AUTHOR ARCHIVES: Field Service News

Research released last week by Verizon Connect has revealed that the average small to medium-sized fleet operated business in the UK faces a £6,000 repair bill each year due to traffic accidents. Compounding this expense, they also lose an average of five working days each year as a result of vehicle downtime caused by traffic accidents.

Recent figures from the Department of Transport found that lorry traffic increased by 1.1% annually, with drivers travelling over 17.1 billion vehicle miles. The impact of this has hit small fleets as more than half (54 per cent), experienced an accident in the last year.

The strain on UK fleet managers is telling, with a third (31 per cent) of those surveyed by Verizon Connect reporting that maintenance and other associated costs are the top issues keeping them awake at night. The research also shows that fleet managers’ top concern regarding driver safety is using their phones while out on the roads (22 per cent), with speeding coming in at a close second (19 per cent).

Mobile Resource Management (MRM) software, like Verizon Connect, can help fleet managers improve driver safety standards across the fleet by sending real-time alerts to monitor speeding, breaking and other key driver behaviours. When it comes to the main cause of accidents, 29 per cent of fleet managers report that other road users are to blame, rather than their own drivers.

Previous research by Verizon Connect found that a quarter of UK drivers were found to be breaching driver guidelines around rest and fatigue. To combat this, and to uphold driver safety and compliance, just under half of fleet managers (46 per cent) use a tachograph to automatically record vehicle speed and distance and to keep track of their drivers’ rest periods.

“For small businesses, the cost of accidents, and driver downtime is a major concern – particularly as margins are tighter and competition is increasing.  But it’s not just the repair bill that matters, a vehicle out of service for five days could mean losing a valued customer to a rival,” comments Derek Bryan, Vice President, EMEA, Verizon Connect.

“With increasing numbers of vehicles out on the road, upholding driver safety is of utmost concern to fleet managers and drivers. While drivers can’t always avoid an accident, particularly if another driver is at fault, there are clear processes and technology that fleet managers can put in place to better protect their drivers. Making sure drivers take adequate rest breaks while tracking driver behaviour and encouraging safe driving practices can save lives, reduce accidents and uphold the lifetime and efficiency of the vehicles within the fleet.”

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ByBox, specialists in smart locker technology and field service solutions, today announced a strategic investment from Francisco Partners, the firm who acquired ClickSoftware in 2015 and who currently values ByBox at £221 million.

The private equity firm backs ambitious technology-enabled businesses and will support ByBox’s expansion of its UK infrastructure and global deployment of its ‘Konnect’ app-locker solution.

“ByBox is a great company with a clear and increasingly critical proposition. Its success comes down to great leadership, outstanding customer service and relentless development of its solutions. Listening closely to customers and really understanding market trends have made ByBox an extremely investible business,” remarked Deep Shah, co-president, Francisco Partners.

Working with Francisco Partners will enable ByBox to accelerate the deployment of its ground-breaking app-locker technology both in the UK and across key global markets. ByBox’s app-lockers systematically address the core challenges of the field service supply chain. This should be welcome news to ByBox’s customers, who grapple constantly with how to permanently extinguish unnecessary costs.

[quote float="left"]We’re excited to help ByBox support its existing UK customer base with new offerings, accelerate its international expansion and penetrate new industries.[/quote]Petri Oksanen, partner, Francisco Partners commented, “We’re excited to help ByBox support its existing UK customer base with new offerings, accelerate its international expansion and penetrate new industries. Our growth experience will complement ByBox’s inventive nature and intelligent solution set in continuing to drive real customer value into the global field service market.”

The transaction marks an exit for LDC, a mid-market private equity investor. LDC originally provided £37.5 million of development capital in 2016. In the last two years, the business has grown significantly and doubled in value.

“LDC are insightful and supportive investors who have worked closely with the ByBox team to formulate and execute a successful strategy. The next phase of this strategy is characterised by ongoing investment in our UK business as well as driving our international expansion. FP has a tremendous track record and will be ideal partners to help us deliver this growth,” commented Stuart Miller, co-founder and CEO of ByBox.

“ByBox is a great example of a company with a winning combination of innovative problem-solving technology and fantastic customer service. Under the impeccable leadership of Stuart and his team, ByBox has grown to become a real market leader in its field, two years ahead of plan,” said Alastair Weinel, investment director at LDC in the South. “Together, we’ve generated significant value and have opened the door for even further expansion. We know this ambitious management team isn’t finished yet and wish the team every success in the next phase of their journey.”

