ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘fleet-technology-2’ CATEGORY

Trimble has recently announced that they will be providing both their GeoManager Fleet Management and their Driver Safety Solutions to one of the UK’s food industry’s leading service, maintenance and supply company Millers Vanguard. The technology has been implemented in order to help the business stream line its field service operations and improve customer service.

The GeoManager Fleet Management solution boasts real-time visibility into day-to-day fleet operations, which can potentially help Millers Vanguard see major improvements in their service performance and productivity, with faster and more accurate response times a major benefit. In addition, with the availability of real-time status information, communication with customers and drivers about service call timing can also be improved.

"We pride ourselves on offering the best support to our customers, delivered to the highest standard and Trimble's technology is integral in helping us to achieve this," said Mo Williams, operations manager at Millers Vanguard.

"The real-time location intelligence and trip management tools provided by Trimble Fleet Management will allow us to optimise route planning, reduce unscheduled stops and allocate tasks to a technician closest to a call out. This can help us to respond to customer requests as quickly and as efficiently as possible and will help us to improve productivity, with technicians being able to complete more jobs per day."

As well as implementing the Trimble Fleet Management solution, Millers Vanguard will also be using Trimble Driver Safety to monitor and review driving behavior across its fleet.

"We are delighted to be working with Millers Vanguard to help improve the safety of their employees," said Mark Forrest, general manager of Trimble's Field Service Management Division.

"Trimble Driver Safety allows aggressive maneuvers, such as hard acceleration, braking, turns and speed to be recorded, offering real-time feedback to the driver as well as a complete analysis for the back office. "This insight means that training can then be provided to individuals to improve their driving style which will not only help reduce accidents and vehicle downtime, but will also help reduce the fleet's fuel consumption and carbon footprint."

Finally Trimble vehicle diagnostics will be implemented across the fleet to assist with vehicle management.

The vehicle diagnostic solutions provide real-time data so information can be drawn directly from the vehicle. The information delivered includes alerts about engine problems before they become a major problem, fault codes and real-time insight into fuel consumption, including miles per gallon (mpg) and emissions per vehicle. All of these factors help the fleet management team identify where fuel is being wasted on poorly performing vehicles.

By efficiently managing its vehicles through vehicle diagnostics, Millers Vanguard are able to preserve their assets, extend vehicle life and increase productivity through lowering the risk of mechanical failure.

 

Find out more about Trimble, including, videos cases studies and news and features in our online directory here. 

Telogis have introduced their newest upgrade to their cloud-based fleet management and field service platform "Telogis Fleet 11"

Described by the software company as a major upgrade that will ‘effectively transform the way business is done outside the four walls’. Telogis Fleet 11 will allow companies to move toward achieving significant gains in operational efficiency by offering easier access for its users to both analysing and then utilising data gathered from workers, vehicles and assets in the field.

Included within the Telogis Fleet 11 platform are dynamic routing, commercial-grade navigation, advanced telematics, real-time work order management and mobile applications for companies with significant numbers of mobile workers.

Connected location intelligence drives significant gains in productivity

Whether companies require actionable information from their vehicles, assets, customers, workers, partners or all of the above, Telogis Fleet 11 enables connectivity between what is happening in the field and the back office. Telogis Fleet 11 features mobile application enhancements and new maps that are optimised for mobile devices, allowing supervisors and operations leads to easily visualise vehicles, assets and workers. Fleet 11 also supports Telogis Live 2.0, the industry’s first location and data sharing tool that connects partners’ and contractors’ workers and assets on one screen so that project information can be shared among multiple users to maximize productivity and operational efficiencies.

Telogis Fleet 11 also delivers support for richer engine data and services derived from existing relationships with the top vehicle manufacturers such as Ford, Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks and others, enabling more advanced levels of alerting and reporting.

“The trifecta of connected location intelligence, understanding what’s happening with drivers behind the wheel and the ability to derive actionable analytics from that data is really what drives business transformation for our customers,” said Mark Wallin, vice president, product management at Telogis. “Telogis Fleet 11 raises the bar by turning data into true business intelligence, helping companies make more informed decisions that make their businesses run smarter.”

