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TomTom Telematics has launched a new version of its fleet management Software-as-a-Service solution WEBFLEET 3.3 which allows fleet operators to review combined vehicle data from different sources in one easy-to-use interface.

The WEBLEET Plugin functionality allows a third party to generate notifications within WEBFLEET to draw the user’s attention to an event or a specific vehicle. This will highlight, for example, when a cold chain trailer temperature is out of range or a vehicle has maintenance issues which need to be addressed.

Using the company's award-winning WEBFLEET.connect open API functionality, the software enables flexible and easy back office integrations to bring all information into one system.

For customers with bespoke software needs, this means faster and easier fleet control, integrating such services as safety cameras, temperature monitoring, alcohol testing, routing optimisation or ERP information within their WEBFLEET management system.

The technology is already being used by mutual customers of TomTom Telematics and VisionTrack to view vehicle camera footage directly from WEBFLEET.

"Our customers who also use TomTom Telematics can now pull up incident footage instantly and review via the WEBFLEET interface, without having to open up the VisionTrack software independently," said Richard Lane, Commercial Director at VisionTrack.  "Having access to both visual proof and telematics data gives the clearest picture possible and helps to mitigate insurance costs. We’re excited to bring this new partnership to our mutual customers."

Beverley Wise, Director UK & Ireland for TomTom Telematics, added: “This new capability gives our customers an easier user experience, with faster and more convenient access to the management information they need to make smarter decisions.

"Having real-time third-party information in one interface makes WEBFLEET the hub for optimal fleet control."

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Verizon Connect has been identified as the leading provider of fleet management solutions globally and in the Americas, according to the Fleet Management in the Americas – 8th Edition report from analyst firm Berg Insight.

Fleet management solutions are defined as vehicle-based systems that incorporate data logging, satellite positioning and data communications to a back-office application. The 300-page Berg Insight report covers both Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and aftermarket players in-depth.

“Our strategic research provides expert commentary and unique intelligence on the fleet management market,” said Johan Fagerberg, director of Berg Insight. “Verizon Connect is the clear leader in the fleet telematics space both from a global perspective and in the Americas specifically, and is setting the pace in delivering leading mobile technology platforms and solutions.”

“We are committed to revolutionizing the way people, vehicles and things move through the world, and this report recognizes our leadership in a dynamic market,” said Jay Jaffin, chief marketing officer at Verizon Connect.

“We maintain our top position by putting our customers first – helping them to improve safety, efficiency and productivity while lowering costs. At Verizon Connect, innovation, automation and connected data all come together to guide a connected world on the go.”

Verizon Connect offers a full suite of fleet and mobile workforce management solutions, serving commercial customers of any size.

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Research released last week by Verizon Connect has revealed that the average small to medium-sized fleet operated business in the UK faces a £6,000 repair bill each year due to traffic accidents. Compounding this expense, they also lose an average of five working days each year as a result of vehicle downtime caused by traffic accidents.

Recent figures from the Department of Transport found that lorry traffic increased by 1.1% annually, with drivers travelling over 17.1 billion vehicle miles. The impact of this has hit small fleets as more than half (54 per cent), experienced an accident in the last year.

The strain on UK fleet managers is telling, with a third (31 per cent) of those surveyed by Verizon Connect reporting that maintenance and other associated costs are the top issues keeping them awake at night. The research also shows that fleet managers’ top concern regarding driver safety is using their phones while out on the roads (22 per cent), with speeding coming in at a close second (19 per cent).

Mobile Resource Management (MRM) software, like Verizon Connect, can help fleet managers improve driver safety standards across the fleet by sending real-time alerts to monitor speeding, breaking and other key driver behaviours. When it comes to the main cause of accidents, 29 per cent of fleet managers report that other road users are to blame, rather than their own drivers.

Previous research by Verizon Connect found that a quarter of UK drivers were found to be breaching driver guidelines around rest and fatigue. To combat this, and to uphold driver safety and compliance, just under half of fleet managers (46 per cent) use a tachograph to automatically record vehicle speed and distance and to keep track of their drivers’ rest periods.

“For small businesses, the cost of accidents, and driver downtime is a major concern – particularly as margins are tighter and competition is increasing.  But it’s not just the repair bill that matters, a vehicle out of service for five days could mean losing a valued customer to a rival,” comments Derek Bryan, Vice President, EMEA, Verizon Connect.