“The world is increasingly dependent on technology. When the tech fails, the world stops working. So field service has never been more critical – which is why everybody at ByBox is so excited to be an increasingly critical part of the future solution set. The backing from FP allows us to go faster and to deliver the next phase of our ambition for our customers,” concluded Miller.

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According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of telematics service subscribers using embedded systems will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.9 percent from 49.0 million subscribers at the end of 2017 to 258.1 million subscribers at the end of 2023.

Moreover, Berg Insight forecasts that shipments of embedded car OEM telematics systems worldwide will grow from 26.8 million units in 2017 to reach 67.2 million units in 2023, which represents an attach rate of 71.7 percent.

Connected car services have evolved from being a differentiating factor to a common feature with a high attach rate among the premium car brands and are rapidly becoming increasingly common in mid-range vehicles. GM’s OnStar was launched 20 years ago and is today the market leader worldwide with well above 14.0 million users in total, out of which 12.3 million were in North America by year-end 2017.

BMW includes telematics hardware as a standard feature on all its cars sold in 45 markets worldwide and has the second largest user base of an estimated 8.0 million equipped vehicles. PSA Group is currently in third place with 2.9 million connected vehicles in Europe. The carmaker launched an emergency and assistance call service already in 2003. Additional automotive OEMs with over 2 million telematics subscribers also include Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota/Lexus and FCA Group.

“There are several connected car services that experience growing demand from stakeholders including consumers, car manufacturers, governments and various third parties as awareness of the value of telematics spreads”, said Martin Svegander, IoT analyst at Berg Insight.

The leading carmakers are gradually exploring new use cases and business models for telematics such as premium concierge services, usage-based insurance and personal car sharing. “Recently, we have also seen GM, Jaguar Land Rover and Hyundai launch in-vehicle commerce platforms that create opportunities for retailers and merchants to connect with consumers”, added Mr. Svegander.

For field service organisations it will be interesting to see how this trend continues to shape the way we view fleet management and w2e are certainly beginning to see some maturation of a technology that will have a significant impact on our sector.

Want to know more? Download report brochure: The Global Automotive OEM Telematics Market

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As we conclude our series of excerpts from the exceptional industry guide 'Mobile Resource Management for Dummies', which has been commissioned by Verizon Connect we bring you ten benefits Mobile Resource Management (MRM) can bring to your business.

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!    

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Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content. 

If you have missed any of the other excerpts within this series you can catch up on the other topics we've explored which include: Understanding Digital Transformation in a Connected, Mobile World  also Thinking Outside the Silo and Harnessing the Power of Telematics,  Realising the Value of Mobile Resource Management and Avoiding Mobile Resource Management Pitfalls and Driving Employee Engagement with Gamification

However, the eBook contains a wealth of other key chapters offering important insight for any field service professional and we advise downloading the full eBook on either of the links at the top and bottom of the page...

Cloud-based MRM solutions can help your business to achieve numerous benefits: lower fuel costs, improved driver safety, better fleet utilisation, increased worker productivity, proactive maintenance and enhanced customer experience to name a few.

But the benefits to other areas of a company may not be as obvious. A comprehensive MRM solution can deliver benefits to many departments and roles within a company, including increasing return on investment (ROI) and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of mobile assets, improving productivity, increasing business agility and achieving competitive advantage.

By connecting vehicles, mobile assets, people and work, MRM gives the organisation the insight, agility and customer experience to stop lagging behind competitors and lead the market – to not just succeed but thrive.

In this way, MRM can transform the way the organisation does business.

So let's explore a few of the benefits experienced across various areas within the organisation.

#1 Operations:

An MRM solution provides operations managers with the tools they need to be able to plan for the day, week, month and year ahead. It gives complete visibility into everything that’s on-the-go so that teams can help to control running costs, streamline operations, optimise current assets and staff, make the most of the customer experience, and ensure compliance with all safety standards and regulatory mandates. It provides the data to help to plan for the future as companies look to grow and advance.

You need a broad platform approach to help automate manual processes, ensure consistency and efficiency throughout all operations and know that it’s all working. You need to be responsive and agile to customer demands. A negative customer experience damages you, your operation and the company as a whole. Organisations all live and die on the efficiency of the operation, and you need to introduce new services quickly and cost-effectively to meet the fast-changing expectations of customers.

