As Fast Way Freight System Inc. has watched many small freight carriers go by the wayside during the economic slump, the Spokane freight carrier says it has invested in logistics technology that helps it not only compete with other carriers, but also coordinate shipments with them.

Fast Way is a less-than-full-load trucking company that delivers freight directly throughout North Idaho and Eastern Washington and coordinates with several other companies to ship freight throughout the country and internationally.

Fast Way's owners, Jeff Bosma and Mark Barnes, invested in Pentad Systems LLC, a 2003 startup software engineering, design, and development firm that has created much of the technology Fast Way uses to increase its efficiency and provide logistics services, says Randy Nichols, Pentad's president and also an investor.

"With their partnership and startup capital, they want cutting-edge technology," Nichols says.

Fast Way occupies about 5,000 square feet of dock space and 2,800 square feet of office space in a 30,000-square-foot-building at 1001 N. Havana that also houses the Spokane office of Federal Way-based Peninsula Truck Lines Inc. Pentad occupies about 900 square feet of floor space in the same building.

Fast Way has 34 trucks and about 60 trailers. The company has 39 employees, down a few from its peak in early 2008, and Pentad has six employees.

Barnes says Pentad provides Fast Way with technology that most companies of Fast Way's size can't access on their own. A key function of the technologyqueries other freight carriers for shipping rates and space availability.

"We find capacity as quickly as we can," Barnes says. "Tons of trucks that you see going up and down the road have space in their trailers."

That information arms Fast Way freight brokers with information that saves customers from having to request quotes from six or seven freight companies, he says. In most cases, Fast Way can find the customer the best freight prices because carrier rates often are discounted depending on how much space is available, he says.

"We do tons of spot quotes," Barnes says.

Sometimes, the system provides rate and other shipping information within seconds. For more complicated shipping requirements, it can take two minutes to a half-hour, he says.

Customers who have log-in privileges also can access the system directly.

"One of the trends I've seen is in a growing number of people who would rather jump online than pick up the phone," Barnes says.

It's not uncommon for Fast Way to broker freight shipments on other companies' trucks, and Fast Way receives a brokerage fee for that service.

"A good portion of the freight we move doesn't touch our trucks," Barnes says. "It doesn't make sense to move our trucks down the road next to an empty trailer."

He says Pentad's technology gives Fast Way the ability to provide third-party logistics services.

"Logistics support is becoming a larger portion of what we do," he says.

Most of Fast Way's freight is moved in partnership with national trucking companies, and they've all felt a 30 percent drop in volume over the last two years.

"There was so much overcapacity, it drove the rates down," Barnes says.

Thousands of truck lines went out of business, he asserts. Most of them were small, independent companies with two or three trucks.

Likewise, Fast Way's volume began to decline in the second half of 2008. The company responded by emphasizing custom-shipping abilities and increasing efficiency through Pentad's logistics technology.

"If a sawmill or a mine goes down, we react quickly," he says. "We've had airplanes waiting while somebody finishes manufacturing a vital part. Big companies can't do that."

Barnes and Bosma recently decided to focus on Fast Way's strengths, and they sold its sister company, Fast Way Transport Inc., a full-load, long-haul freight shipper. The new owners plan to rename that company CTX Transport by the end of the year, Barnes says.

In addition to logistics applications for use in offices, Pentad recently developed mobile applications for major cell phone platforms, Nichols says.

"Drivers can find out a customer's locations or a route just by using smart phones," he says. Freight companies also can use the technology to call up maps that show where any or all cell phones belonging to a shipping fleet are at any given time, he says.

Pentad also has developed a Web-based fleet-maintenance application, originally for Fast Way, that alerts the fleet manager when inspections and maintenance are due, Nichols says. That application also tracks the ongoing per-mile operating cost for each truck or vehicle.

One of Pentad's first projects for Fast Way was a Web-based time-card system that tracks the hours and miles traveled, and the number of stops per trip. Because the U.S. Department of Transportation carefully restricts truck hours behind the wheel for safety reasons, the hours and mileage drivers travel takes on critical importance as does managing their hours and miles to strive for efficiency. The Pentad system can be used to compile shipping documents and productivity reports for every truck driver on demand.

"Mark and Jeff want to know key performance indicators daily, and now a computer does it automatically," Nichols says. "The goal is to keep hours per bill as low as possible."

Prior to using the technology, time cards were gathered and the company created the reports manually in a time-consuming operation, Nichols says.

"The software has reduced 80 percent of the manual calculations," he says. "Now they can have a document up in 30 seconds."

Pentad has about 120 customers for its logistics software, about half of which are involved in freight, Nichols says. Its logistics applications also are being used by manufacturing companies.

One such customer, Moses Lake, Wash.-based Inland Tarp & Liner Inc., uses a Pentad system that manages employee time, human resources, and invoices, and performs other functions, Nichols says, adding that the system also queries freight carriers for rates and is used to produce all of Inland Tarp's shipping documents.

Pentad's customers pay an up-front fee and a subscription fee for the software, and Pentad customizes the Web-based applications for each customer, he says.

Barnes says he's not overly concerned that other freight companies might be using technology developed by Pentadto compete against Fast Way.

"We work with companies that overlap in some areas, but we don't have too many direct competitors," he says.

Meantime, larger freight haulers have their own information-technology departments that develop custom logistics technologies or systems that fit their particular needs, Nichols says.