“With increasing numbers of vehicles out on the road, upholding driver safety is of utmost concern to fleet managers and drivers. While drivers can’t always avoid an accident, particularly if another driver is at fault, there are clear processes and technology that fleet managers can put in place to better protect their drivers. Making sure drivers take adequate rest breaks while tracking driver behaviour and encouraging safe driving practices can save lives, reduce accidents and uphold the lifetime and efficiency of the vehicles within the fleet.”

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According to a new research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the number of telematics service subscribers using embedded systems will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31.9 percent from 49.0 million subscribers at the end of 2017 to 258.1 million subscribers at the end of 2023.

Moreover, Berg Insight forecasts that shipments of embedded car OEM telematics systems worldwide will grow from 26.8 million units in 2017 to reach 67.2 million units in 2023, which represents an attach rate of 71.7 percent.

Connected car services have evolved from being a differentiating factor to a common feature with a high attach rate among the premium car brands and are rapidly becoming increasingly common in mid-range vehicles. GM’s OnStar was launched 20 years ago and is today the market leader worldwide with well above 14.0 million users in total, out of which 12.3 million were in North America by year-end 2017.

BMW includes telematics hardware as a standard feature on all its cars sold in 45 markets worldwide and has the second largest user base of an estimated 8.0 million equipped vehicles. PSA Group is currently in third place with 2.9 million connected vehicles in Europe. The carmaker launched an emergency and assistance call service already in 2003. Additional automotive OEMs with over 2 million telematics subscribers also include Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota/Lexus and FCA Group.

“There are several connected car services that experience growing demand from stakeholders including consumers, car manufacturers, governments and various third parties as awareness of the value of telematics spreads”, said Martin Svegander, IoT analyst at Berg Insight.

The leading carmakers are gradually exploring new use cases and business models for telematics such as premium concierge services, usage-based insurance and personal car sharing. “Recently, we have also seen GM, Jaguar Land Rover and Hyundai launch in-vehicle commerce platforms that create opportunities for retailers and merchants to connect with consumers”, added Mr. Svegander.

For field service organisations it will be interesting to see how this trend continues to shape the way we view fleet management and w2e are certainly beginning to see some maturation of a technology that will have a significant impact on our sector.

Want to know more? Download report brochure: The Global Automotive OEM Telematics Market

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As we conclude our series of excerpts from the exceptional industry guide 'Mobile Resource Management for Dummies', which has been commissioned by Verizon Connect we bring you ten benefits Mobile Resource Management (MRM) can bring to your business.

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!    

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If you have missed any of the other excerpts within this series you can catch up on the other topics we've explored which include: Understanding Digital Transformation in a Connected, Mobile World  also Thinking Outside the Silo and Harnessing the Power of Telematics,  Realising the Value of Mobile Resource Management and Avoiding Mobile Resource Management Pitfalls and Driving Employee Engagement with Gamification

However, the eBook contains a wealth of other key chapters offering important insight for any field service professional and we advise downloading the full eBook on either of the links at the top and bottom of the page...

Cloud-based MRM solutions can help your business to achieve numerous benefits: lower fuel costs, improved driver safety, better fleet utilisation, increased worker productivity, proactive maintenance and enhanced customer experience to name a few.

But the benefits to other areas of a company may not be as obvious. A comprehensive MRM solution can deliver benefits to many departments and roles within a company, including increasing return on investment (ROI) and lowering the total cost of ownership (TCO) of mobile assets, improving productivity, increasing business agility and achieving competitive advantage.

By connecting vehicles, mobile assets, people and work, MRM gives the organisation the insight, agility and customer experience to stop lagging behind competitors and lead the market – to not just succeed but thrive.

In this way, MRM can transform the way the organisation does business.

So let's explore a few of the benefits experienced across various areas within the organisation.

#1 Operations:

An MRM solution provides operations managers with the tools they need to be able to plan for the day, week, month and year ahead. It gives complete visibility into everything that’s on-the-go so that teams can help to control running costs, streamline operations, optimise current assets and staff, make the most of the customer experience, and ensure compliance with all safety standards and regulatory mandates. It provides the data to help to plan for the future as companies look to grow and advance.