#2 Fleet Management:

MRM programs can keep fleets in the best shape possible by reducing management and maintenance costs, creating proactive maintenance alerts, and opening a direct connection to maintenance providers. An MRM solution can also help to optimise the way the organisation uses its fleet, with planning tools that help to ensure that the right number and type of mobile resources are assigned to the right jobs, people and vehicles.

#3 Information Technology:

Through the use of an MRM solution, IT can access the data it needs to support the optimisation and automation of work and cash flows across the organisation. A cloud-based MRM solution also means fewer systems for IT to maintain, easier integration without the need to create and maintain application programming interfaces (APIs), faster deployment in the cloud, and simpler management of a single platform.

An MRM solution allows the team to enable and secure the collection of operational data from vehicles and drivers, and integrate that data with other applications for complete operations visibility.

#4 Making Safety a Priority:

An MRM solution can help businesses to make safety a priority by monitoring mobile resources such as construction tools, cherry pickers, cranes, and other heavy equipment to ensure that they’re being properly operated and maintained.

An MRM solution can also help management to create safer driving behaviours, such as avoiding speeding and harsh braking, through the use of driver scorecards and coaching tools, monitoring seatbelt usage, and providing accident notifications with airbag deployment alerts, along with in-cab alerts and live reporting. It can also help the team to reduce the possibility of accidents by optimising drivers’ routes and cutting out unnecessary travel. Finally, an MRM solution can help drivers with regulatory compliance.

#5 Risk Management:

With MRM, risk management teams have the ability to ensure regulatory and policy compliance in vehicles and demonstrate a mobile duty of care.

By identifying unsafe driving behaviour, providing insights into accident or damage claims, mitigating fleet liability risks, and protecting against potential fraud, theft and supervisory negligence claims, businesses can reduce risk due to consequential losses.

In other words, MRM software is the eyes and ears to ensure the on-the-go organisation is running as smoothly as possible, and provides peace of mind for business owners and directors, as MRM insights allow for greater control and measurement of key compliance and safety legislation.

#6 Sales and Customer Relations:

An MRM solution helps to give sales and customer relations one of the very best outcomes possible – more on-time service calls, deliveries and appointments, and better customer estimated time of arrival (ETA) visibility. That, in turn, creates long-term fans and brand advocates who’ll come back again and again.

#7 Human Resources:

Human resources can use an enterprise fleet management solution to gain a near real-time connection to all on-the-go employees. Whether it’s visibility, near real-time coaching, training or helping drivers to hit more of their targets by being more efficient, an MRM software solution gives human resources the tools they need to make employees even better.

#8 Tax Recordkeeping:

An MRM solution includes driver apps, simplifying the classification of business and personal journeys. This helps to reduce administration time and produces mileage reporting in an HMRC- ready format. MRM solutions can also control routes, helping to avoid road tolls.

#9 Payroll:

By making aspects like miles and hours driven, hours on site, and time from clock-in to departure easy to measure, and by moving from paper to electronic timesheets, an MRM solution helps payroll to perform more efficiently.

MRM helps you to better manage wage bills by matching the right skill to the right job, rather than sending overqualified staff to easier, low-level jobs. An MRM solution can also help you to manage labour distribution efficiently so that you can assign jobs to less utilised employees earning standard time, rather than employees earning overtime for a given pay period, when possible. And when payroll is more efficient, salaries and payments go out on time – which makes everybody happy.

#10 Finance:

An MRM solution improves cash flow and speeds up billing, by helping the finance department to speed up all payment and processing operations, as well as reduce invoice and settlement disputes. Financial reporting is also faster with easy-to-create and distribute reports that demonstrate savings and productivity throughout the organisation. This is possible because an MRM program can help to automate the entire workflow – moving from paper to digital.

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Commercial fully autonomous vehicles appear to be getting ever closer to a genuine reality as Knorr-Bremse offer a glimpse into their upcoming announcements at the  IAA Commercial Vehicles show being held in Hanover later this month.

Knorr- Bremse, a global market leader for braking systems and a leading supplier of other rail and commercial vehicle systems, will be demonstrating a truck that can master sections of the route on motorways/freeways in fully autonomous mode, including overtaking manoeuvres. In addition, Knorr-Bremse will be showing extremely efficient ways of making such highly automated systems fail-safe.

