ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘fleet-technology’ CATEGORY

Facility management and construction specialists, Oakley Industrial Services, reports  improved vehicle utilisation and more accurate job scheduling since fitting the routeMASTER tracking system from AGM Telematics.

“We started with the system about a year ago with the aim of improving the way we allocate vehicles to particular assignments," says director Natalie Clarke. "Previously we would spend quite a lot of time trying to locate drivers and would have to calculate when they could get to the next job.”

Now, Natalie and the team can monitor each vehicle’s movements in real time from the moment they switch the engine on until the end of the day.

“We have the ability to switch vehicles from job to job with no uncertainty regarding the optimum route to take. We can also keep tabs on individual driving history and always know how long each driver has been behind the wheel. “

This, according to Natalie, helps to maintain cost effective journey plans, reduce time wastage and save fuel. Furthermore, the traffic office can provide customers with accurate and instant ETA information at any time.

“For every project” concludes Natalie Clarke, “we provide detailed risk and method statements along with safety planning and security provision. Accuracy and safety lies at the heart of what we do and it makes good sense to bring our fleet control in line with general policy. Certainly, the routeMASTER system provides a number of benefits in this regard and it fits well with our overall approach of supplying a reliable and efficient backup service in the field.”

Oakley Industrial Services is based in the Midlands and provides a nationwide service which covers all aspects of facility management including roof maintenance and gulley clearing, fall protection, drain jetting, general façade maintenance and wall cladding.

 

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The great and the good of the telematics industry arrived in Amsterdam for the TomTom Telematics' Developers Conference and left with a new vision of what telematics may look like in the not so distant future...

It’s a strange quirk of fate at the moment that almost every other event in the European field service calendar seems to be held in the wonderful city of Amsterdam. The Dutch capital has become something of a European hub for field service in recent years and another event to add to that list was this year’s TomTom Telematics’ Developers Conference.

However, given that the telematics giant have their headquarters in Amsterdam, perhaps the decision to host their annual conference in the City too, was more about taking advantage of being on home turf. The one-day conference was held at the De Hallen centre, a former tram depot. What better place then for members of the telematics industry to come together to discuss both the latest trends in technology and how they can help in overcoming the seemingly perennial challenges of reducing fuel costs, improving driver behaviour and of course getting field engineers to the right place, on time, everytime?

And whether it was a reflection of the sense of community in the area we found ourselves in or the ongoing effort of TomTom to bring those operating in various pockets of the telematics world together, there was a true sense of community across the day’s event.

It was fantastic to see developers, providers and end users from all across the continent and beyond – even as far as Malaysia and Morocco - all coming together to discuss best practices and new ideas across the break out sessions and in the networking zone throughout the day.

 

It would have been easy for TomTom to attempt to shoe-horn a number of sales pitches in throughout the day but instead the sessions were focused much more on problem solving, emerging technologies or case studies of how companies are using telematics to improve their workflow, including an excellent session with the Rotterdam Fire Service, which really brought home just how important a role technology can play for an organisation for whom getting to their next job on time really is a matter of life and death.

Platform-as-a-Service

Of those sessions that did focus on TomTom and their own offerings there was a very clear message that came through. TomTom Telematics is evolving, they are doing so rapidly and they are quite possibly going to change the way we view telematics forever as they do so.

A big statement? Perhaps but whilst the core technologies of vehicle tracking and routing of course remain a strong element of what TomTom Telematics offer, they can no longer be considered as simply a pure play telematics provider. Instead they have grown and developed, becoming very much a fully fledged Platform-as-a-Service provider within the telematics space in a move seemingly modeled on Salesforce’s approach to CRM.

It is a move that has been gaining momentum for a while: last year in an exclusive interview with Field Service News, Giles Margerison talked at length about the importance of their focus on establishing three separate APIs to make connectivity to the TomTom Telematics platform as simple as possible.

 

The TomTom app store

However, the momentum has now really kicked in with TomTom using the Developer Conference to officially launch their new app store. Even at launch this was full of various  apps provided by both the numerous developers attending and demonstrating their solutions at the conference, and the many, many more out in the wider TomTom ecosystem.

