Step 2.1 — Carrier Identification

Previous step: Step 1.11 — Greenlight Declaration Next step: Step 2.2 — Pre-Onboarding Carrier Vetting


🎯 Ideal State

A carrier enters Forza’s system through one of two sourcing modes. Regardless of the path, the full onboarding process applies — no shortcuts for urgency.

Load-Driven SourcingJames or Jen has a load to cover and identifies a prospective carrier through one or more channels:

Sourcing ChannelRole
EZ-Loader freight matchingSystem matches lane, equipment, and pickup date against carriers in Forza’s network
DAT load boardPrimary load board for posting loads and receiving carrier responses
Parade AIAI-powered capacity suggestions from truck-list emails and partner networks (activates at EZ-Loader go-live)
Trucker-ToolsCarrier responses from the Trucker Tools network
Direct carrier outreachOps calls or emails a carrier based on lane knowledge

Relationship-Driven Sourcing — Ops or Sales wants to add a carrier to the network proactively. No immediate load, but Forza wants the carrier ready for future dispatch.

Owner: Operations (James, Jen) — identification and initiation of onboarding.

🛑 HARD GATE:

A carrier must complete the full onboarding process and reach “Active” status in EZ-Loader before they can be assigned to any load. EZ-Loader enforces this automatically — carriers in “Onboarding Sent” or “Onboarding Signed” status cannot be assigned to loads.


📍 Current State

  • Carrier identification happens through multiple channels as described above — this part of the process works.
  • Carriers are identified primarily by Ops (James and Jen).
  • Pressure from load urgency does sometimes result in pushing carriers through onboarding faster than ideal. The process gate at Step 2.5 (activation) is what prevents dispatch before full onboarding, but it can be bypassed by admin-level users.

🚧 Gap

  1. No documented carrier sourcing priority or decision tree — no standard for which sourcing channel to check first for a given lane.
  2. Informal time-pressure workarounds to move carriers through onboarding faster than the process allows.

🛠️ Gap Closure Actions

  • Document a carrier sourcing decision tree — when to use which channel based on lane, equipment, and urgency Owner: Casey + James | Effort: Low
  • Reinforce the “no dispatch without activation” policy as a hard rule with zero exceptions Owner: Casey + James + Nick | Effort: Policy decision