In the outdoor New Mobility World arena at the fair, Knorr-Bremse will be demonstrating a prototype truck that can drive along motorways/freeways in fully autonomous mode. Traffic conditions permitting, it can also automatically overtake a slower preceding vehicle. In line with the motto “We pave the road to automated driving”, at booth 30 in hall 17, the company will be showcasing product and system solutions that lay the foundations for such highly automated vehicle systems, as well as illustrating how the complex automated functions can be rendered fail-safe in a cost-effective way.

"Knorr-Bremse will be demonstrating a prototype truck that can drive along motorways/freeways in fully autonomous mode..."

According to Dr. Peter Laier, Executive Board Member of Knorr-Bremse AG responsible for the Commercial Vehicle Systems division: “In the next few years we’re going to see a gradual shift from more and more versatile driver assistance systems to automated driving and thus to vehicles that can temporarily take over the driving completely, freeing up the driver to handle other tasks or get some rest.

The key to engineering such systems is a deep-seated understanding of commercial vehicle dynamics, which are far more complex than in the case of cars. The millions of ABS, EBS, ESP, emergency braking and lane departure warning systems that we have in the field bear lasting witness to our expertise in this area and form the basis for us to leverage the potential that exists in driver assistance systems and automated driving.”

Dr Jürgen Steinberger is a Member of the Management Board of Knorr-Bremse Commercial Vehicle Systems where he is responsible for the field of automated driving: “At the IAA we will be demonstrating our sovereign command of all three dimensions of highly automated driving functions – environment recognition, decision-making and actuation. Another decisive aspect is a smart redundancy concept: When the vehicle takes control, everything must be designed in a way that the vehicle cannot run out of control even if an electronic subsystem fails. Simply doubling up the critical components, as was originally demanded, makes no economic sense. At the IAA we will be demonstrating how a modern braking system can even temporarily replace the steering. Our redundancy concept for automated driving illustrates how to combine outstanding performance with cost-effectiveness.”

Redundancy: The real challenge behind automation

For more than a decade, the automotive industry has been developing automated driving functions in a bid to improve both safety and driving comfort. Beginning with driver assistance, these different levels of automation are progressively transferring responsibility from the driver to the vehicle. There is now a broad consensus in the automotive industry on the use of a six-level model to describe the graduated transition to full automation. This model is based on a paper published by the Society of Automotive Engineers International (SAEI) in late 2016. This document defines the role of the human driver at each of the six levels of automation and aims to provide both lawmakers and the automotive industry with a clear and unambiguous framework for defining regulatory provisions and technical specifications.

"The technology underpinning the six-level model of driving automation spans three different dimensions – vehicle stability, manoeuvre planning and navigation/connectivity..."

The technology underpinning the six-level model of driving automation spans three different dimensions – vehicle stability, manoeuvre planning and navigation/connectivity. The first of these dimensions comprises actions aimed at improving braking distance and preventing skidding or sliding. These actions are performed by means of ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) and ESP (Electronic Stability Program) functions which also form the basis for the next dimension – “manoeuvre planning”. Here environment sensors such as radar, video and laser-based systems are used in combination with active steering intervention to support automated vehicle control. The third dimension – navigation/connectivity – delivers the necessary extended environmental information and supports vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure interaction over a wide geographic range.

As driving becomes automated, the question arises for manufacturers how they can ensure fail-safe operation in a cost-effective and reliable way. At the fair, Knorr-Bremse will show that, with the necessary vehicle-related know-how, failure of the active steering system can be compensated for without installing a redundant set of the relevant components.

Highly automated driving functions generally predicate the ability to constantly monitor the operational readiness of the various subsystems in the vehicle. Only when the entire system – including its redundancy structure – works as intended can the driver take care of other duties while the vehicle is in motion.

You can find out more in person by visiting  Knorr-Bremse at the IAA Commercial Vehicles show in Hanover from September 20-27, on booth A30 in hall 17 and in outdoor area D107. At the Automechanika fair in Frankfurt am Main from September 11-15, Knorr-Bremse will be on booth 91 and booth 98 in hall 3.0.

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We are undoubtedly entering a new era of technology, automation and innovation, but in a world of rapid industrial evolution how will regulations also adapt? 

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"Everything is true… everything anybody has ever thought." Philip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

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It is impossible to escape from the fact that technology, and increasingly artificial intelligence (AI), has transformed everyday life.