Connecting with the driver: the key to safety, fuel and compliance improvements

Telogis Fleet 11 also closes the loop with drivers through the integration of Telogis Coach, the industry’s first mobile application to give both drivers and back offices the same view of a driver behavior scorecard. Using Telogis Coach drivers review their own behaviors and understand their successes and opportunities for improvement. They also receive peer leaderboards, a snapshot of the day’s driving behaviors and tips for driving more responsibly and safely.

Fleet 11 also helps drivers meet the latest compliance mandates for Hours of Service (HOS) and Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIR) by providing simple, seamless integration between Telogis mobile compliance applications and the back office.

Actionable analytics that drive mission-critical business changes

The actionable analytics that are derived from connecting to and understanding how teams and vehicles are performing in the field is facilitated by Fleet 11’s enhanced alerts, dashboards and reports that include visual analytic tools and dashboards, scripted alerts for even more flexibility, the Enterprise key performance indicator (KPI) Scorecard and reports in hundreds of configurable formats to fit any business or fleet size.

Find out more about Telogis including video, and more news and features in our Field Service News directory here. 

There is nothing quite like a good nights sleep. So it is especially good news to find out that one purveyor of such wonders (i.e. a bed and mattress retail company) has been able to step up their deliveries by using dedicated fleet management technology.

Bed experts, Dreams has been able to increase it’s efficiency of its home deliveries by turning to Paragon’s Home delivery system (HDS) as part of their fleet management technology solution.  This means that all 6,000 weekly nationwide weekly deliveries will be planned and scheduled for the Dreams head office. The system will allow for the customer to be provided with a selection of optimised dates so they can choose one which suits them for their delivery. This is available to them  either at the point of sale in store or when they make a purchase online.

“When a Dreams customer buys a bed our Microsoft Dynamics NAV system will calculate the earliest availability for the product. This information feeds through to Paragon HDS, which then works out the available delivery dates to offer the customer. The information is presented graphically to our sales staff in red, amber and green, with green being the most efficient delivery,” says Ian Clarke, Change Controller, Dreams.

“We offer customers the ability to book a delivery up to 90 days in advance if they require it; typically most choose between 10 and 15 days after making a purchase. We also have much more flexibility to move deliveries around if we need to and we can close off routes earlier. In fact, with the latest version of the software we can also shut off a depot early and we can pause specific routes, if necessary to maximise efficiency.”

Dreams currently operates eight home delivery depots, which aided by a fleet management technology suite from Paragon, enables them to cover the entire of the UK and they plan to open a ninth depot soon which will be based in Scotland and will add further efficiency to their routes with its ninth depot opening soon. The deliveries are made using the company’s fleet of 100 x 3.5 tonne Mercedes Sprinter vans.

“Paragon HDS completely eliminates all manual elements from our delivery planning. It gives us much tighter control of how many vans we need and the number of driver shifts required to achieve the plan. Together with our stock availability system, we have a much clearer view of our supply chain as we can plan when goods need to be in the depots and we’re now running some as stockless, having just the items they need to deliver within the next 48 hours,” says Ian Clarke.

Perhaps the key benefit of HDS is the automatic integration with the other elements of the fleet management technology that Paragon are already delivering to Dreams including GPS vehicle tracking units in the vans using Paragon Fleet Controller. Giving Dreams the ability to monitor delivery progress in real-time and providing them with a live report feed. This feed is then published on the Dreams intranet to show how deliveries are progressing and allows customer services to keep customers updated with ETAs.

This visibility includes being able to see the exact current status of each delivery and report whether the van is at the customer’s home or has completed the delivery and is on its way to the next drop.

This of course means that the field service management team can sleep well at night knowing they are running as efficiently as possible!

Looking to find out more about fleet management technology or looking for a fleet management technology provider? Visit our directory which includes videos, case studies and other resources on a number of fleet management technology companies by clicking this link. 

New safety camera integration from Isotrak is assisting fleet operators improve safety by capturing video evidence of on-road incidents in real-time. This camera integration helps to reduce speeding by as much as 97 percent and cuts accident rates by almost 80 percent. In addition, the solution is proven to further improve fuel economy on top of the savings available from using vehicle tracking alone.

The vehicle tracking and driver safety monitoring enhancement provides transport managers with high resolution images that are date and time stamped for any point of the journey, and recording whether the vehicle is moving or stationary. The cameras integrate seamlessly with Isotrak’s vehicle tracking and telemetry solution, providing telemetry data and camera footage to backup any claims made by the driver or dispute any claims made by third party plaintiffs.

