Category: Increase Productivity

Every fleet manager should remember the old saying, “if you are standing still you are falling behind.” That is the truth when it comes to making investments in Fleet Management Services. Fleet managers get hung up on “return on investment” and fail to consider the “cost of ignoring.” In other words, it is a mistake to worry so much about the cost of new technology if that makes you forget about the costs of failing to adopt new technology when the rest of your industry is moving forward without you.

Why Investing in a Reliable Fleet Management System is the Right Choice

Consider some of the money you could be losing by ignoring strong fleet management solutions. First, there are safety costs. Accidents themselves often cost tens of thousands of dollars in damage not covered by insurance along with lost productivity. Of course, failing to control for safety can drive up insurance costs as well. Second, without good telematics, fleet managers will fail to effectively control fuel costs. They will have no way to correct their employees that drive too aggressively or even catch those that may be stealing fuel. Third, fleet management services are vital for efficient maintenance of vehicles. In the old days, technicians had to run around the lot to check odometers to figure out when a vehicle would need to be serviced. Now, sophisticated sensors can keep fleet managers informed in real time on the upcoming maintenance needs for specific systems on specific vehicles. This allows fleet managers to better schedule maintenance to minimize downtime. Controlling driver behavior also helps improve the lifetime of vehicle parts. Finally, good fleet management solutions can drastically improve driver efficiency by maximizing their time spent on the road and saving money that would be lost paying drivers who have unused duty time or have to wait on their vehicles to be ready to go.

Implementing Fleet Management Solutions:
Case Studies

Between Geotab (our partner) and ourselves, we have a number of success stories that illustrate how fleet management services can root out “ignored” costs. For example, Red Hawk Fire & Security adopted telematics primarily to help reduce its accident rate. Red Hawk may not ever be fully able to understand the number of accidents that it prevented with the new system, so the return on investment may be hard to quantify. The company certainly seems to have understood, that ignoring the safety problem could cost the company dearly. This lead Red Hawk to invest in a telematics system to monitor its drivers and provide corrective feedback as needed. As it turned out, accidents dropped 80% and seatbelt use was dramatically improved as well. The company also found that with better oversight its employees became more efficient in the field, and because of that Red Hawk is now able to serve more customers per day. Without the telematics monitoring that is becoming more common in the industry, the company may never have realized that its technicians could be saving time every day.

Ideal Plumbing

The productivity lost without modern fleet management services is difficult to measure, Ideal Plumbing learned. The company lets its technicians control their vehicles at all times. That gave the company little control over what employees did with their trucks after hours, and when the company adopted telematics it suddenly realized the costs it had been suffering by ignoring after-hours activity. The fleet management services allowed Ideal Plumbing to keep its trucks focused on business travel and thereby reduce fuel use and wear and tear on its vehicles. Ideal Plumbing also implemented a discrete system of sharing performance metrics with its drivers so those drivers can see their performance and have opportunities to improve. Ideal Plumbing says it has seen a huge improvement just by telling drivers how they are doing and it is now seeking to improve further with a reward system.

Crown Uniform & Linen Service

Another great example is Crown Uniform & Linen Service, a company that realized it was losing a huge amount of money from idling trucks. Crown’s drivers make 30 to 40 stops per day, and the company has always tried to reduce the amount of time spent idling. Success was often hard to find, until Crown installed telematics in partnership with an environmental group called Sustainable America. Crown found that its drivers were idling for 70 minutes per day on average, and some were idling two to five hours per day. Managers were shocked, but the problem soon began to improve after managers began receiving Geotab data pointing out problem areas and allowing them to correct drivers that were failing to shut down their engines. Crown saw its average idling time drop to just seven minutes per day. That has delivered thousands in fuel savings that Crown would never have known about without installing Geotab-based fleet management services.

Getting the Most Out of Your Telematics Data?