George De Boer, International Alliance Manager at TomTom Telematics commented: “We started out as a telematics company making sure fleet managers could manage their fleet but as soon as we introduced the connected navigation, together with telematics it soon became a solution that you could use for optimising your business processes.” “So we went from purely managing fuel and savings on the wear and tear on the vehicle to becoming an end-to-end manufacturer and supplier of a solution that could be used throughout the whole business process.”

Whilst TomTom have now placed themselves firmly at the heart of this telematics revolution, the responsibility for driving the technology forward seems to be very much shared between TomTom themselves, their developer partners and, most importantly, their customers.

 

The customer role

One such customer which has worked closely with TomTom in a relationship that sees both companies driving the use of telematics forward as they work alongside each other, is UK utilities company Scotia Gas Networks (SGN).

With a remit to maintain 74,000km of gas main pipe within the UK, and a fleet of over 2,000 vehicles, plus SLAs that include response times of just one hour, keeping track of the fleet is absolutely vital for SGN.

Having originally implemented the TomTom Telematics system for just point-to-point referencing - knowing where the vehicle is, and using the system for time sheet validation and so on - SGN soon realised that they could achieve much more with the WebFleet system.

“Straight away I knew what TomTom could do for us” recalls Chris Stone, SGN Head of Finance. “We’ve evolved now into a relationship where we are trying to do more and more. In fact we are pioneering a lot of what TomTom do and what they can do,” he adds

 

Indeed Stone, and SGN’s open approach to working closely with TomTom on their new developments is yielding far greater dividends than a more hands-off approach might. “I like to get two or three benefits out of a system I invest in.” states Stone “Yes we can put a tracking system in our vehicles and we can track them but what else can we get out of it? Well we can get driver behaviour, fuel efficiency, economy…. there are all these other bolt-ons”

However, whilst there are clear benefits for establishing such a close working relationship with your technology partners and adopting a leading edge appetite for utilising new technology, to continuously enhance your service standards and improve margins, it is not an approach all companies can take. After all, not every company has the influence of a utilities company with a fleet of  2,000.

However, the emergence of TomTom as a platform provider is big news for companies of all sizes.

Look out for Part 2 of our report, where we’ll hear more about TomTom’s new App Store. Is it set to revolutionise the way we build our telematics solutions in the not too distant future? What will be its role in the emergence of the connected vehicle?

 

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Water control systems and plumbing company Reliance Worldwide Corporation (UK) Ltd has improved mileage logging and slashed administration times after implementing a telematics system from Masternaut.

Reliance Worldwide has  implemented Masternaut telematics across its fleet of 26 cars, to accurately and effortlessly log all private and business mileage for its field sales team.

Reports are automatically sent to the administration manager on a weekly basis, breaking down the total mileage into business and personal, based on agreed cut off times for business related mileage. Employees use a fuel card to purchase all fuel, both private and personal, and a deduction is made from monthly pay in line with HMRC Fuel Advisory rates for any private mileage recorded. As such the process is HMRC compliant.

The Masternaut system has benefited the whole business, from the finance department to individual drivers, enabling authentication of business and private mileage, whilst storing data for regulatory compliance. This provides absolute transparency and avoids any over-claim issues.

 As a result of having the technology installed in all 26 vehicles, Reliance Worldwide has also managed to reduce insurance premiums across the fleet.

 “Expense and mileage logging is a heavy admin burden on any business, but the data and technology provided by Masternaut has helped us to eliminate that burden for our sales team,” commented Sally Pearson, administration aanager, Reliance Worldwide. “The support provided by the Masternaut team is excellent. We have reduced the company car drivers’ admin workload, eliminating the pain of manually logging their mileage. The reporting process gives total transparency on mileage across the business, giving a far more accurate picture on private mileage. By streamlining the process, we’ve given time back to our employees and saved them from an additional administration headache.”