The detailed video images give a clear view of how a vehicle was being driven immediately prior to an incident, helping prove whether the driver was at fault or not. With the rising cost in insurance, the technology reduces accident costs by up to 70 percent and also helps with defending against fraudulent claims by providing better understanding of what actually happened. Fleet operators can also use the safety camera video to help them with driver training and to stop unsafe driving behaviour.

“We have partnered with market leading safety camera providers to provide a fully integrated solution that gives customers a real-time video view of how their fleet is performing right down to individual driver and vehicle level. This is an important enhancement to the live vehicle location and telemetry we already provide and we encourage fleet operators to consider how integrating safety cameras with their Isotrak system could help them drive further improvements through their operation. Video evidence is proving its importance in fighting claims, but even more importantly when coupled with Isotrak real-time vehicle tracking it can help fleet operators make significant improvements to operations and services,” says Megan Turner, Head of Marketing, Isotrak.

Bott Ltd, the British company who are world leaders when it comes to the manufacturing and supply of workshop equipment, in-vehicle equipment and workplace systems, has seen significant and widespread benefits to their business since deploying a telematics solution, which they is provided by Masternaut.

Having worked with Masternaut since October 2012 using telematics to monitor their fleet of commercial, HGV and service vehicles moving between their various manufacturing bases within the UK, Bott have recorded a 15% a month saving on their fuel consumption. The saving has been across their entire fleet including  company cars and vans, and has also brought an increase in fleet efficiency and driver safety throughout every arm of the business.

Bott deployed the telematics solution across its fleet of vehicles – including trucks and light commercial vehicles – in order to further reduce customer response times as part of a commitment to uphold  their already strong reputation for service excellent and rapid response. In addition to using the technology in its own fleet, Bott also now even resells the telematics systems to its customers, as parts of the van conversions arm of the business.

Via the at-a-glance view of every vehicle within Bott’s fleet, managers are now able to pin-point the exact location and speed of any of their drivers at any given time. The company has been able to reduce the unnecessary time its vehicles spend on the road, while better managing customer expectations around delivery times by sharing this insight.

With Bott’s articulated lorries making multiple deliveries across the UK every day, fleet managers at company headquarters are able to act instantly in the event of road delays or incoming customer requests.

“Given the range of locations we cover across the UK – and beyond – our drivers spend considerable amounts of time on the roads,” said Bott Ltd’s Logistics Manager, Chris Sweeney. “Anything which reduces this is hugely beneficial not only to our own business but, more importantly, to our customers too.”

“Having installed Masternaut’s technology across our fleet, we’ve been able to significantly cut down on the amount of time spent in transit, meaning our response times are quicker than ever. And through delivering the technology into our customers’ own vehicles, they’re experiencing the benefits first-hand too – it is a win-win!”

CEO and chairman of Masternaut, Martin Hiscox, added: “For businesses looking to achieve that vital competitive edge, every minute – and indeed every penny – counts. Bott, which coordinates fleets from one end of the UK to the other, is a fantastic example of how companies can be using telematics to save both time and money.”

Technology has long been a key driver for innovation and change in business. Regardless of size or industry, the pace of technological change is a major factor in the ability of businesses to evolve, meet increasing customer demands and maintain a commercial advantage. Giles Margerison, Director with TomTom Telematics explains more...

Rarely has this relationship been more evident than in the recent development in the connected vehicle and the opportunities it offers to field service organisations.

Advancements in fleet management technology have resulted in a growing suite of applications designed to help managers boost operational efficiency and, increasingly, realise new levels of customer service delivery.

As a consequence of the recent economic slowdown, customers are seeking ever-greater value for money and demanding more from business than ever before. The effective application of connected vehicle technology could be crucial in helping field service operators to act quickly and introduce new services and innovations to further improve the customer experience.

What is the connected vehicle?

Although it is undergoing a period of rapid technological change, the connected vehicle is not a new concept. It has its roots in vehicle tracking, which has long allowed businesses to improve efficiency by gaining greater visibility of their mobile workforce.

But we are now experiencing greater degrees of connectivity than ever before - driven in part by the pace of technological innovation in the consumer sphere. Advancements are occurring at an ever-quickening pace, driving adoption and making technology such as smartphones and tablet PCs integral business tools.