You need a broad platform approach to help automate manual processes, ensure consistency and efficiency throughout all operations and know that it’s all working. You need to be responsive and agile to customer demands. A negative customer experience damages you, your operation and the company as a whole. Organisations all live and die on the efficiency of the operation, and you need to introduce new services quickly and cost-effectively to meet the fast-changing expectations of customers.

#2 Fleet Management:

MRM programs can keep fleets in the best shape possible by reducing management and maintenance costs, creating proactive maintenance alerts, and opening a direct connection to maintenance providers. An MRM solution can also help to optimise the way the organisation uses its fleet, with planning tools that help to ensure that the right number and type of mobile resources are assigned to the right jobs, people and vehicles.

#3 Information Technology:

Through the use of an MRM solution, IT can access the data it needs to support the optimisation and automation of work and cash flows across the organisation. A cloud-based MRM solution also means fewer systems for IT to maintain, easier integration without the need to create and maintain application programming interfaces (APIs), faster deployment in the cloud, and simpler management of a single platform.

An MRM solution allows the team to enable and secure the collection of operational data from vehicles and drivers, and integrate that data with other applications for complete operations visibility.

#4 Making Safety a Priority:

An MRM solution can help businesses to make safety a priority by monitoring mobile resources such as construction tools, cherry pickers, cranes, and other heavy equipment to ensure that they’re being properly operated and maintained.

An MRM solution can also help management to create safer driving behaviours, such as avoiding speeding and harsh braking, through the use of driver scorecards and coaching tools, monitoring seatbelt usage, and providing accident notifications with airbag deployment alerts, along with in-cab alerts and live reporting. It can also help the team to reduce the possibility of accidents by optimising drivers’ routes and cutting out unnecessary travel. Finally, an MRM solution can help drivers with regulatory compliance.

#5 Risk Management:

With MRM, risk management teams have the ability to ensure regulatory and policy compliance in vehicles and demonstrate a mobile duty of care.

By identifying unsafe driving behaviour, providing insights into accident or damage claims, mitigating fleet liability risks, and protecting against potential fraud, theft and supervisory negligence claims, businesses can reduce risk due to consequential losses.

In other words, MRM software is the eyes and ears to ensure the on-the-go organisation is running as smoothly as possible, and provides peace of mind for business owners and directors, as MRM insights allow for greater control and measurement of key compliance and safety legislation.

#6 Sales and Customer Relations:

An MRM solution helps to give sales and customer relations one of the very best outcomes possible – more on-time service calls, deliveries and appointments, and better customer estimated time of arrival (ETA) visibility. That, in turn, creates long-term fans and brand advocates who’ll come back again and again.

#7 Human Resources:

Human resources can use an enterprise fleet management solution to gain a near real-time connection to all on-the-go employees. Whether it’s visibility, near real-time coaching, training or helping drivers to hit more of their targets by being more efficient, an MRM software solution gives human resources the tools they need to make employees even better.

#8 Tax Recordkeeping:

An MRM solution includes driver apps, simplifying the classification of business and personal journeys. This helps to reduce administration time and produces mileage reporting in an HMRC- ready format. MRM solutions can also control routes, helping to avoid road tolls.

#9 Payroll:

By making aspects like miles and hours driven, hours on site, and time from clock-in to departure easy to measure, and by moving from paper to electronic timesheets, an MRM solution helps payroll to perform more efficiently.

MRM helps you to better manage wage bills by matching the right skill to the right job, rather than sending overqualified staff to easier, low-level jobs. An MRM solution can also help you to manage labour distribution efficiently so that you can assign jobs to less utilised employees earning standard time, rather than employees earning overtime for a given pay period, when possible. And when payroll is more efficient, salaries and payments go out on time – which makes everybody happy.

#10 Finance:

An MRM solution improves cash flow and speeds up billing, by helping the finance department to speed up all payment and processing operations, as well as reduce invoice and settlement disputes. Financial reporting is also faster with easy-to-create and distribute reports that demonstrate savings and productivity throughout the organisation. This is possible because an MRM program can help to automate the entire workflow – moving from paper to digital.

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Our series of excerpts from the exceptional industry guide 'Mobile Resource Management for Dummies', which has been commissioned by Verizon Connect has so far explored Understanding Digital Transformation in a Connected, Mobile World  also Thinking Outside the Silo and Harnessing the Power of Telematics, and Realising the Value of Mobile Resource Managemen

Now in this latest excerpt, we turn our attention to how field service organisations can avoid Mobile Resource Management pitfalls whilst they drive greater employee engagement.