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, Masternaut added, “Fleet car drivers are more likely to use their vehicles for both personal and work use, not something typically seen with vans or LCVs. Reliance Worldwide now has transparency on the actual mileage drivers have done allowing for a far more accurate picture of business versus private mileage. For many drivers, handling tax and expense claims can be a complex and time-consuming task, providing a real challenge to get everything right. Telematics is helping to reduce this burden.”

 

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Construction technology systems specialist SITECH UK and Ireland is to distribute Trimble' s Field Service Management solutions to the heavy civil construction market.

Construction technology systems specialist SITECH UK and Ireland has become a distributor for Trimble's Field Service Management (FSM) solution for the heavy civil construction sector in the UK and Ireland.

"We are delighted that SITECH UK and Ireland will be adding Trimble's broad range of FSM solutions to their portfolio of solutions that they offer for heavy civil contractors," said John Cameron, general manager of Trimble's FSM Division. "We recently integrated our GeoManager Fleet Management with our VisionLink solution to provide construction businesses with the ability to centralise the management of on-site operations for improved productivity, efficiency and cost savings."

Trimble's GeoManager Fleet Management solution offers contractors visibility into their fleet service needs by providing real-time location updates of vehicles for service from VisionLink, as well as vehicle status and reports. Overall fleet productivity can be improved through optimised routing of service vehicles to VisionLink-based assets while maintenance schedules can also be managed, which can reduce fleet downtime and costs. The optimisation of service vehicle routing and work orders is based on the location and health information that is shared from VisionLink into GeoManager. Construction managers using VisionLink can thus ensure that their fleet is being serviced in an optimal location/health/time approach.

[quote float="left"]Construction managers using VisionLink can thus ensure that their fleet is being serviced in an optimal location/health/time approach.[/quote]The integration of GeoManager Fleet Management with VisionLink offers contractors a dynamic, all-encompassing solution. They can also integrate site productivity, material quantities and materials movement with asset and fleet management, to create a holistic view of their fleet in one place and on one platform, enabling them to make intelligent business decisions and streamline operations.

The global network of SITECH technology dealers represent Trimble and Caterpillar machine control systems for a contractor's entire fleet of heavy equipment and Trimble's portfolio of Connected Site site-positioning systems, construction asset management services, software and wireless and Internet-based site communications infrastructure.

"We are focused on providing contractors with the best technology available that will enable them to meet their project needs, said Erica Parkinson, business manager of SITECH UK and Ireland. The integration of Trimble solutions provides contractors with a truly unique end-to-end solution. Never before have contractors been able to view and manage their assets, vehicles, maintenance and jobs in one place and on one platform."

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Improving its engineers' driving skills with TomTom Telematics Optidrive 360  has helped ventilation product manufacturer EnviroVent cut its annual fuel bill by £36,000.

Ventilation product manufacturer EnviroVent has cut fuel consumption by 10 per cent using TomTom Telematics Optidrive 360 technology to improve driver behaviour, making annual fuel savings of £36,000.

The company is using TomTom's OptiDrive 360 to establish a performance improvement initiative across its nationwide fleet of 45 vans.

“Empowering our drivers with advice and feedback on how to drive more safely and fuel-efficiently led to immediate fuel saving and by introducing a programme to incentivise further improvements we expect to realise even greater benefits over the coming months,” said Jane McLean, Fleet Manager, EnviroVent.

“Our van drivers receive monthly performance reports and have already become quite competitive. We now plan to award prizes to the best performing regional teams to cut fuel consumption further, reduce vehicle maintenance costs and improve our carbon footprint, in line with our commitment to sustainability.”

OptiDrive 360 scores drivers based on a range of key performance indicators including speeding, driving events, idling and gear shifting and constant speed. All performance data is made available to managers and drivers in Webfleet, the fleet management software from TomTom Telematics, with direct feedback and driving advice offered to drivers via their in-vehicle driver terminals.

EnviroVent is also using Webfleet  to improve customer response times by allocating jobs to its engineers and installers and routing them to customers more quickly and efficiently.