These devices can work hand-in-hand with advanced telematics technology to create a seamless IT operation that encompasses all aspects of life – from business to your home, car and leisure time.

The same goes for business, where vehicle, smartphone, mobile hardware and office software can form a seamless loop that allows for greater flow of data through disparate parts of a business and its operations.

For example, a wireless Bluetooth connection might allow the tracking unit fitted into a vehicle to communicate with mobile printers, barcode scanners, signature-capture devices or even smartphones.

The result is an exchange of data which allows such hardware to incorporate precise information regarding time and location for the production of more accurate invoices or proof of delivery. This can then be communicated back to the office in real-time, allowing better management of workflow and fulfilment of customer orders.

Bringing mobile workers into the office fold

Such innovations allow management to exercise a greater degree of control over their mobile workforce, ensuring employees on the road are as connected and accessible as those in the office.

Combined data from in-vehicle technology and mobile hardware can be communicated back to the office and shared with the appropriate software applications - a vital relationship given society's increasing dependence on electronic relationships between companies and their customers, suppliers or partners.

When an order is received by a company, for example, the details can automatically be passed from the e-commerce platform or CRM to the fleet management dashboard.

This allows the mobile operations manager to view outstanding orders and dispatch the most appropriate employee to each job based on how long it will take them to arrive, with directions sent immediately to their satellite navigation device. Once the job is done, data will be sent from the vehicle back to the office, allowing the final details to be added to the CRM or invoicing software, completing the loop.

Such a situation is only made possible through the integration of fleet management hardware and software with existing office applications, which has become a growing concern given the rate of technological change.

IT integration must extend to all elements of a business, including both office and mobile operations, in order to form a flexible framework capable of providing a lasting competitive edge.

What does the future hold?

Even greater advances are close at hand. A number of insurance companies are already using fleet management technology to send driving performance data to a policy-holder's smartphone with a view to helping them drive more safely and reduce premiums.

For field service organisations, it is not hard to imagine a situation where the customer places an order and subsequently receives a message to their smartphone providing an accurate ETA for when the operative will arrive at their house - perhaps even tracking real-time progress on a map.

Not only that, but the smartphone then tells the customer exactly how long it will take for them to travel home in order to meet the operative and provides them with the best possible route, taking into account traffic congestion.

Extending the idea further, deliveries could be sent to a customer's exact location, pinpointed according to the GPS signal from their smartphone, whether that’s home, work or even the local coffee shop.

Roadside assistance companies could allow customers to make a distress call via a smartphone app before sending out the most appropriate responder based on engine diagnostics and location data sent immediately from the customer's vehicle.

No matter the application, the connected vehicle will only continue to offer new possibilities for the field service industry to future proof its service offering.

 

 

KPN and Masternaut have recently announced an agreement to jointly develop and market telematics-enabled fleet management and telematics enabled insurance products for businesses looking to provide a step-change in customer service, employee safety and operational efficiency.

The agreement provides KPN’s M2M (Machine-to-Machine) teams access to Masternaut's leading telematics products and services helping the company accelerate its goal of providing M2M services beyond connectivity to KPN customers.

According to the terms of the agreement, the two companies will market joint products designed to target the fleet market with proven products including driver behaviour management, vehicle telematics to improve efficiency. The agreement also delivers enhanced vehicle expenses management modules, live vehicle tracking as well as products and services that reduce corporate and consumer risk in the insurance market.

The products will be distributed under the KPN brand, powered by the technology provided by European leader Masternaut. Masternaut will provide software services, applications, platforms and technical support, while KPN will contribute with its commercial network, including pre- and post-sales support, consultancy and customer care. Everything deployed over the best in class global networks of KPN.

Jimmy Wind, M2M Director of KPN:

"With this agreement, KPN are demonstrating our response to customers’ needs in the growing M2M market. We can leverage our experience and knowledge of our customers and provide them with telematics-based products and services that solve many of their problems and have the ability to transform their businesses”.

Martin Hiscox, Chief Executive Officer of Masternaut:

"We are delighted that this partnership with KPN allows us both to deliver the most comprehensive service to KPN’s core business market. The combination of KPN’s brand and values with our technology delivers a clear and valuable proposition for both large enterprise and mid-sized companies”.