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!   

sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content. 

If you need to catch up with the previous articles in this series you can find part one here, part two here and part three here.

As with any new project or initiative, there are some common pitfalls to avoid when deploying a Mobile Resource Management (MRM) solution. In this excerpt, we shall look at some of these pitfalls and how to address them, as well as how to engage employees in every department throughout your organisation using the concept of gamification to coach and improve worker performance and drive a more satisfied, efficient and safe organisation.

You Can’t ‘Set It and Forget It’

MRM is a business strategy supported by processes and technology and used by teams throughout the organisation.

Although technology is a vital component, many organisations mistakenly focus purely on the technology and neglect to consider how supporting processes will map to the MRM solution, and fail to define or implement a strategy to gain user adoption.

"The goodwill created through co-consultation will quickly evaporate if people don’t understand how to use the software and how it benefits the company, their team members, and themselves..."

Although various teams throughout your organisation may have been consulted during the MRM planning process, don’t expect them to automatically embrace the new system or instinctively know how to use it effectively. The goodwill created through co-consultation will quickly evaporate if people don’t understand how to use the software and how it benefits the company, their team members, and themselves.

The level of personalisation will depend on the workflows and the capabilities of the solution being implemented. User training always needs to be built into any MRM project plan.

As well as covering tuition on software functionality and its benefits, group training is a perfect forum to formulate processes and ensure buy-in collectively from all teams. Tailored training programmes involving the system users or those with a vested interest in delivery – your MRM ‘advocates’ or ‘champions’ – need to be developed.

In this way, the system will be seen as a universal corporate tool and not just one department ‘selling’ it.

A common pitfall (discussed in our article in this series on 'Thinking Outside the Silo') is trying to cobble together your own MRM system by integrating siloed best-of-breed solutions in-house. The ever-changing applications make constant connectivity a difficult, moving target that’s costly to set up and that requires a long-term and expensive commitment, relying on a small team/person with highly specialised knowledge – this can be a very high-risk proposition.

Don’t Just Throw in the Kitchen Sink

As the saying goes: garbage in, garbage out.

Spend time cleaning up your data – especially any data that includes addresses. Have you maintained a consistent style or format for data entry? Doing some data validation to determine whether your data is in the proper format goes a long way towards helping to make your data more usable.

One of the fundamental deployment errors in any new system is simply ‘forklifting’ your data from the old system to the new one. Before you begin the process, separate, segment and streamline your data. Work out which segments are relatively clean and which will need additional cleansing. Think clearly about what you want to put in and what will actually be relevant day to day. What data is going to get users to actually want to use the system? Remove out-of-date activities, as well as organisations and contacts that haven’t been touched recently. Relevancy is a guaranteed way to overcome user resistance.

Don’t just focus on addresses – think about time windows, skill sets, delivery days/dates and other common data.

These will all impact the effectiveness of your MRM solution if they’re not accurate and up-to-date. Have a clear, consolidated, centralised database of all your fleet/asset information to avoid delays and frustration, especially at remote locations.

Taking the necessary steps to fix any issues or errors in advance will significantly improve the MRM data conversion and implementation process.

Establish Your Mission

While your drivers, technicians or crews may be a subset of a larger business, there’s no reason why that subset shouldn’t have its own mission that aligns and supports the overall corporate mission.

"While your drivers, technicians or crews may be a subset of a larger business, there’s no reason why that subset shouldn’t have its own mission that aligns and supports the overall corporate mission..."

 

Once the mission is established, it’s time to break it down to individual objectives that support the mission. For example, the mission may be to operate the safest fleet in your region, so the objectives may include reducing speeding incidents, Hours of Service (HOS) violations or vehicle idle time.

Create measurable key performance indicators (KPIs) from the established objectives and keep them as specific as possible. No matter what your objectives are – increasing productivity, decreasing fuel costs, improving the safety of your crews or increasing asset utilisation – the secret to achieving them is keeping them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound (SMART). You then need to connect your entire organisation to the established goals.