The key to getting the most out your telematics system is a strong partnership with your vendor and industry leading hardware and software. We offer a comprehensive telematics system with Geotab’s GPS units at our core. We get the most out of the GPS data provided by Geotab with our comprehensive fleet management solutions. We pair Geotab units with engine sensors, fuel gauges, tire pressure gauges, cameras, refrigeration units sensors, and so much more. Data is collected from all these sensors and fed back to our central reporting system where fleet managers can monitor their entire fleet in real time. Fleet managers can also set automatic alerts so they can attend to other business until GoFleet alerts them to a problem. Our system can even be installed in a tamper-resistant manner if necessary. Most importantly, we work hand-in-hand with our customers to ensure they are getting the most return on investment possible with our system.

Check out this short video that explains how quickly you can get started. You can also read more about our services and we are happy to provide a free demonstration to any fleet manager looking to save money with modern fleet management solutions. Our experienced team will highlight your pain points and show you how to root out your unnecessary costs, “ignored” or otherwise.

Telematics is here to stay, and in order to remain competitive within your market you may have started using some version of the technology. If not, you’re missing out.

There is so much more to telematics than simply GPS tracking; telematics can help decrease fuel costs, increase fleet productivity and safety, and so much more.

Fleets reported an average of 21.1% decrease in accident costs, and a 10% decrease in fuel consumption in a recent Bobit Business Media Survey. Some respondents saw up to a 40% decrease in fuel consumption and an average of 12% decrease in labor costs.

 

59% of fleets said productivity was a major benefit of implementing telematics.
However, almost all benefits from telematics can boost productivity.

 

The survey included over 1,000 government and commercial fleet responses from fleets of all sizes and 92% reported telematics had a positive impact on their fleet.

 

So, how exactly can telematics increase fleet productivity?

 

It is not a magical solution that you plug in and notice results – it is however an extremely powerful tool and when used correctly can result in a ton of savings. Through proper use of the software, paying attention to detail, small changes made over time and communication with your drivers, you will definitely get the results you are looking for.

• Real-Time Visibility
  Better tracking of your assets means saving you time and money through more efficient job/field tracking, dispatching, billing, and reduced theft.
• Maintenance Management
  Schedule preventative maintenance based on actual engine hour data instead of your drivers guessing.
• Improved Routing & Dispatching
  By knowing where your drivers are in real-time you can respond quicker and increase fleet productivity.
• Monitoring Safety
  Through tracking metrics like speeding, seat belt use, etc. you can educate your drivers and help prevent incidents on the road. The collected data can also be used to clear up any false claims.
• Increase Employee Efficiency
  The factors above are important but without employee support, it won’t work. Educate your drivers and even make it a healthy competition to see who can get the best driving record.
• + so much more!

 

Source:
Automotive Fleet: How to Increase Fleet Productivity Using Telematics by Kelsey Nolan

Increase Fleet Productivity Level

GoFleet offers many features for fleet productivity management, to help increase the productivity level of your drivers and ultimately make your business more profitable. Let’s take a look at some of these features:

Real-Time GPS Vehicle Tracking

What could be more amazing than watching your vehicles move on a map in real-time? Being able to see all associated trip details, including broken rules, speed levels, and much more. Our rich breadcrumb trail tracking is a patented technology that gives you the most advanced insights available on your driver’s on-road performances.

Trips and Activity Reporting

Your trips history information is stored within the software allowing you to re-create any trip at any time for any specified date. The reports give you an in-depth look at different events, such as the time spent driving vs. at customer locations vs. at the office, helping you to allocate work time accurately.

NFC Driver ID

The latest in RFID technologies have been incorporated into our software; Near Field Communications (NFC) delivers Driver Identification for drivers that need to switch between different vehicles. Driver ID allows managers to have a full view into their drivers behavior regardless of the vehicle they are driving: generate reports, rules, and exceptions by driver OR vehicle. Vehicle immobilization can be combined with driver ID; this means a valid Driver ID keyfob must be touched to the fob reader before the vehicle will start.

New Exception Rules

Being an innovative engineering-based organization, we are continually raising the bar when it comes to driver productivity tracking. You can set many different preferences within the software such as early leaving, late arrival, long lunch, too much office time, unauthorized home stops, and long stops during work hours.