According to industry analysts Berg Insight, approximately 2.5 million commercial vehicles have telematics deployed. They forecast that the installed base of fleet management systems will reach 5.7 million in Europe by 2016 – with the market in the Netherlands, Belgium currently only 18% penetrated. The agreement provides KPN and Masternaut a twin-market strategy targeting both businesses that have not started on the telematics journey whilst targeting 1st-generation users with new and innovative products delivered in a consultative environment.

 

More and more extreme weather events are occurring around the globe and the UK in particular has experienced a strengthening in the severity of extreme weather over the past few years. In recent days we have seen terrible and tragic after-effects of severer weather in The Philippines and Sardinia. Only a few weeks ago we saw southern England brought to a standstill as hurricane-force winds and torrential rain battered the region with gusts of almost 100mph ripping up trees, causing flash flooding and leaving at least 220,000 homes without power.

The severity of extreme weather events varies.  Sometimes the damage is limited but in some cases, and indeed following today’s events, there is widespread damage such as flooded basements, broken gas lines, impassable roads and interruptions in cable and phone service.

There is a lot of pressure on field service organisations to respond to these disasters. Road-clearing crews and utility workers, for instance, get dispatched as soon as the situation permits. Plumbers, electricians, construction workers and HVAC technicians are sent to the scene to reconnect services and rebuild damaged structures.

Telematics, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) mapping, GPS and cellular communications have been playing an increasing role in guiding field service teams, tracking progress and assigning workers in the aftermath of extreme weather events where safety is a concern. As an increasing number of organisations take advantage of these technologies they are becoming more sophisticated, offering new ways to be efficient and responsive.

Field service technology for the unexpected

An increasing number of Field Service organisations are adopting next-generation workforce management solutions which leverage Fleet Management technology and GPS data to deliver real-time information about worker and vehicle locations and the progress of their work. It provides dynamic scheduling tools to optimise in-day and scheduled work, and performance analytics that help make on-the-spot resource deployment decisions as well as prepare for future events.

The technology provides dispatchers and managers full visibility into work in the field so they can better plan and track the work. Centralised consoles and dynamic GIS maps offer real-time visibility on crew locations. A dispatcher knows exactly when a worker(s) arrive at a job, how long they spend there, and when they leave. So when an assignment is completed, the dispatcher can send the crew to the next task in a smarter, more efficient way and, rather than sending a crew across town for the next assignment, the dispatcher looks on the digital map to see where the nearest job is. Shorter distances between jobs mean less time traveling and more time restoring service.

The technology also collects data on the experience and preferences of workers. If a field worker is more familiar than others with a certain area of town, it makes sense to send that worker to assignments there because the worker already knows back roads, shortcuts and the general lay of the land. In addition, next-generation workforce management solutions feature self-learning tools that “learn” workers’ preferences on geography and types of tasks, which helps fine-tune the assignment of workers to needed tasks. It also helps to reduce overtime costs, travel time and missed assignments.

As the workday progresses, managers and dispatchers receive a constant stream of information on GPS location coordinates and the amount of time spent on each assignment. If certain roads are impassable, dispatchers can plan alternative routes to avoid delays. Using fleet management, dispatchers can route drivers around roads shut by fallen trees or flooding. This helps optimise routing and worker productivity, while improving worker safety.

When workforce management is in use, an exception management tool takes note of when tasks are at risk of being missed and a customer may be in danger and not receiving critical service. Alerts are sent to dispatchers about such situations and other scheduling issues so that they can react and reassign field teams as needed.

Future planning

Beyond field situations, workforce management delivers analytics about the performance and responsiveness of each worker and team. Organisations compile the data into reports for review to spot trends and the need for improvements. For instance, if crews took too long to arrive, managers can better plan standby crews for future situations.

Use of analytical data helps improve productivity, making it possible to complete more jobs per day, and helps control costs. For field service organisations, squeezing more jobs into one day in the aftermath of a disaster accelerates the resumption of operations, which helps to minimise lost revenue and bring employees back to work more quickly. It also creates goodwill among customers, who often get frustrated when service restoration takes too long, especially after a storm or strong winds.