Align Your Objectives

Review your objectives to ensure that they align with business operations. For example, if your company puts working as fast as possible first and safety second, then setting an objective to reduce speeding won’t align. Get your company influencers (normally managers or supervisors) involved to review and align to the objectives.

Your managers need to be on board with the new objectives because they play an important role in influencing others, and ultimately help to achieve a successful outcome. After reviewing and refining your objectives, and aligning them with your organisation, you’re ready for deployment.

Plan Your Rollout Across the Organisation

If you’re rolling out at multiple locations, draw up a coordinated plan.

Ensure that all parties are on the same page and engaged across the entire organisation – not just in the main office, but at all remote sites. Everyone needs to be aware of the deployment plan and the local champion/team must have everything prepared for deployment at their site on the agreed day/time.

Clear and concise internal communications are critical to ensure a smooth rollout.

Scope the deployment properly first: don’t move the goal posts during implementation. This is very difficult to do, as local variance and conditions means that tweaks are needed but they can cause delay.

What Is Gamification

Gamification is the use of game mechanics in a typically non-game-oriented context.

Gamification is used by software companies to build business applications that increase engagement and participation while accelerating learning. It leverages the human instinct to compete with ourselves or others, with the objective of encouraging teams to achieve company-wide goals.

For example, you can deliver greater safety and compliance by giving near real-time data to drivers so that they can track – and eventually improve – their own performance, or improve productivity by empowering field workers to track near real-time performance metrics when completing work orders.

For gamification to be most effective it needs to be ‘refereed’. This means monitoring results, providing incentives and celebrating wins...

For gamification to be most effective it needs to be ‘refereed’. This means monitoring results, providing incentives and celebrating wins. It can’t just be a new fad or flavour of the month initiative. Instead, it must become part of the fabric and culture of the business otherwise results will slip and workers will return to their old habits.

To monitor the results, you need a scoreboard to help reinforce the KPIs so that your employees know what they’re playing for.

The system takes the predetermined metrics and generates a score, then lets the employee see how they perform against their peers. It’s an opportunity to improve behaviours and perform with pride because they see metrics that show a direct correlation to how they’re helping to make their operation successful.

Managers can compare employee scorecards and the types and frequencies of training content being accessed to different metrics such as the rate of accidents, lost-time injuries and productivity, and draw direct correlations between what moves the needle and what doesn’t.

Done right, gamification can be more than just a passing fad.

The data derived can be a powerful force for change in your organisation – you’ll see more than better business results: you’ll have employees who feel more engaged and appreciated, recognised for good performance on the job and motivated to do their best.

Want to know more? The full eBook is available as premium content to fieldservicenews.com subscribers. Access it now on the button below... 

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Our series of excerpts from the exceptional industry guide 'Mobile Resource Management for Dummies', which has been commissioned by Verizon Connect has so far explored Understanding Digital Transformation in a Connected, Mobile World and also Thinking Outside the Silo and Harnessing the Power of Telematics.

Now in this latest excerpt, we turn our attention to how field service organisations can realise the value of mobile resource management...

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!   

Sponsored by:

Data usage note: By accessing this content you consent to the contact details submitted when you registered as a subscriber to fieldservicenews.com to be shared with the listed sponsor of this premium content who may contact you for legitimate business reasons to discuss the content of this content.  

If you need to catch up on the previous articles in this series you can find part one here and part two here...

The full chapter this excerpt is taken from explores four key areas how field service companies can ensure they are realising the value of mobile resource management which are:

• Driving Productivity and Efficiency
• Reducing Costs
• Improving Safety
• Increasing Customer Satisfaction

Here we will look at the first of these in greater depth.

Driving Productivity and Efficiency:

Productivity, a word loved by managers, is conversely often a word that has frightened many an employee. To them, it just sounds like more work and an opportunity for supervisors to be looking over their shoulders.

But increasing productivity isn’t about being a drill sergeant. Rather, it’s about empowering your team, boosting efficiency and helping – not telling – your employees how to better spend their time.

The fact is that an employee who goes home at the end of the day feeling like they’ve been productive and accomplished a lot is happier and more fulfilled than the not-so-productive employee who’s always looking to pass off work in favour of knocking off early.

In addition to improving worker productivity, there are some other positive and far-reaching benefits to using the right tools with your mobile workforce.