Dispatch with Garmin GPS

In partnership with Garmin, we have effectively transformed the GPS devices into powerful messaging and dispatching tools. You can send route information directly to the Garmin device which will then automatically navigate your drivers to the correct destination. Making it even easier to identify drivers, you can also set the status of drivers to ‘on the job’ when they arrive on site, and have the vehicle colors change on your map based on their status.

Fuel Card Integration

Developed by an integrator, the fuel card program can help you to better understand fleet expenditures. In addition to managing maintenance, safety violations, and time spent idling, you will be able to view and confirm fuel card expenditures daily.

Congregation Reporting

We offer unique reporting tools that will highlight when your drivers get together. For example, you will be able to identify drivers that are meeting for long lunches or other activities decreasing productivity.

 

1-888-998-1122 | [email protected]

Increase Employee Productivity Using Geofencing Technology

A geofence, also known as a zone, is a virtual fence around a real-world area of interest. You can use zones to denote where places are such as your office, customers, workplaces, airports, gas stations, entire states and provinces or people’s homes. When combined with exception reporting, zones become a critical component for analyzing the behavior of your fleet.

Zones can be easily added into the solution by clicking on the map to add each point. Each geofence can be differentiated by colour as well as a unique description. Along with the other customizable features, there are unique benefits to utilizing zones. Geofences are flexible and can be set at nearly any distance surrounding an entire city or even around a single house. They help reduce administration time spent analyzing information concerning customer visits and also maintain employee accountability.

GEOFENCING TUTORIAL

Defining a Zone

To define the boundary of your new geofence, first select a starting point on the map. Continue creating the boundary by selecting points along its perimeter. A line will connect the points, showing the perimeter in the order you add them. To finish, close the zone by re-selecting the beginning point. Note that the perimeter lines can be moved while the zone is being created and a point can be removed by dragging it off the map.

Modifying an Existing Zone

To change the shape of a zone, find the zone on the map or search for it in the zones list. Selecting a zone on the map and the menu below will be shown. Select change zone shape to modify the boundary by moving or removing individual points. To add a new point to the boundary, select along the zone boundary.

The benefits of adding geofences vary among industries, and if making consistent customer visits is a promising feature of your business then gaining push notifications when a driver enters a customer zone might just be what you’re looking for! Also it is important to remember that geofences can be created around any area of interest such as, your corporate office to monitor when drivers arrive to work and when they leave.

By using zones in combination with real time location tracking, reporting becomes a powerful tool for productivity. This enables a number of possible scenarios such as:

• Have an email sent out when drivers arrive at customer locations
• Sound an in-vehicle alert to a driver who has left work early
• Notify your shipping and receiving department when a truck will arrive soon
• The application recognizes stops made within zones, such as customer areas, and can also indicate the amount of time spent at these locations

For more information on the important features of GPS fleet tracking, and how it could help your business save thousands of dollars, contact one of our highly trained fleet consultants today!

1-888-998-1122 | [email protected]

Increasing Driver Productivity Guide

A fleet manager’s job requires them to watch the bottom line, ensure vehicles are efficiently operating and manage drivers. As you can see, the drivers play a major role in this equation. The drivers can either help the manager succeed or drive productivity into the ground. Luckily, there are some great strategies managers can use to help boost driver productivity.

Maintain Vehicles

When vehicles are not properly maintained, it results in downtime for the vehicle and the driver. The key to an efficient fleet is to understand that preventative maintenance has many long-term benefits that greatly outweigh any short-term inconveniences. Many GPS fleet management companies offer valuable vehicle maintenance reminders that can help fleet managers stay on top of vehicle maintenance. This new technology is making it much easier for a fleet manager to take care of a large fleet of vehicles. Some fleet management systems even have tools that allow users to make appointments at the nearest service location or order vehicle parts.

Fleet Management Technology

Enhancing fleet efficiency and increasing driver productivity are easier than ever with new advanced fleet management technology options. Not only is it easier to manage fleets with GPS fleet tracking systems, using this solution also reduces a business’ costs. Fleet managers are able to monitor many non-productive behaviors such as excessive stop times, idling, downtime and route deviations. They are also able to see average delivery times, actual work hours and job times.

