How Transervice integrated Tediware into its fully custom TMS

Transervice was founded in 1969 and is headquartered in Lake Success, New York. The company has 2,900 employees and manages over 25,000 pieces of equipment across more than 160 facilities in North America.

At the heart of every logistics company is the transportation management system (TMS). Transervice has in-house technology expertise and has developed its own proprietary TMS which it says “automates the shipping process for greater efficiency.”

The EDI portion of the TMS was originally built with open source software. By 2020, cracks were starting to appear.

The limits of open source EDI

EDI is supposed to provide a standardized way for trading partners to communicate. A 214 shipment status update communicates the same essential information for everyone who uses it. The problem is that EDI is endlessly customizable, and every trading partner wants something a bit different — or a lot different.

Inside Transervice’s TMS, this was handled with customizations for every major shipper and 3PL it worked with. The amount of code kept increasing, creating a growing maintenance burden, an issue that got worse with each new trading partner.

In 2020, Transervice contracted with Adrian Duyzer, a 25-year technology veteran, to improve its TMS and address these issues. He still works on that TMS, which keeps him close to the problems freight companies run into every day.

“It was clear that an in-house EDI solution was untenable,” says Duyzer. “We needed a platform.”

Migrating to a platform

Duyzer conducted a thorough review of the EDI platforms available. One stood out: an API-first platform for developers.

The migration was completed over the course of several months. The custom code per partner was replaced with consistent API calls — the partner-specific complexity lived on that platform (just like it does with Tediware).

This integration ran smoothly until 2024, when Transervice was informed that the platform had pivoted away from supply chain and logistics. If Transervice wished, it could remain on the platform, but the fees would be increasing by 5x.

“When our provider raised prices, we needed an alternative fast.”

This time, Duyzer’s search for an EDI platform that featured a comprehensive, developer-friendly API and reasonable pricing was unsuccessful. He decided to build a new EDI platform, Tediware, designed to meet the needs of companies like Transervice.

What direct EDI access changed for Transervice

Transervice’s operations, dispatch and finance teams have full EDI visibility and control, with event-driven connectivity across its operations.

EDI runs on events in the TMS

Each load moves through the TMS and Tediware’s API without anyone handling the documents, including 214 shipment status updates that are sent automatically via a live-tracking integration.

1. step.01

   Load tendered

   A shipper's 204 arrives in the TMS through the API.

2. step.02

   Tender answered

   Dispatch responds and the TMS sends the 990.

3. step.03

   Status sent

   Live tracking triggers 214 updates automatically.

4. result

   Load invoiced

   Finance bills the shipper with a 210.

Mappings created with AI

In Tediware, mappings — the translations that are used to send and receive data in a format that complies with a trading partner’s specifications — are created swiftly with AI, instead of by hand in a mapping editor.

“The AI-assisted mapping is incredible, what used to take us days now takes minutes.”

More trading partners, more volume

Transervice can add a new trading partner in Tediware with just a few clicks. This helps it grow its network of trading partners quickly, and there’s no financial downside to doing so, because every Tediware plan comes with unlimited trading partners with no per-partner fees.

Transervice has seen significant volume increases with customers after completing EDI integrations with them, including a recent customer that has quadrupled the number of shipments they’re moving with Transervice.