Tracking: Fleet management solutions to empower efficient field service and monitor sensitive freight in real time

Fleet management solutions have many benefits for interested companies.

First, they empower efficient field service management, which comes with many advantages: streamlined fleet management, better customer service, accurate maintenance planning and fuel monitoring. All these add up to significantly cut operating costs.

Second, they offer more specific benefits for various operations involving the transport of sensitive freight, like asset surveillance or temperature control.

Empowering efficient field service management

Through many benefits and efficient field service management, vehicle tracking in a large fleet will allow significant savings on operating costs. According to a study by Motorola, American companies using tracking devices save an average $5,484 per employee per year.

• Getting the right vehicle, at the right place, at the right time

This is what can be called streamlined fleet management: delivery company, haulage companies, taxi companies and actually any company using a large number of field sales spending a long time on the road can locate the nearest vehicle, relatively to the warehouse where the goods can be collected and the delivery point.

• Customer service

According to the study mentioned earlier, and because of streamlined fleet management, companies using fleet management solutions can expect:

- a 23% increase in the total number of service calls completed per day per technician,

- a 46% increase in deliveries completed within the promised time,

- a 16.4% increase in revenues derived from services, only because customer service improvements.

• Maintenance planning

With mileage and advances diagnostics sensors installed, fleet management solutions make it possible to identify ageing or stressed vehicle parts before they break, and improve maintenance planning.

This proactive attitude reduces maintenance and repairs costs.

• Fuel monitoring

By sending out alerts when vehicles are driven too fast or idling too long, by improving routeing and cutting down on side jobs, fleet management solutions are a great way to cut fuel costs.

According to The Aberdeen Group, tracking systems helped companies cut fuel bills by an average 13.2% on average.

Benefits of real time fleet information for the transport of sensitive freight

Specific industries will find added benefits in fleet management solutions.

• Asset surveillance

When precious assets are moved, the freight company as well as the client may need to know exactly where the goods are located at any time.

GPS tracking allows accurate localisation within a radius of less than a hundred yards.

• Temperature control for refrigerated transport

Just like low fuel alerts can be set and triggered by adequate fleet management systems and sensors, alerts can be set in connection with the temperature within refrigerated compartments.

This will allow specialised haulage companies dealing with food products or medical supplies to guarantee to their clients that their freight reaches its destination unspoilt.