What is Blue Yonder Transportation Planner?

Blue Yonder Transportation Planner transforms order fulfillment, procurement and replenishment plans into cost-optimized transportation plans, using configurable business rules that respect facility, inventory and transportation network constraints.

Blue Yonder Transportation Planner is the intelligence that turns transportation strategy into an executable plan. While transportation execution manages freight once it is moving, Transportation Planner evaluates a very large number of possible combinations across loads, routes, carriers, modes, hubs, rates, capacity, and consolidation opportunities to determine the most efficient way to move goods. Powered by optimization and highly configurable business rules, it creates practical, real-world transportation plans that balance cost, service, sustainability, and operational constraints. Transportation Planner helps organizations make smarter transportation decisions, adapt to disruption, and maximize network performance.

Why It Matters: The 'Human-in-the-Loop'

Manual transportation planning leaves savings on the table. Transportation Planner uses optimization to solve the complex puzzle of moving freight at the lowest cost while meeting service requirements, and it keeps planners in control. Transportation Planner enables:

• Exception-Based Management: It filters the noise. Instead of staring at 5,000 healthy shipments, the interface highlights the 50 'At Risk' loads that need attention, allowing the user to focus their talent where it matters most.

• Operational Control: It provides the override button. It allows the user to manually drag-and-drop a shipment from 'Truck A' to 'Truck B' or force a specific carrier assignment, overriding the system's logic when local knowledge trumps the algorithm.

• Visual Validation: Before tendering loads to carriers, the planner can view the proposed routes on a map to sanity-check the optimizer's work.

Key Capabilities

• Order Consolidation: Groups LTL shipments into multi-stop full truckloads to reduce freight costs.

• Carrier Selection: Automates the choice of the best carrier based on contracted rates, routing guides, and past performance.

• Continuous Moves: Identifies backhaul opportunities to reduce empty miles.

• Transportation SmartBench: The primary UI—a configurable dashboard combining spreadsheets, maps, and Gantt charts. Users can customize their view (e.g., Show me only Outbound loads from Texas) to match their specific job function.

• Manual Load Manipulation: The planner can manually split a large order into two loads, combine two LTL shipments into a Truckload, or change the equipment type based on last-minute inventory changes.

The Blue Yonder Difference

Transportation Planner combines optimization with planner control. Configurable business rules model the constraints of each facility, inventory position and lane, while planners can review proposed routes, focus on at-risk loads and override the plan when local knowledge matters. Blue Yonder is adding AI agents that work with the solver to recommend parameter and strategy changes and explain results.

90% of Primary Connect’s metropolitan load plans are automated using Blue Yonder Transportation Planner.