Workforce management increases accountability as well, by collecting accurate, reliable information on field operations and associated costs. Managers are better equipped to make the right decisions regarding resource deployment during emergencies and on a daily basis. Beyond that, organisations that base decisions on accurate, meaningful information that reveals historical patterns, trends and metrics can respond more effectively to not only day-to-day tasks but to the next storm, flood, heat wave or blizzard.

International examples

The municipal utility in Anderson, IN, USA has adopted Trimble Field Management, a GPS-based field services management technology. Before that, when ice storms, blizzards or thunderstorms pulled down power lines in Anderson, the utility department tracked its crews by making phone calls and writing their positions on a chalkboard. “When there were storms, the board looked like a chess game. Now, we know exactly where each vehicle is and can schedule repairs by a truck’s proximity to the outage,” says Jason Tuck, GIS consultant and former GIS Manager for Anderson Municipal Power & Light Division. “We can see our trucks real-time on a map and make faster and more confident decisions because we know their locations are more accurate.”

The public works department in Brookline, USA, can immediately respond to stranded crews by tracking their progress constantly. “Now if there’s a snowstorm and a truck breaks down, we know exactly where to find it and the driver,” says Mark Parece, the town’s fleet manager.

At White Mountain Oil & Propane, North Conway, NH, Trimble Fleet Management technology has proven invaluable in such cases. “Managers can receive off-hours service or emergency calls (when dispatch is closed), log in, and in a minute know exactly where the problem is and send help,” says Todd Miller, the company’s manager of administration. This can be lifesaving when power outages from an ice storm or blizzard leave the elderly or families stranded in freezing temperatures without heat.

Gloustershire based Agronomy company Agrii have implemented a real-time transport optimisation and vehicle tracking solution for its agrochemicals division.

The company that is seen as a leader within it's field in the UK has opted to utilise Paragon’s Fleet Controller system and integrate this with a live vehicle tracking feed, provided by 49 TomTom PRO 9150 navigation units, taking advantage of the systems's advanced vehicle routing and scheduling software.  The result is a real time plan versus actual performance information delivered to the Agrii transport and customer service teams, also enabling customers to receive updated ETAs using Fleet Controller’s text messaging facility.

“By integrating Paragon and TomTom technology we are able to plan and manage deliveries of more than 350 orders a day, which given the location and type of customers we serve would be a logistical challenge if we didn’t use this solution,” said Tony Frain, Agrii’s Logistics Manager.

“The software allows us to offer customers the opportunity to place orders up to 10.30 pm and we’ll guarantee delivery if stocks are available by the next working day in three slots: before 9am, before 12pm or next day.”

Paragon also provides timed web-based reporting to Agrii customer services, with scheduled route timings updated every few minutes based on the live tracking information.  This informs the customer service agents of real-time delivery activity and allows them to prepare customers to receive their deliveries. With the nature of their business meaning many deliveries require a forklift to unload the vehicle , this efficiency allows for streamlining the delivery process saving valuable time for both Agrii and their clients alike.

With the TomTom units providing  intelligent navigation and live traffic information to help drivers avoid congestion Agrii are able to make further savings in both time and money and the all-in-one business tool combines navigation and GPS tracking in one single, portable, device is an major benefit.

Other benefits of the system are it's flexibility - Agrii's operation is heavily seasonal so the versatility of the solution means that the company can increase and reduce the size of the hire fleet without the cost of installing and removing hardwired equipment, and also the well documented benefits of monitoring driver behaviour including duty of care obligations. Also drivers can accurately report their working time by entering their ID into the device, tapping the screen to record when they start and finish work which in turn is automatically fed back into Agrii’s payroll system.

Agrii’s Alconbury depot is supplying 6,000 customers who range from small farms to large commercial operations growing products for supermarkets. They are located as far north as the Humber Estuary and south to the Thames Estuary, along the coast of the North Sea in the east and west to the M40 corridor. The drivers deliver the orders direct to the farm’s chemical storage facilities, the locations for which have been located accurately using the GPS vehicle-tracking units.  This ensures that each store is mapped on the system.

“By plotting the X and Y coordinates for the chemical stores our drivers can navigate directly to the site,” added Tony Frain.

“This streamlines the delivery because using a postcode alone would only take them to within a kilometre of the location. If we can get the driver within 10 to 20 metres of the store, it improves our performance and the level of service we offer our customers.”