These include:

• Less time spent on non-profitable administrative tasks such as data entry, tracking compliance and paperwork
• Faster processing of compliance requirements such as vehicle inspections.
• Less time spent on paper-based compliance logs for technicians and drivers.
• Quicker and more accurate generation of near real-time service reports.
• Improved customer service and capturing of client data for more effective management of support tickets, sales calls and marketing campaigns.
• Lower hardware costs and easier deployment using the mobile devices your team’s already carrying.

Several opportunities for driving productivity and efficiency in a modern mobile workforce include:

• Streamline work order management.
• Make paper forms disappear.
• Automate regulatory compliance.
• Perform required pre- and post-trip vehicle inspections.

Streamline work order management

Keeping teams in the field at their most productive is easy with prioritised mobile job management. Scheduled jobs are provided directly to the worker’s device at the start of their shift.

You can prioritise jobs based on:

• Location
• Proximity to the technician
• Service-level agreements (SLAs), such as time window restrictions on when the job can be done
• Manual overrides

Jobs can be signed on the device by customers and automatically marked as completed on departure and transmitted back to base in near real time. Or, conversely, any issues can be immediately reported back to the office for timely review and resolution.

This means less non-productive time for teams outside the office, fewer miles, more productive time on the clock and better customer service. Mobile job management keeps both workers and customers happy.

Make paper forms disappear

Getting your teams to keep their paperwork up-to-date is never easy, but it’s crucial to your service operation. Automation of forms on a mobile device, such as a smartphone or tablet, can be a huge time saver for your business.

Paperless forms help you to:

• Log the right information on the right form at the right time
• Keep job history accurate
• Update customer records or government compliance
• Automate the process so that correct invoices are raised automatically (adding to the bottom line)
• Ensure that internal reports and dashboards are current

To improve the accuracy and timing of required paperwork, mobile automated forms are a crucial tool for today’s mobile worker. The impact of reducing the paperwork burden on your drivers and field workers can also improve employee retention.

Electronic forms also save time and reduce errors for your back-office staff who no longer need to decode handwriting from paper forms and manually enter it into the system. All the job information gets saved directly into the database from the driver or field worker’s connected device.

Automate regulatory compliance

For any company with a fleet of vehicles, government regulations are a cost of doing business. If you don’t have the right tools in place to comply with these regulations, your company can quickly find itself in hot water.

Automating your compliance processes can help to:

• Reduce workload
• Lessen audit risk
• Ensure that compliance is being met – correctly.
• Minimise fines and violations.

The best way to consistently remain compliant is by using a mobile workforce management solution. Not only does it take the guesswork out of deciphering rules and regulations, but it also speeds up roadside inspections due to the device being used for evidence of driver activity without the need to wade through paper logs.

The solution stores your drivers’ activities by recording on-duty, off-duty, sleeping, and driving events, and displays available duty hours.

This helps to streamline operations and eliminate paperwork. With a mobile workforce management solution, each driver is given a Driver ID, which is critical for not only reporting but also serving as a mobile time card.

Perform required pre- and post-trip vehicle inspections

Does your company require mobile workers to perform driver vehicle inspection reports (DVIRs)? Are you looking for ways to automate these reports and make sure that drivers complete them accurately?

DVIRs are commonly overlooked or completed without physically inspecting the vehicle, increasing the chance of fines for non- compliance, breakdowns or even accidents due to missed maintenance and malfunctioning safety features.

With a mobile DVIR solution, you can get immediate confirmation that the report has been completed and the driver did a physical walk-around inspection.

Using their handheld device, drivers scan a two-dimensional Quick Response (QR) code affixed to specific vehicle inspection points. This instantly verifies that the individual checkpoints on the DVIR have been completed. You can also add photos to the report when any damage or maintenance issue is identified.

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Approximately one in three companies (32 per cent) believe the business use of artificial intelligence will be commonplace within the next decade, new research from TomTom Telematics has revealed.

The study found that 22 per cent believe virtual reality will be in common usage, while around one in five anticipates the prevalence of in-vehicle working due to the development of autonomous vehicles.

However, almost a third (32 per cent) fear they may struggle to keep pace with the rate of technological change. Furthermore, one in two (49 per cent) believe those that fail to embrace digitalised processes and the Internet of Things are at greater risk of going out of business.

