Managing a mobile workforce from vehicles and trucks to equipment and drivers can present unique challenges for fleet operators.
While fleet tracking and management solutions have helped companies to make fleet operations safer and more efficient for years, today’s growing commercial and regulatory pressures are introducing new standards that require fleet owners to do even more, Jeff Clark, SVP of product management, CalAmp.
A growing emphasis on streamlining operations, improving decision-making, and increasing fleet safety is sending commercial fleets searching for new solutions that can give them more actionable fleet intelligence in real-time.
Integrated fleet and asset management solutions are a crucial part of this new drive for more intelligent fleets. Fleet owners need more actionable insights that put data into context and provide critical driver and vehicle performance information quickly, accurately, and securely, allowing managers to make more informed decisions.
By connecting the mobile workforce with vehicle intelligence, both private and public sector fleets can gain real-time visibility into vehicle status, health, and driver behaviour to improve safety, lower costs, and increase productivity.
Simplify fleet maintenance & resource utilisation
Improving operational efficiency empowers companies to do more with less or do much more with a little more. For field service businesses, vehicle utilisation can be a primary source of lost efficiency and a leading indicator of areas of improvement.
Fleet operators can dramatically improve performance by tracking and monitoring their drivers, equipment, and vehicles in the field to use resources in the most profitable way possible. From fuel consumption to driver behaviour, fleet monitoring promotes an organised approach that improves efficiency and safety.
Fleet operators can leverage these insights to more effectively manage the maintenance needs of their entire fleet. Integrated fleet and asset management solutions deliver vehicle information such as direct odometre readings, fuel levels, service interval indicators, airbag status, oil pressure, and a variety of other metrics that allow minor maintenance issues to be identified before they turn into major repair jobs.
Improve driver behaviour and safety
It’s often said in business that you can’t manage what you don’t measure. In addition to vehicle and asset visibility, business managers and owners can implement smart solutions to achieve and ensure driver safety. An integrated fleet management system allows fleet managers to better understand what’s happening on the road with actionable insight through visual and inertial video triggers.
Actions such as speeding, harsh acceleration, frequent braking, harsh turning, and tailgating can be identified and used to proactively coach drivers to improve behaviour.
Another aspect of safety is preventing driver fatigue. Telematics paired with an Electronic Logging Device (ELD) can help fleet operators monitor Hours of Service (HOS) and prevent violations. These solutions accurately capture the number of hours a driver can be on-duty and off-duty per week, ensuring fleets stay compliant.
Fleet operators can also automate time and attendance by creating geofences around offices, delivery routes, and job sites. Drivers can be monitored in real-time, and managers can be alerted if any geofenced boundaries are crossed, providing an additional layer of visibility to driver behaviour, safety, and vehicle use.
By connecting technology, vehicles, and driver behaviour, integrated fleet management solutions allow for a more sophisticated and efficient way to monitor fleets, keep drivers safe, and increase productivity and profits.
Optimise fleet efficiency
An organisation’s success and profitability hinges on fleet efficiency. Unfortunately, many fleets have a lot of room for improvement due to outdated methods. Though many fleet managers still rely on outdated processes, like spreadsheets and paper processes, these solutions lack visibility and efficiency to manage their fleet operations.
Our society relies on modern technology to improve processes and stay connected with others. Leveraging technology to manage fleets produces the same results. With an intuitive fleet and asset management solution, managers can track every aspect of their fleet and make decisions based on real-time data, helping fleet efficiency by enabling communication, eliminating time-consuming data entry, and automating workflows.
Measuring metrics like utilisation, expenses, performance, and maintenance provides insight into what’s working and what needs improvement.
Adopting a fleet and asset management solution to manage a mobile workforce helps fleet managers identify areas for greater productivity, safety improvements, compliance solutions, and cost savings. Indeed, you don’t know what you can’t see.
Thankfully, these intelligent solutions enable comprehensive real-time visibility into vehicles, drivers, and related assets, providing fleet managers with actionable insights to increase fleet efficiency and improve operations.
The author is Jeff Clark, SVP of product management, CalAmp
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