Some fleet managers are using GPS fleet management solutions to eliminate unnecessary paperwork for the drivers. The time spent on extra paperwork can be used to provide better service to your customers. Drivers no longer have to fill out mileage sheets, time cards, customer locations, times of stops, etc.

The best way to improve productivity is to incorporate fleet management technology in to your business’s fleet policies. Make sure your drivers know that your business has a culture of efficiency and high productivity.

Routing & Geofencing in MyGeotab GPS Fleet Management Software

A geofence is a virtual perimeter (or fence) around a geographical real-world area of interest. Geofencing allows users to draw virtual perimeters around places of work, gas stations, customers’ sites, homes, entire states, airports and more. It can also be a critical component for analyzing fleet behavior when combined with notifications and exception reporting. There are multiple benefits that can be gained through making use of geofencing, some of which include:

• Increasing productivity
• Establishing driver accountability
• Tracking high value assets

 

Geofencing within MyGeotab
GPS Fleet Management Software

 

In the MyGeotab software, provided by Geotab and GoFleet, geofences are referred to as zones and the software provides easy-to-use tools for the user to create them. It is not necessary to be tech-savvy in order to understand how to create zones within MyGeotab. Also, you can create a large number of zones at once by importing a bulk list of latitude and longitude information prepared through a spreadsheet application, such as Microsoft Excel, or by defining the boundaries of the zone through the map.

Example of creating a zone on the map within MyGeotabOne unique aspect of the MyGeotab GPS fleet management software is that it allows for zones to be combined with exception reporting. This results in the zone-based exceptions that are generated by drivers can provide information about which zones the drivers were close to throughout their work day and the duration spent around these set zones. This then allows for the following potential scenarios:

• Send an email when drivers leave or arrive in a certain zone
• Alert drivers who have left a certain zone early with an in-vehicle sound
• When a delivery truck is about to arrive a notification sent to a shipping department
• Notify managers if a driver has entered an unauthorized zone
• Notify managers if a driver is spending too much time in a certain zone
• Special cases of zone use with MyGeotab

Exception reporting in the MyGeotab GPS fleet management software is usually used to report when a vehicle is breaking a rule and may not typically be related to zones. The fact that MyGeotab has the ability to combine regular exception reporting with zones allows for some uniquely useful scenarios. Take a look at the following examples:

Example 1:
An oil and gas company located in Australia normally has to send their fleets to the outskirts of town to work on different projects. Most places these fleets need to go are off-roads and may not have speed limits. What this company has done with MyGeotab is create speed limit zones in these areas so that the fleet manager gets a notification if a driver is surpassing a certain speed. This allows fleet managers to create their own custom speed limits and to help ensure the safety of the drivers.

Example 2:
A taxi company located in Nova Scotia has combined the use of zones with auxiliaries. The company has attached auxiliaries to the taxi fare meters so that they are able to receive reports through MyGeotab whenever the fare meters are in use. In addition, the taxi company has placed different zones in the area where the taxi company operates. As a result, the company is able to receive reports on what areas their taxis are picking up customers and they are able to gain useful insight into where to allocate their taxis to get the most business.

 

Routing within MyGeotab

 

MyGeotab GPS fleet management software allows for the option to create routes based on zone locations. Some benefits that result from routing include increased organization operational efficiencies as well as reduced fuel consumption, mileage and CO2 emissions. Users can create a zone in the software by connecting a sequence of zones together to create a path. The routes can be defined in any order the user wishes, and can alternatively begin and end at the same zone. Further to this, MyGeotab software offers users the option to optimize the order of zones in which the driver should visit once the route has been created in an effort to minimize fuel consumption. Routing is especially useful for fleets consisting of school buses, for example, because these vehicles have predefined locations they visit everyday.

For a more detailed look at how to create zones within the MyGeotab GPS fleet management software, check out this video tutorial:
Creating & Adding New Zones in MyGeotab

For more information on how zones and routing could potentially increase the productivity of your business, contact a fleet consultant today.

 

Original Article Written by: Dominic Loong, Technical Support Engineer at Geotab
http://www.geotab.com/blog/overview-geofencing-routing-mygeotab/