How to Be a Champ of The Indy 500

Ask any Indy 500 champion or logistics manager - when you (or your freight) are on the road, inevitable disruptions come with the territory.

Luckily, you can keep your transportation network revving on all cylinders, cruising past the yellow flags below and onto victory:

1. Pitfalls of Pit Road
Indy 500 drivers come to pit road for a variety of reasons, but even the fastest pit stop can hamper productivity. Whether you’re on the racetrack or on the highway, fewer stops will almost always equal a better, more efficient finish time. Pending regulations including, Hours of Service (HOS) will require trucks to stop on pit road for extended periods before returning to the race.

2. Inevitable Track Congestion
Not only will congestion slow drivers down, it also makes it more difficult to navigate the course ahead. The American Transportation Research Institute calculated congestion delays totaling more than 728 million hours of lost productivity in 2014, equating to 264,000 commercial truck drivers sitting idle for a working year[1]. Regardless of whether you’re in it for 200 laps or for the long haul, ensuring your freight avoids traffic congestion is a surefire way to stay ahead of the competition.

3. Navigating Sustainability in the Supply Chain
Knowing when to refuel is part of the job for racecar drivers and truck drivers. But it’s the supply chain manager’s job to focus their supply chain’s overall fuel consumption and carbon footprint. A commitment to fuel efficiency is key, especially with the ever-increasing customer demand for sustainability.

4. “Make You” Technology that Actually Breaks You
Technology fuels racing and shaves minutes off the clock. It also helps transportation networks become more efficient, but technology can also impact productivity such as the upcoming implementation of electronic logging devices (ELDs). The Journal of Commerce projects that productivity will be cut by 2 to 5 percent[2], further diminishing the dwindling amount of wiggle room carriers still have in planning trips and managing their fleets.

5. Keep the Sponsors Happy
There’s a general rule in IndyCar: if the sponsors aren’t happy, no one is happy. Just as racecar drivers perform for their sponsors, supply chain managers serve their customers. Transportation managers have to keep their organization’s customers happy by ensuring product is stocked thanks to dependable cycle times, capacity that can surge to meet seasonal demands and cost-effective forms of freight transportation.

6. Even the Best Drivers Only Go 500 Miles
This year’s Indy 500 champion driver will travel 500 miles before stopping on the other side of the finish line. As a basic rule of thumb, this applies to truck drivers as well – although their finish line may be much farther down the road, truck drivers are limited to around 500 miles on an 8 hour clock. Don’t let your freight delivery miss out on the checkered flags because of an extended stay on pit road.

Learn how to take the checkered flag by navigating:
The Top 5 Supply Chain Disruptions.