ARCHIVE FOR THE ‘telematics’ CATEGORY

Due to their recent research on the fleet management market Frost & Sullivan have presented Masternaut with their 2013 award for Competitive Strategy Leadership. Masternaut were selected after successfully differentiating themselves from their competition through a mix of product quality, up-to-date functionality, unique offerings and significant cost savings delivered to their customers.

Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Latha Rani commented:

“Being adaptive and resilient is a key success factor in the fiercely competitive fleet management services industry, and Masternaut has designed its strategies around offering better value to its customers”

“Masternaut’s product offerings help minimise the carbon footprint of fleets, improve safety, and augment efficiency, which ultimately translates to unparalleled customer value.” Rani added.

In particular it was Masternaut’s desire to collaborate with customers to establish a deeper understanding of their needs whilst simultaneously having their finger on the pulse of the latest market trends that went a long way to securing enhanced customer value. Leveraging market experience to innovate on an ongoing basis, developing truly customisable solutions that meet their clients demands and offering best-in-class after sales service were also key factors for them receiving the award.

With an investment of over €20 million to take forward their technology , their platform  Masternaut Connect is designed to employ the latest advancements in telematics, with the aim of delivering superior real-time tracking and communications to improve driver behaviour and fuel efficiency, whilst reducing reduce carbon dioxide emissions. It is through this platform that Masternaut have helped their customers employee management and vehicle expenses, while giving them greater visibility into trends and strategic business data.

Delivering quality end to end service which ranges across hardware, software, communication gateways for data collection, data hosting, server hardware and technology and QA and web-delivered software, Masternaut also has highly experienced in-house customer service teams who specialise on specific sectors.

The company also has a deep pool of satisfied customers using their solutions who will vouch for their services and the fact that many of them have achieved savings as significant as 20% whilst benefitting from the added security fleet management provides.

"Masternaut currently holds an impressive market share in this highly competitive space," noted Rani.

"With over 300,000 vehicles across Europe, the company has achieved an excellent compound annual growth rate of 30 percent from 2009 to 2012."

Of course this would be expected with Masternaut being the largest fleet management services company in Europe, in fact they are now providing services across 32 countries. As the first telematics company worldwide, and with 16 years of experience in telematics, Masternaut have established an excellent brand presence in the market and made the most of their early-mover advantage. With a strong reputation and wide reach the company have built themselves an enviable position from which they can thrive in a competitive market.

The award is handed out each year Frost & Sullivan presents this award to a company that has utilised competitive intelligence to successfully execute a competitive strategy resulting in stronger market share, competitive brand positioning and customer satisfaction.

Frost & Sullivan’s Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

Many congratulations to Masternaut for achieving this award. A shining beacon for the telematics industry.

Demolition contractor and asbestos removal expert Maylarch have opted to use Masternaut’s full telematics solution across the entirety of their fleet in a move to reduce costs, lower fuel emissions and improve driver safety.

The decision to work with a telematics provider was made by the company in a bid to optimize their transport management system and having installed the Masternaut system they have seen benefits impact not only on its fleet division but also in a number of other business areas as well.

Nick Williamson, Managing Director of Maylarch commented:

“We chose Masternaut above other telematics providers because the solution was more user-friendly for our staff and offered far clearer, more detailed reporting – particularly from a driver behaviour point of view”

“Since implementing the solution we have seen a wide range of benefits across many areas of our business.” He continued

“Fuel costs have been reduced by 7% in addition to lowered vehicle wear-and-tear thanks to improved driver behaviour, which in turn has led to a reduction in emissions. When it comes to compliance and insurance, we are now able to identify both the location and driver of any vehicle at any given time, enabling us to prove or disprove a driver’s involvement in an incident. Finally, driver behaviour monitoring with a focus on speeding has helped improve driver safety and awareness of best driving practice amongst our employees – which truly is invaluable.”

The system Masternaut have implemented by Maylarch not only allows for the them to report on drivers whereabouts but also includes the ability to score drivers based on vehicle economy and driving behaviour.

With built-in, localised speed limits for every road network, this offering includes tailored real-time speeding alerts, as well as comprehensive reporting.

A direct result of this is that Maylarch have launched their Safer Driving Scheme, which aims to improve driving standards across the organisation by monitoring drivers and incentivising good driver practise. Based on the reports generated by Masternaut’s data, the scheme has already seen a reduction in speeding by 9%.

Martin Hiscox, CEO and chairman of Masternaut, commented:

“Nowadays, the benefits of using telematics are no longer restricted solely to the fleet department – and Maylarch is the perfect example of how businesses can be using our solutions to achieve results across all areas of the organisation.

“We’re delighted that Masternaut’s technology has formed the backbone of the Maylarch Safer Driving Scheme, and look forward to working very closely with Maylarch in the future to support similar initiatives.”

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.”

Masternaut one of Europe's largest providers of telematics solutions, has been selected by the UK government to be part of the "Future Fifty" – a government led fast-track  programme which offers support to aid growth in both the public and private sectors, with the aim to improve employment and add significant impact to the much maligned economic growth within the UK.