 

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UK telecoms company O2 is expanding its Fleet Telematics portfolio with the addition of fleet management and vehicle tracking from Canadian company Geotab.

O2 Track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking uses Geotab’s GO7  telematics data capture device and the MyGeotab platform. The device can be quickly and easily installed into the on-board OBD-II diagnostics port in vans and cars, either overtly or covertly. It  simply plugs in: there is no need for any wiring, so it can be easily removed when a vehicle is de-fleeted and instantly becomes ready to install in a new vehicle. The devices have been deployed in more than 450,000 vehicles, says Geotab.

The solution offers real time fleet management and the ability to develop a number of alerts, notifications and review vehicle trip and activity reports. Advanced features also include on-board diagnostics through engine indicators to provide feedback, such as engine failures, or an in-depth engine fault code diagnosis; detect accidents and retrace potential cause of the accident; and allow add-ons such as a navigational device, NFC driver ID key, sensors and more.

 

The technology will serve verticals such as car rental, leasing, courier, beverages and utility fleets to improve their on-road productivity, on-road safety, and ecological efficiency, in addition to optimizing fleet performance to reduce fuel costs, says O2.  Fleet managers will gain more intelligence across multiple vehicles giving them the data and insights needed to make more informed business decisions in real-time. Furthermore, drivers will have more insight over their individual vehicles.

“Telematics is now a must-have for all organisations looking for the most accurate data about their business vehicles. O2 Track and Go and O2 Smart Tracking can help fleet decision makers achieve significant operating efficiencies,” said David Taylor, managing director of Machine to Machine for O2 in the UK. “Through our partnership with Geotab we’re looking forward to expanding our existing relationships with fleets, leasing and rental companies to embrace fleet management.”

“Fleet, rental and leasing companies need reliable and secure fleet management solutions that are easy to install, manage and switch out as the fleet is changing rapidly,” said CEO Neil Cawse, Geotab. “We are excited and honoured to be selected to support O2’s telematics offering in the UK and look forward to help serve O2’s fleet customers with our end-to-end fleet management solution,” Cawse continued.

 

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TomTom Telematics has been awarded the Best Commercial Vehicle Systems Integrator for 2015 by TU-Automotive.

The award recognises the impact of TomTom’s cloud-based SaaS platform, WEBFLEET, and was announced at the TU-Automotive Awards Ceremony in Novi, Michigan. According to the judges, TomTom Telematics was selected because of “their progressive attitude, multi-faceted solution and ability to innovate”.

TomTom Telematics has cultivated a growing eco-system of more than 300 software and hardware partners unique in the fleet management industry, with all applications published in its App Centre.

The WEBFLEET.connect API allows third party software partners access to all field data generated by drivers and vehicles, in the same way they have access to all processed and aggregated data provided by WEBFLEET.

The company also provides additional .connect APIs for all of its in-vehicle equipment, allowing third party hardware to connect smoothly to its telematics black box by using it as in-vehicle communications hub. By taking advantage of OBDII based data sets on smartphone applications or accessing instant in-vehicle and office-based data streams on TomTom Telematics driver terminals, partners can provide customised applications easily.

 

“As the connected car space continues to grow and gain momentum, staying ahead of the curve and continually innovating is no mean feat,” said Krystyna Grant, director, TU-Automotive.

TomTom Telematics open platform approach is integral to the company's strategy and has resulted in the creation of an end-to-end fleet management system, which allows seamless data flow between drivers, vehicle and office. New applications have been produced to help customers digitise business processes and benefit from even greater efficiencies.

“It is extremely gratifying to have TU-Automotive validate our approach, especially as we continue to invest in our APIs, SDKs and partner ecosystem,” said Thomas Schmidt, managing director, TomTom Telematics.

“We are committed to delivering value to our fleet customers across industries. The best way to do that is to make integration with industry-specific solutions easy and efficient. Through our partner ecosystem, App Center and WEBFLEET platform, we are able to deliver value and improve the bottom line for more than 35,000 organisations worldwide.”