It all started with how we play our music, but Apple's Siri and Amazon's Alexa (along with other similar "virtual assistants") now have a daily interface with many of us. We are also, increasingly, now daily users of the Internet of Things (IoT) – connecting up smart fridges, boilers and alarm systems, each controllable from a smartphone. The "everyday" form of AI is almost unavoidable in the modern home, but, while not necessarily as obvious to you and me, there is also an ongoing, yet unseen growth in AI in the manufacturing sector.  What is still lacking, however, is concrete regulation in place for the use and development of AI in the industry.

This article looks at where AI regulation might be implemented and, specifically, what impact both AI has, and its regulation would have, on the manufacturing industry and what role the UK might have in this ever-changing sector.

What is "Industry 4.0" and how is AI related?

The term "Industry 4.0" is not a new one.  It relates back to discussions in 2012 of a forthcoming "Fourth Industrial Revolution", the idea being that the current trend of automation would increase, with technology enabling "smart factories". These factories take existing automated assembly line structures and include a cyber element, allowing for the underlying manufacturing machinery to communicate with one another and with the wider factory system as a whole via an IoT setup – increasing efficiency.

Machines with autonomy

The whole process is, and would still be, overseen by a human element, who the machines can also communicate with.  But one of the main goals of Industry 4.0 is to have the machines operating in a decentralised way and with as much autonomy as possible save only where exceptions, interferences or conflicting goals require additional input.

How is AI being used currently?

"So far, so sci-fi" you might think, but Industry 4.0 is alive across our manufacturing industry and there are already plenty of examples of manufacturers using this kind of technology across the sector.  Developments are being pioneered by high-end technology companies such as Tesla, Intel and Microsoft on an international scale, some through mere investment or others through actual manufacturing and application.

AI efficiencies and cost savings

Siemens has been using neural networks for a number of years in monitoring the efficiencies of their steel plants.  Siemens is now using this prior experience to make waves in the manufacturing AI sector, using AI to monitor variables (e.g. temperature) on their gas turbines which then adjusts the operation of the machine for increased efficiency and without unwanted by-products.

Others use system masters to spot potential problems and possible solutions, often before a human operator would notice such issues.  The use of this technology has resulted in positive improvements across their smart factories, reducing maintenance costs, as AI can now detect wear on machinery long before it becomes unmanageable.

The UK's role in AI and plans for regulation

In the UK, The Manufacturer's Annual Manufacturing Report 2018 conducted a survey on the possibility of a more widespread use of "smart factories" - 92% of senior manufacturing executives believe that digital technologies (including AI) will enable them to increase productivity levels.  Yet, the UK is generally seen as "lagging behind" many other developed countries when it comes to implementing AI in the manufacturing sector.  Is this an example of the UK "traditional mindset"?  With estimates on global turnover of the "smart manufacturing" market soaring to a projected $320bn by 2020 – let's hope not!

Sector-led regulation

Despite technology advancing at a rapid pace, regulation of AI is yet to emerge.  Whilst some commentators have theorised a Skynet-style AI uprising if the sector remains as unregulated as it is today, the UK government has provided a more pragmatic voice. According to the House of Lords Select Committee's report on AI[1], the UK "is in a strong position to be a world leader in the development of artificial intelligence" and with this comes some required element of regulation.

The report "AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?" makes several recommendations as to how the law may need to be updated to account for these new technologies, but also states that "blanket AI-specific regulation, at this stage, would be inappropriate". The Lords instead believe that a sector-specific approach should be taken, with three new governmental organisations (the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI), the AI Council and the Government Office for AI) each taking a lead role in developing regulatory policy going forwards.

Manufacturing sector

For the manufacturing sector, this is expected to cover a number of areas. A key area of focus is likely to be the availability of data access.  AI systems are notoriously expensive and this could clearly impact on the revenues of SMEs struggling to compete financially with international corporations if they were to be further bolstered by AI. A possible solution suggested by the Lords is to implement an "Open Banking" style model where some data can be made public in order to make the sector, as a whole, more competitive.

Safety concerns

Terminator references aside, safety is also one of the primary concerns in this new technology. The current law is a long way from Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" and currently fails to address liability issues if, for example, a worker was to be injured by a machine malfunction. As with all policy issues at the moment, the spectre of Brexit looms large and is specifically referred to in the Lords' report as an area of concern since many of the UK's AI initiatives are run jointly with EU counterparts.

