SLC x Rose Rocket‍St. Lawrence College in Cornwall, ON is popularly known for it’s Supply Chain Management graduate certificate – a program that Carla Kingston-Floyd is proud to be a professor of.

The transportation industry is one that hits close to home for Carla – she was raised by a truck driver and her father owned his own trucking company. She spent most of her life working at transportation companies and learned every side of the business from operations to accounting and finances. When she stepped into a teaching role, she realized how much the industry had evolved from when she first began, and wanted to ensure her students could benefit from some hands-on experience. Carla wanted to best prepare them to thrive in an industry that started to embrace modern technology.  That’s where the college’s journey with Rose Rocket began.

‍Looking for a TMS partner to elevate the educational experienceCarla was looking to team up with a TMS partner for almost 8 years. The first half of the course gives students the theoretical knowledge of the trucking industry – what is a trucking company, the risks, rules and regulations, etc. But it had always been Carla’s dream to create a simulated transportation company within the classroom in order for students to apply their skills in a hands-on way. Her dreams were able to come true when she met Albert Renaud, Director of Logistics at Minimax Express, who is also a Rose Rocket customer. He introduced Carla to the team at Rose Rocket and from there, a dream partnership began to come to fruition.
‍The Rose Rocket & St. Lawrence College PartnershipRose Rocket has collaborated with St Lawrence College to offer their TMS as a simulated tool for students in the classroom to run a mock trucking company. Being able to use real-world, industry software has resulted in huge benefits for both Carla and her students.

“Rose Rocket enables our students to actually look at a TMS software and from there, they can decide how the entire system works from the time you get that call from the customer until the time you get the payment.” says Carla.

They’re able to put what they’ve learned into practice and learn from the implications of their decisions in real-time, both positive and negative. For example, if a student selects the wrong truck on a lane, they will have paid a lot of out of line miles. And while this can be talked about in the classroom, the valuable takeaway with a TMS like Rose Rocket is being able to see it affect the business in real-time, live on the software.

Carla hopes to introduce the software even earlier in the program, to allow more time for students to leverage the analytical features and advanced reporting tools within Rose Rocket.From the instant implications of how your gross margin is impacted, to observing your on-time service satisfaction, all the way to the impacts on customer retention – the analytics reporting within the platform is something she describes as unmatched to anything she’s seen in the industry previously.
‍From classroom to the real worldVinit Pawaskar is a student that recently finished the program. Prior to enrolling, he had worked in the industry for four years, but wanted to gain more insights on the specifics of supply chain management. After using Rose Rocket, Vinit says the interface was very user friendly, so much so that he believes anyone could easily learn it.

‍“I was able to input orders, create the manifest and do the dispatching, which  I don't have any experience [in] and I enjoy that area because of Rose Rocket. I intend to divert to the transportation industry in the future. If I have to start my own fleet for my business, I would definitely consider Rose Rocket as my first option.” says Vinit

‍Moreover, having the hands-on experience with Rose Rocket’s TMS has allowed him to feel ready to take on a role in the industry. He’s even shared that he’ll be pursuing another course, to further his knowledge and fulfill his dream of starting his own import/export business.

Embracing the evolution of the industry to empower future transportation professionalsFor Carla, the most fulfilling part of the entire experience has been seeing her students grow in parallel with an industry that’s also growing. She remembers the days of waiting for drivers to call with their location and the frustration of being unable to give location updates to customers instantly. But now, she’s confident that her students are in a position to adapt quickly to the new, technologically forward landscape of the industry.

‍“The evolution of this has made it much more quicker, much more efficient and a lot easier to work in the industry. Trying to remember where 20 truck drivers were was very arduous task. But today, to be able to look at the screen and say, here's where they are, this is when they need to be home. [All this] is gonna make it so much easier for these students to advance their careers.”

‍With the Rose Rocket partnership in the classroom, Carla is fulfilled knowing that she’s confidently trained the future of the industry in a sustainable way, especially in a sector that's in such need of employees both for on the road and inside associates.

“If I could share one last thing, it would be my profound appreciation to Rose Rocket to be a forward thinking company. I would like to say a huge thank you to Rose Rocket for one, making my job easier and two making my students better.”