SANTA FE, ARGENTINA — Louis Dreyfus Co. (LDC) is partnering with Circular digital to add an application that will help coordinate logistics and manage appointments for trucks delivering grain to its operations in Argentina.

“As part of LDC’s strategy to leverage innovation to drive positive change and address evolving needs in our industry, we continually look to embrace the latest solutions that can facilitate and drive efficiency in our activities, and deliver a better service to our many counterparts,” said Fernando Correa Urquiza, regional head of oilseeds for South & West Latin America at LDC. “The addition of Circular’s services in our operations is another positive step in this sense.”

Circular’s platform is already available to producers and carriers who supply LDC’s General Lagos facility, and is expected to be implemented at all LDC plants, ports and warehouses in Argentina over the coming months.

LDC’s plant in General Lagos receives about 900 trucks per day during the harvest season. Circular’s application will give LDC real-time access to information that will simplify appointment scheduling and increase efficiency in the flow of pick-up and drop-off operations by steadying the number of trucks arriving at the plant throughout the day and reducing wait times.

The app also allows drivers to interact with logistics departments at warehouses and plants, schedule delivery times and upload all operational information to any PC or mobile devices with android operating system.

“With our app, we hope to improve the efficiency of every link in the supply chain, providing tools to integrate them and simplify the logistics process,” said Marcos Laffaye, co-founder of Circular. “For example, by scheduling appointments to arrive at the port, carriers may save on average four hours in the process from the moment the truck enters the terminal to the moment it leaves.”

The app is used in combination with the STOP system developed by the national government to create a standard truck appointment system for all plants in the country.

Circular’s app can be downloaded free of charge from Google Play.

Circular was founded in 2018 in Argentina by Andrés Augspach and Marcos Laffaye. It works through a free download app that serves as a virtual assistant to transporters, producers, contractors, cooperatives and grain companies, to organize and streamline logistics from the field to unloading at ports. Since the pilot test in March 2019 with 200 trucks, Circular is in a growth stage, with 30,000 drivers attached in Argentina and with expansion plans in Mercosur.