Impact on workforce

Finally, aside from direct regulation, businesses across the sector must prepare themselves for potential changes in personnel. Much has been made of how AI will "cost jobs" but the reality is that work in this field is expected to create as many as are lost. It will be more a matter of retraining current staff to deal with the new equipment, and each business will have to assess how much of an impact this will have on their own operation.

AI promotion of innovation and growth

The use of AI in manufacturing will inevitably increase over the short-to-medium term before becoming the "norm" and with an encouraging approach taken by the Lords, aligned with UK Government – who are committed to regulation "that promotes innovation and the growth of new sectors while protecting citizens and the environment", it is likely that we can expect domestic investment in AI as well as the inevitable international investment.

Sustainable regulation required

As with all rapidly growing technologies, the focus should be on sustainable regulation (such as the recent developments in UK law on the use of drones).  However, while the regulatory forecast is still uncertain, what is becoming clear is a real sense of opportunity.

AI - an opportunity for all

With the possibility of the UK being front-and-centre of the new age for manufacturing, there is huge potential for our manufacturing and technology clients:

• those that embrace the change and move towards a technology-focused approach away from the traditional "industrial" style will surely benefit from the efficiencies that come with that change, and
• for the smaller UK SMEs and start-ups out there – dream big!  With the AI sector in such an early stage of development and with many larger corporations lacking the technological know-how (for the time being) to trail-blaze the industry, UK start-ups, with the technological background, have the opportunity to partner or contract with large industrials and have their say on what the future of the manufacturing sector looks like.

Womble Bond Dickinson takes a sector-based approach in all work that we do for our clients and are particularly strong in both manufacturing and technology.  If you have any comments or queries in relation to this article, AI in general, or questions about how we can help your business grow and embrace this new landscape, please get in touch.

Our series of excerpts from the exceptional industry guide 'Mobile Resource Management for Dummies', which has been commissioned by Verizon Connect has so far explored Understanding Digital Transformation in a Connected, Mobile World  also Thinking Outside the Silo and Harnessing the Power of Telematics, and Realising the Value of Mobile Resource Managemen

Now in this latest excerpt, we turn our attention to how field service organisations can avoid Mobile Resource Management pitfalls whilst they drive greater employee engagement.

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!   

sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content. 

If you need to catch up with the previous articles in this series you can find part one here, part two here and part three here.

As with any new project or initiative, there are some common pitfalls to avoid when deploying a Mobile Resource Management (MRM) solution. In this excerpt, we shall look at some of these pitfalls and how to address them, as well as how to engage employees in every department throughout your organisation using the concept of gamification to coach and improve worker performance and drive a more satisfied, efficient and safe organisation.

You Can’t ‘Set It and Forget It’

MRM is a business strategy supported by processes and technology and used by teams throughout the organisation.

Although technology is a vital component, many organisations mistakenly focus purely on the technology and neglect to consider how supporting processes will map to the MRM solution, and fail to define or implement a strategy to gain user adoption.

"The goodwill created through co-consultation will quickly evaporate if people don’t understand how to use the software and how it benefits the company, their team members, and themselves..."

Although various teams throughout your organisation may have been consulted during the MRM planning process, don’t expect them to automatically embrace the new system or instinctively know how to use it effectively. The goodwill created through co-consultation will quickly evaporate if people don’t understand how to use the software and how it benefits the company, their team members, and themselves.

The level of personalisation will depend on the workflows and the capabilities of the solution being implemented. User training always needs to be built into any MRM project plan.

As well as covering tuition on software functionality and its benefits, group training is a perfect forum to formulate processes and ensure buy-in collectively from all teams. Tailored training programmes involving the system users or those with a vested interest in delivery – your MRM ‘advocates’ or ‘champions’ – need to be developed.

In this way, the system will be seen as a universal corporate tool and not just one department ‘selling’ it.

A common pitfall (discussed in our article in this series on 'Thinking Outside the Silo') is trying to cobble together your own MRM system by integrating siloed best-of-breed solutions in-house. The ever-changing applications make constant connectivity a difficult, moving target that’s costly to set up and that requires a long-term and expensive commitment, relying on a small team/person with highly specialised knowledge – this can be a very high-risk proposition.

Don’t Just Throw in the Kitchen Sink

As the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out.