 

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In the first part of this feature we looked at how the arrival of the driverless car is imminent with tests being held in open roads across a number of countries including the UK. Now in the second part Kris Oldland looks at how the technology could have a much more disruptive influence than in just the fleet sector…

Indeed with numerous national tests being undertaken it is surely just a matter of time before the first commercial driverless vehicles roll out. In fact further promising news for the approaching future of driverless cars was recently unveiled by California’s Department of Motor Vehicles which stated that only four of its 48 driverless cars participating in tests have been involved in accidents.

Google’s fleet of around twenty cars has now completed nearly a million miles without human intervention since the project started six years ago, said Chris Urmson,  the head of Google’s self-driving car project, .

Of the four licensed driverless cars in the state of California that have been involved in minor traffic accidents since September, Google’s cars played a role in three of the accidents. Two of these incidents occurred when the cars were in self-driving mode, while the other two happened when the person required to stay behind the wheel of the automobiles was in control.

 

It has also been reported that all of the accidents occurred when the cars were driving at speeds below 10 miles (16 km) per hour. In a written statement Google stated that its driverless cars have had “a handful of minor fender-benders, light damage, no injuries, so far caused by human error and inattention.”

Google first sent self-driving cars out onto public streets about six years prior to when the state offered its official permission. Google has said three additional accidents occurred in that time period. So whilst there may be an initial fear response to such news the truth is that since 2009, the company has said its cars have travelled more than 700,000 miles in self-driving mode.

This is an impressive statistic that plays well for those companies seeking to develop driverless vehicles who have attempted to establish belief that driverless vehicles and not only a safe option but a safer option. They claim their cars' cameras, radar, and laser sensors, among other features, are superior to human awareness.

However, whilst the safety of self-driving cars has been emphasized, some experts have also warned that those driverless vehicles could be particularly vulnerable to cyberattacks with concerns about the safety of driverless cars have been raised by politicians in the US and elsewhere.

One such warning came fromthe FBI who warned that driverless cars could be potentially used as lethal weapons, predicting that the vehicles "will have a high impact on transforming what both law enforcement and its adversaries can operationally do with a car”

 

Whilst this is of course a scary scenario, it is important that we don’t become so worried about the potential dangers that we don’t explore the potential opportunities that driverless cars could bring.

One such possible opportunity was highlighted by technology entrepreneur and Wikipedia Founder Jimmy Wales who discussed the topic of driverless cars in his keynote speech at the recent IFS World Conference in Boston.

“I think it will be ten years max before we see driverless cars somewhere in the world. It could be faster than that but of course this an area where there are regulatory concerns and so forth” he began before outlining why he believes the impact of driverless cars reaching way beyond the automotive industry.

“The way to think about this is don’t think about the first order of what happens, think of what happens next” Wales explained “One of the first things I came up with when I first started thinking about this was pizza delivery” he added only half joking

“Why cook pizzas in a restaurant to then send them somewhere so they are getting cold on the way? Why not cook it in the car? The answer is of course you can’t put a pizza oven in a car with a driver?” he explained before continuing “but now you could have a driverless car that cooks the pizza on route, delivering you a super fresh pizza to your door”

 

Of course such an idea would have a number of obstacles to overcome, and I don’t think we will see Wales tackling the Pizza Delivery sector in the near future, but it is a great example of the wider benefits such transformative technology as driverless cars could have beyond their initial direct marketplace, when we combine it with imaginative thinking.

And if we turn back to field service then again the potential for driverless cars to change the way we operate are numerous.

For a start there is the obvious benefit of an engineer being able to work in between jobs, this could be a huge time saving factor if your engineers have even a moderate amount of reporting to be completed on each job.

One obvious benefit is an engineer being able to work in between jobs. But how about we apply some further imaginative thinking and combine driverless cars with IoT with 3D printing with field service scheduling?

 

Our engineer’s daily schedule could be programmed into his vehicle based on data provided by the devices he’s set to fix. His job list is optimised based on geography and urgency of the repair.

