These are just some questions that we ask Transport and Operation
Managers as we know that there are huge savings to be made through having a
standard trailer tracking unit installed on to your fleet with the option of a
temperature monitoring device if you have refrigerated trailers.
Question: Do you know where your trailers are and are
they being utilized?
Answer: Not
sure, need to dig through the paper trail and make a few calls to see what is
free and where they are?
Solution: This is the
normal reaction and generally results in the need to hire another one but at
what cost? The Trailer tracking system would highlight to you all
trailers that are currently not in use, meaning you can identify instantly a
trailer that you can use elsewhere with no extra charge, if you determine that
no trailers are free then you can then look to hire one knowing you are not
spending unnecessarily.
Question: If a loads temperature/goods are questioned
how long is it taken off the road for? Are you then charged to cover the loss
of a load and at what cost?
Answer: Normally
they are off the road for up to 48 hours, by the time it has been resolved the
goods have perished; this can lose us in excess of £10,000 on a full load.
Solution: Having
to cover the cost of a lost load due to the temperature/goods being questioned
can run into the £1,000’s. The trailer tracking system with Temp Monitoring can
give you real time information back to the end-user; this will solve any
disputes instantly and will allow the trailer to be released without the loss
of goods or to assist you in unforeseen claims.
Question: In man hours how long does it take you to do
a trailer audit?
Answer: We had to
ask each depo to submit trailer locations, and it involved around 10 people
overall, however we finally got all the locations and we submitted it after 2
weeks.
Solution: Paper
auditing is the most common way to locate trailers but it isn’t efficient. We
can set up the system to do a trailer audit every day or you can run a report
that will give you an instant audit, meaning you and your workforce can focus
on other business issues.
Question: What security measures do you have in place
if a trailer is lost or stolen?
Answer: We
have no security measures in place; if a trailer gets stolen we normally
concede we will never see it again.
Solution: Through
having an internal battery on the tracking unit we can track the trailer once
it starts moving, therefore if stolen we will always have a location stamp to
go by and then to recover the stolen trailer.
Case Study:
Undisclosed
Fleet Size
(Trailer): 120
Requirement
We had the
following goals when finding a Trailer Tracking Solution: • See the current and historical location of
our trailers – Our trailers are not tracking therefore we have to rely on paper
system
·
Automated
auditing – Currently paper audit is taking up to 3
weeks to complete, once completed many trailers have moved location
·
Optimise
Trailer Usage – There are instances
where our trailers are pending collection from the last job and we are still
renting additional trailers, a tracking system would ensure we can utilise our
own fleet before additional costs need to be spent
·
Lower the
cost of renting additional Trailers – We
have rented trailers as we haven’t got a system in place to identify trailers
quick enough that aren’t being used
·
Monitor the
Temperature within the trailers to protect from customer disputes / insurance
claims – When a query is raised against a trailer
road it has to be immediately put aside and inspected, in the past this has
taken up to 48 hours and by the time is has been analysed the stock has
perished
·
Increase
Security – It has been known that trailers have been
stolen and it has taken 14 days before it has been brought to Management
Solution
The Business
Vehicle Tracking trailer tracking solution allows us to audit where our
trailers are at any point at a click of a button and a full history of where it
has been and what time it was there. Paired with the temperature monitoring
this will be invaluable information for the running of our business and iron
out any disputes that previously have cost us downtime and money.
We now get an email
every morning highlighting vehicles that are not being utilised which allows as
to put the trailer to work that have been overlooked.
Implementation
Business Vehicle
Tracking installed trackers into our trailers which were located at 5 branches
across the UK. We had a few stragglers that couldn’t get back to our offices at
the agreed time so these were done separately, in some cases on our customers
sites.
Once installed our account
manager imported our customer address database into the system and now, when
running reports, we can get customer names appearing rather than an address
that we have to look up and verify. Everything has been well designed to
optimise the time to get the required information out of the system.
Results
We chose the
Business Vehicle Tracking trailer tracking system as it delivered what no other
provider could and within our budget. Since having the system installed we have
been able to get on top of our trailers and utilise them rather than renting
trailers which in itself will pay for the system in the first 6 months. We have
also seen a reduction in claims for contaminated loads as we are providing our
customers with load temperature data which seems to be working as a deterrent
from fraudulent claims.
Overall we have
seen great results from having the system installed and our only frustration is
that we didn’t do it earlier…