Spend time cleaning up your data – especially any data that includes addresses. Have you maintained a consistent style or format for data entry? Doing some data validation to determine whether your data is in the proper format goes a long way towards helping to make your data more usable.

One of the fundamental deployment errors in any new system is simply ‘forklifting’ your data from the old system to the new one. Before you begin the process, separate, segment and streamline your data. Work out which segments are relatively clean and which will need additional cleansing. Think clearly about what you want to put in and what will actually be relevant day to day. What data is going to get users to actually want to use the system? Remove out-of-date activities, as well as organisations and contacts that haven’t been touched recently. Relevancy is a guaranteed way to overcome user resistance.

Don’t just focus on addresses – think about time windows, skill sets, delivery days/dates and other common data.

These will all impact the effectiveness of your MRM solution if they’re not accurate and up-to-date. Have a clear, consolidated, centralised database of all your fleet/asset information to avoid delays and frustration, especially at remote locations.

Taking the necessary steps to fix any issues or errors in advance will significantly improve the MRM data conversion and implementation process.

Establish Your Mission

While your drivers, technicians or crews may be a subset of a larger business, there’s no reason why that subset shouldn’t have its own mission that aligns and supports the overall corporate mission.

"While your drivers, technicians or crews may be a subset of a larger business, there’s no reason why that subset shouldn’t have its own mission that aligns and supports the overall corporate mission..."

 

Once the mission is established, it’s time to break it down to individual objectives that support the mission. For example, the mission may be to operate the safest fleet in your region, so the objectives may include reducing speeding incidents, Hours of Service (HOS) violations or vehicle idle time.

Create measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) from the established objectives and keep them as specific as possible. No matter what your objectives are – increasing productivity, decreasing fuel costs, improving the safety of your crews or increasing asset utilisation – the secret to achieving them is keeping them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART). You then need to connect your entire organisation to the established goals.

Align Your Objectives

Review your objectives to ensure that they align with business operations. For example, if your company puts working as fast as possible first and safety second, then setting an objective to reduce speeding won’t align. Get your company influencers (normally managers or supervisors) involved to review and align to the objectives.

Your managers need to be on board with the new objectives because they play an important role in influencing others, and ultimately help to achieve a successful outcome. After reviewing and refining your objectives, and aligning them with your organisation, you’re ready for deployment.

Plan Your Rollout Across the Organisation

If you’re rolling out at multiple locations, draw up a coordinated plan.

Ensure that all parties are on the same page and engaged across the entire organisation – not just in the main office, but at all remote sites. Everyone needs to be aware of the deployment plan and the local champion/team must have everything prepared for deployment at their site on the agreed day/time.

Clear and concise internal communications are critical to ensure a smooth rollout.

Scope the deployment properly first: don’t move the goal posts during implementation. This is very difficult to do, as local variance and conditions means that tweaks are needed but they can cause delay.

What Is Gamification

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in a typically non-game-oriented context.

Gamification is used by software companies to build business applications that increase engagement and participation while accelerating learning. It leverages the human instinct to compete with ourselves or others, with the objective of encouraging teams to achieve company-wide goals.

For example, you can deliver greater safety and compliance by giving near real-time data to drivers so that they can track – and eventually improve – their own performance, or improve productivity by empowering field workers to track near real-time performance metrics when completing work orders.

For gamification to be most effective it needs to be ‘refereed’. This means monitoring results, providing incentives and celebrating wins...

For gamification to be most effective it needs to be ‘refereed’. This means monitoring results, providing incentives and celebrating wins. It can’t just be a new fad or flavour of the month initiative. Instead, it must become part of the fabric and culture of the business otherwise results will slip and workers will return to their old habits.

To monitor the results, you need a scoreboard to help reinforce the KPIs so that your employees know what they’re playing for.

The system takes the predetermined metrics and generates a score, then lets the employee see how they perform against their peers. It’s an opportunity to improve behaviours and perform with pride because they see metrics that show a direct correlation to how they’re helping to make their operation successful.

Managers can compare employee scorecards and the types and frequencies of training content being accessed to different metrics such as the rate of accidents, lost-time injuries and productivity, and draw direct correlations between what moves the needle and what doesn’t.

Done right, gamification can be more than just a passing fad.

The data derived can be a powerful force for change in your organisation – you’ll see more than better business results: you’ll have employees who feel more engaged and appreciated, recognised for good performance on the job and motivated to do their best.

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