing satellite-based systems. It's superior to old two-way radios and even cell phones because costs, at worst, are comparable and the wireless computers allow drivers to receive pick-up addresses, contacts, times, shipping numbers and other information without struggling at the same time to drive a rig, talk on a cell phone and take notes.

Arlington Salvage and Wrecker in Jacksonville uses the Terion system to improve utilization, lower costs, reduce errors and improve customer service, says Arlington safety director Gary Ayers. Arlington has a fleet of 80 trailers, which are used to haul backhoes and other construction equipment for road builders in the Southeast and Northeast. Ayers says he now can tell customers - usually contractor firms with workers standing by for needed equipment - exactly how soon gear will arrive. He's also able to more efficiently route drivers so that they and their trucks stay busy. "It's turning out to be a real good thing for us," Ayers says.

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