This year may not have been the smooth return to normal many expected, but Memphis’ penchant for clever thinking and creative problem solving continues unabated. In 2021, for our ninth Innovation Awards running, Inside Memphis Business features prominent individuals and bright thinkers who are showcasing Memphis’ evolution through innovation. And like every year, there are always plenty of candidates to choose from, spanning industries ranging from the medical field to logistics.
This year, we recognize Chloe Hakim-Moore’s reforms to childcare and early education, Mason George’s new technology to ease congested supply chain issues, Dr. Leta Nutt’s chemical sterilant meant to cut down on the overwhelming number of stray animals, and Dr. Michael Whitt’s crucial contribution to the production of effective Covid-19 vaccines. They're all worthy winners in their own right, and are doing their utmost to move Memphis forward. Today, we introduce you to Mason George; other winners will be profiled throughout December.
photograph courtesy imc companies
Mason George — President, IMC Companies, National Accounts
Mason George knows a thing or two about trucking and transportation. His father, grandfather, great grandfather, and several uncles all ran their own businesses in the field, so it made sense that he would follow in their footsteps in some capacity. “I grew up listening to all the problems of the trucking world around the dinner table,” laughs George, “so it feels like I’ve been doing this my whole life.”
“We created an app, where drivers can just type in the first available container’s info on their phone, get all the necessary information about where it’s headed, and take it where it needs to be." — Mason George
Now president of IMC Companies — National Accounts, he helps lead the largest intermodal drayage company in the United States — and it’s based right here in Memphis. But every industry faces a curveball every now and then, and the coronavirus pandemic meant an unprecedented amount of tension on the supply chain worldwide. Finding a solution meant addressing issues that had already plagued the industry for years, and IMC Companies implementation of peel piles – in which drivers take the first available container at terminal, rather than wait around for hours for specific cargo – through its SmartStack technology meant smoother operations for customers, clients, and delivery drivers. While things had slowed down considerably due to the pandemic, George had been taking note of a transportation problem that had been slowly growing every year for the past decade.
“The amount of time that our drivers were spending at the rails and ports trying to get a container out of the terminal was getting longer,” he explains. “Early 2010’s, our drivers would spend less than 20 minutes at these places before taking cargo to their destination. And that’s just slowly crept up over the years to what amounted to an astronomical amount of time. Now, we saw that our drivers were spending upwards of four or five hours at a terminal.”
When trucks pull into a terminal looking for a specific container, sometimes their shipment is all the way at the bottom of a stack of cargo, and it takes a long time to unload everything else before they can pick it up. And when the next driver pulls up and sees that their specific shipment is now at the bottom of the new stack, the delays just pile up. Drivers would typically make five or six turns, or deliveries, per day, but that had dropped down to just two. And with many drivers paid or incentivized by the delivery, that just wasn’t going to be sustainable for them, or for anxious customers.
George worked with rail and port terminals to address these problems using what he calls one of IMC Companies’ SmartStacks. “We created an app, where drivers can just type in the first available container’s info on their phone, get all the necessary information about where it’s headed, and take it where it needs to be. In terms of the environment, we don’t need a hundred trucks idling at a terminal for hours every day. This helps cut down on our emissions there significantly.”
SmartStacks have been implemented in some of IMC Companies’ larger ports, increasing the average number of turns from two to as high as eight. But George sees SmartStacks as a way to kick off a wider industry collaboration and improve overall efficiency in the entire logistics industry. "If we work together to use SmartStacks with our competitors, we can improve the whole ecosystem and make it more efficient for the industry at large."