Run by Tech City UK, an organisation launched by UK Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, the Future Fifty is made up of the UK's most exciting, high potential growth businesses. The aim is to promote innovative and successful organisations oversees and to represent the rapidly growing number of high-tech companies based in Europe.

Masternaut, a leader in telematics and enterprise-grade across Europe also offer a cloud-based mobile resource management solution and their patented modular platform aims to deliver strong and demonstrated ROI for their clients through advanced business intelligence solutions. Listed benefits include enabling fuel savings, reduction in vehicle emissions, improved driver behaviour, and higher mobile workforce utilisation. Now with its inclusion in the future fifty the company is entitled it to tailored support and expertise in order to further accelerate its growth.

Martin Hiscox, Masternaut’s Chairman and CEO, says: “The Future Fifty is a fantastic programme and a real testament to the government’s commitment to supporting UK business growth. We are very proud to have been selected for the programme – it’s not only recognition of Masternaut’s achievements to date, but of the whole telematics industry’s potential to shape the UK’s business landscape”.

“2013 has been a busy year for Masternaut – we’ve launched our brand new telematics platform, Masternaut Connect, made a significant acquisition and are seeing rapid ongoing expansion across Europe. The support we will receive from the Future Fifty scheme will be invaluable as we continue to expand, innovate and develop our product portfolio and enter new geographic markets. We will be continuing to invest heavily in R&D, delivering our customers more ways to drive tangible business benefits through the use of telematics solutions.”

The rigorous selection process conducted by a 13-strong advisory panel of industry experts, investors, advisors and entrepreneurs saw judges select companies through a combination of quantitative and qualitative criteria, including financial performance, competitive positioning, product offering and strength of leadership team. Other companies listed alongside Masternaut include: Mimecast, NeoMobile, Horizon Discovery and Acturis.

The Future Fifty will provide concierge-style support to address key business needs along with a continuous programme of modular ‘opt-in’ business support and educational content and bespoke events.

 

 

New service uses the telematics provider’s contactless CANbus connectivity to stream accurate data live from the vehicle or crane unit.

Masternaut, one of Europe’s largest telematics providers, is now offering remote monitoring for commercial cranes and heavy lifting equipment operators. Fully integrated with Masternaut’s core fleet product, the service enables fleet and construction plant managers to access real time utilisation and productivity data to improve asset management performance.

The solution combines asset management functionality for crane and construction equipment operators and fleet management intelligence for vehicles. Assets are installed with Masternaut’s patented MuxyGPS hardware, featuring contactless CANbus connectivity, to provide unparalleled accuracy.

The data – which is both streamed in real time and aggregated into tailored customer reports – consists of asset details including temperature, water and oil levels, pressure values and weight carried. Through live alerts, equipment operators have the ability to monitor the condition of the crane remotely, facilitating predictive maintenance scheduling and the proactive deployment of engineers help address malfunctions faster.

The use of telematics-based geofencing also creates a virtual security field around the asset and site, and, over time, can be used in collaboration with insurers to create bespoke policies and reduce premiums.

In addition to live insight on static assets, the technology is able to transmit driver performance intelligence for mobile and crawler cranes, including RPM, speed, braking and acceleration, assisting in the monitoring of driver safety and ensuring that the workforce is fully compliant with health and safety regulations.

European Managing Director of Masternaut, Steve Towe, comments: “Our commercial crane and heavy lifting equipment offering is far more technical than standard fleet installations. However, combining our experience in fleet management with cutting-edge technology means that we’re able to offer telematics deployment on manufacturers including the Leibherr and Terex ranges, as well as equipment with Mercedes and Iveco ECUs.  Having finalised the proof of concept with these OEMs we are now able to extend the range of equipment covered, rapidly bringing to market this new service for crane rental companies, owner-operators and construction businesses.”

 

Cavalier Carpets, one of the UK’s premier carpet manufacturers, has increased the number of appointments its insurance team ‘Renew’ makes by 25% using Masternaut’s Three X telematics solution.

With a large team of mobile inspectors responsible for verifying claims for damaged flooring and furniture items, Renew brought on Masternaut’s telematics solutions to support logistics and improve efficiency, as well as to generate an audit record of all information recorded on jobs.

Masternaut’s Three X solution addresses the Renew team’s scheduling needs in one. It is fully integrated with the company’s UNIX platform software and is used by both the mobile workforce and staff based at Cavalier Carpets’ Service Centre in the North West.

Chris Sutton, Services Director, Renew says: “With an average 25% increase in the number of appointments taking place each day, Renew is able to process insurance claims more quickly, to the obvious advantage of our clients.

“From an HR perspective, the solution helps us manage the performance of our inspectors and identify where pressure points are for strategic resource planning.”

Masternaut’s chairman and CEO, Martin Hiscox, adds: “Our team of expert consultants configured the solution to provide Renew with real-time prompts; ensuring employees gather the correct level of information when on site, creating a full audit trail should customer queries later arise.”

Purchases were made per license user and Masternaut offered a support team which worked with Renew’s IT team to make sure the integration ran smoothly.

Masternaut’s Three X solution also provides managers at the Renew Service Centre with instant access to inspector reports as soon as they have left a site visit. This allows rapid response in the event of a customer query.

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.