“Complacency can sound the death knell for businesses,” said Beverley Wise, director UK & Ireland at TomTom Telematics.

“Companies should be mindful of the pace of change and keep a close eye on the solutions and processes that will help ensure a competitive future – from smart mobility and connected tech to advanced manufacturing and design systems. Many of today’s new emerging technologies will disrupt and revolutionise commerce, and in the process become the standard for tomorrow.”

Almost half of companies (46 per cent) believe remote working has or will become, the norm within the next 10 years. Remote working is currently proving more prevalent among larger companies (58 per cent) than their SMEs counterparts (37 per cent).

“The onus is on businesses, both large and small, to adapt to this new era of hypermobility and connected working that is being ushered in by advancements in areas ranging from telematics and the connected car to iPaaS and blockchain solutions,” added Wise.

“Such connected technologies and unified communication systems are unshackling workers from traditional working patterns - an empowering development that is set to significantly impact productivity and business efficiency.”

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As we continue our new series we are delighted to bring you a selection of articles taken from the recently released and highly informative, limited edition of Mobile Resource Management for Dummies, which is presented by Verizon Connect. 

Is Mobile Resource Management a key Topic for you?! Dive straight into the full eBook by hitting the button below!   

Sponsored by: 

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What Is Mobile Resource Management?

The traditional approach to handling business growth is to focus on meeting increased demand – more workers, more vehicles and more warehouses. This can also mean an increase in administrative and management staff and higher overheads.

This linear strategy is fine while the work is there, but in a market filled with increased competition and fluctuating customer demand, committing to fixed expenses can leave a company exposed if business stops booming.

Clearly, saying no to new business is not an option. Fortunately, there is another solution.

Mobile resource management (MRM), or enterprise fleet management technology, helps mobile workforces and the people who manage them to get smarter about how they use their assets.

"Mobile resource management (MRM), or enterprise fleet management technology, helps mobile workforces and the people who manage them to get smarter about how they use their assets..."

This allows them to improve productivity while saving money by avoiding the financial risk of prematurely acquiring additional employees, vehicles or equipment.

MRM refers to a broad suite of hardware and software technology solutions that are used to monitor, track and optimise mobile assets, from tools and heavy machinery to vehicle fleets, employees and more. MRM is focused on making the best use of a business’s existing assets – vehicles, equipment and employees – to maximise its capacity; connecting the vehicle, the people and the work.

Most businesses have untapped potential that could be converted into a revenue-generating activity, but they don’t know it exists, or how to leverage it. You want to find your underutilised or inefficient assets and/or staff, and this can only be highlighted by monitoring them.

That’s where MRM technology comes in. It monitors each of your assets and allows an owner or appropriate stakeholder to see what, where and when resources are being used.

Using the data supplied by location-based technologies fitted to the vehicle or equipment (including phones and tablets), an MRM solution can easily show a range of productivity metrics.

Information that can be reported includes:

• When vehicles arrive at and/or leave a worksite or customer location.
• If the vehicle is anywhere other than where it should be.
• When equipment is being used (engine on).
• Which vehicles or assets have been sitting idle.
• Vehicle travel time (to determine time spent between jobs).
• Whether drivers are taking the quickest and most efficient routes.

Modern MRM solutions increasingly leverage the ubiquitous connectivity, unlimited scale and low-cost advantages of the cloud (discussed in the previous article here).

Some examples of technologies, applications and uses that might be found in a complete MRM solution include:

• Telematics
• Route optimisation
• Mobile technologies
• Data connectivity
• Work order management

Let's explore the first of these, i.e. telematics in closer detail...

Telematics

Telematics integrates vehicular technologies, road transportation and safety information, sensors, instrumentation, wireless communications and more. Telematics is sometimes referred to as ‘GPS (Global Positioning System) vehicle tracking’. However, that doesn’t begin to cover the breadth of capabilities under the telematics umbrella.

"Aside from simply tracking vehicle location, a robust web-based telematics solution offers customisable reports, near real-time vehicle and driver alerts, vehicle health, dashboards, custom map overlays, geo-fences and other tools to help companies manage and optimise fleet operations..."

Aside from simply tracking vehicle location, a robust web-based telematics solution offers customisable reports, near real-time vehicle and driver alerts, vehicle health, dashboards, custom map overlays, geo-fences and other tools to help companies manage and optimise fleet operations.