On the way to each repair he is able to analyse the data and look through suggested potential issues so when he arrives on site he has the best possible chance of finding a resolution swiftly. All the while the 3D printer in the back of his vehicle quietly prints any parts that need replacing automatically as the IoT enable devices provide data as to what parts are required at what job.

Let’s be honest if first time fix rates didn’t increase in this scenario there is something wrong.

However, not everyone is on side as yet, with many in field service being cautious of such a significant change, even seeing this leap forward as technology for technology’s sake.

Recent research by Masternaut actually revealed that professional drivers stated that If they had to work with autonomous vehicles in the future, 15% of professional drivers said that they wouldn’t like it and change jobs, whilst almost a quarter (23%) said that wouldn’t like it but stay in their job.

As David Kalimoff a Senior Field Engineer for Viable Med Services commented recently in the Field Service News linkedin group “When a driverless car wants to impress me, have it haul my tools, test equipment and replacement parts from the parking garage to the 6th floor of the hospital where the system is, in a blizzard…”

Whilst Kalimoff may have been a bit tongue in cheek with his comment he does make a valid point there is only so much that we can expect from driverless vehicles.

 

However, whilst the arrival of driverless cars is seemingly inevitable, and also fast approaching it is the savvy field service organisations who start thinking now about how they can harness such technology to their advantage. Also much like they have had to evolve closer working relations ships with operations management, IT professionals may well see them selves building even closer ties to their colleagues in fleet management as yet another area of field service begins to merge with IT infrastructures.

With a throw away commenting Wales may have just given someone the key to disrupting and re-inventing the pizza delivery industry forever. The question is who is going to come up with the equivalent game-changer in field service?

 

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Smart meter installation and maintenance company Trojan Utilities has reduced its fuel usage by 24% after implementing a telematics system from Masternaut across its 100-plus strong fleet of vans. The system is used for a range of purposes by multiple departments across the business.

The Masternaut system provides Trojan with in-depth driver behaviour monitoring, looking at speeding, mileage and harsh events, helping Trojan to determine the effect various improvements have on fuel usage. The system is also used to dispatch engineers to proactively plan jobs and reactive emergency installs. The two-way messaging system allows engineers and Trojan Utilities to import contact numbers and communicate whilst out in the field too.

Since installation, Masternaut’s system has helped deliver a reduction in fuel usage through a combination of dynamic scheduling and improved driver behaviour. Reducing harsh events, idling and miles driven by each driver has seen a drop in fuel usage of 24%.

Driver behaviour overall has seen a major improvement with a 97% reduction in instances of speeding, helping make Trojan Utilities’ mobile workforce and other road users more safe.

By 2020, every home in the UK is projected to be able to use smart meter technology to see how much energy a household is using and manage it more effectively. As of May 2015, Trojan Utilities has installed over 160,000 smart meters, a figure that is rising by over 2,500 meters per week, with telematics helping it to manage that level of installations on a long-term basis.

 

Gemma Openshaw, Operations Director, commented, “Masternaut has become essential to our business, because it offered us everything we needed in one package. The system is used every day and we can’t operate without it. Without Masternaut, our fuel bill would be much higher so the system is effectively paying for itself. As a business, we’re operating in a challenging sector and the system has helped us cope with the rigours of installing in excess of 2,500 meters per week. That figure is only going to rise as we get closer to 2020, but with Masternaut, we’re confident that we’ll continue to stay ahead of the curve in the growing demand for smart meters.”

Steve Towe, Chief Commercial Officer and UK Managing Director, Masternaut, added: “The smart meter technology roll out is scheduled to be completed by 2020, and with millions of properties across the country needing them installed, this is certainly a significant challenge for all involved.”

He continues, “Telematics is giving Trojan Utilities a significant edge in managing this task, giving fleet managers total control and visibility of their fleet UK wise. In addition, the system is providing benefits in the form of reduced fuel usage and improved driver behaviour, reducing costs and improving driver welfare.”

 

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