A comprehensive telematics solution empowers businesses to monitor and understand a broad range of operational factors, including:

Fuel consumption.

Fuel is one of the largest fleet operating expenses. Finding new ways to reduce fuel use provides immediate benefit to any company’s bottom line. With a telematics solution, fleet managers gain detailed insight and visibility into several key areas that have a big impact on fuel use, such as:

• Speeding – According to Commercial Fleet, a van driving at 80 mph uses 20 per cent more fuel than one driven at 70. That adds up quickly when you multiply that by any size fleet over the course of the year.
•  Idling – Unproductive idling is another fuel drain. For example, Figure 2-1 shows that the average yearly idling cost for a fleet of just 15 Transit vans is more than £11,000.
• Vehicle maintenance – It may not be as obvious as speeding and idling when it comes to wasting fuel, but proper vehicle maintenance plays a big role in fuel efficiency. Proper maintenance, including proactively addressing diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) and maintenance alerts, as well as maintaining proper fleet operational levels, help to reduce costly downtime.
• Tyre pressure – According to the UK’s Department for Transport, underinflated tyres lower fuel. For example, four tyres that are just 25 per cent underinflated increase fuel consumption by about 0.2 per cent. Additionally, properly inflated tyres are safer and last longer.
• Unauthorised use – Unauthorised vehicle use equals unauthorised fuel use. Corporate fuel cards can be tied to specific vehicles via telematics to identify if a fuel card has been used without an accompanying work vehicle. Also note the fuel capacity of your vehicles, in case an employee purchases 45 litres of fuel for a company vehicle that only has a 40-litre capacity tank!
• Route optimisation – Are drivers taking the most efficient routes throughout the day? Added miles burn fuel and put unnecessary wear and tear on the vehicle itself.
• Utilisation – Understanding how much of a vehicle’s time is engaged in productive work can provide valuable insight that may allow some companies to perform the same work in the same amount of time with fewer vehicles on the road – which means less fuel use.

FIGURE 2-1: Average idling costs for Transit van and HGV fleets (source: Fleetmatics).

Safety

Any company that has a fleet of mobile workers considers the safety of their drivers and the public to be a top priority. Fleet vehicle accidents are costly on multiple levels – injury claims, repairs, employee morale, loss of productivity, company reputation and government interference, just to name a few.

According to the UK’s Department of Transport, an accident claim can cost an employer over £23,000 in medical care, legal expenses, lost productivity and property damage. That cost can exceed £216,000 when someone is injured, or £1.8 million when a fatality occurs.

"Two big contributors to accidents are maintenance issues and driving behaviour. A telematics solution can provide near real-time alerts on both vehicle maintenance issues as well as driving behaviour..."

Two big contributors to accidents are maintenance issues and driving behaviour. A telematics solution can provide near real-time alerts on both vehicle maintenance issues as well as driving behaviour. These alerts help to ensure that a vehicle is safe and roadworthy. And they provide business owners and fleet managers with solid data on driver performance that helps them better coach that driver to be safer on the road.

According to a National Highway Safety Administration (NHSA) study in the US, speeding is a factor in nearly 23 per cent of all at-fault large truck crashes. The same agency also reports that a tyre 25 per cent below its recommended pressure is three times more likely to be involved in a crash.

Telematics is also a natural companion for driver compliance factors – such as Hours of Service (HOS) – and can automate tracking processes, and help ensure that drivers are fresh and operating on proper/approved rest.

Simply knowing the location of a vehicle can also improve employee safety. If a truck and its driver don’t return when expected, their location can be determined, and, if needed, assistance can be provided.

Productivity.

Almost everything a telematics solution accomplishes leads back to productivity. One of the first things a supervisor will understand is the percentage of an employee’s day that is productive – are there inefficient in their day that can be improved upon? Better routing? If the vehicle spends a lot of time parked or idling, why is that? Telematics identifies symptoms that can be used to diagnose and correct a problem.

Dispatchers can easily identify the nearest possible respondent to a call by vehicle type, driver capabilities, and tools and parts available on board, ensuring that the response is swift and efficient.

The automation and incorporation of paperwork into mobile devices now allows records to be filed immediately during and upon completion of a job, eliminating countless hours of labour, filing and organising.

Finally, the age of compliance is upon us – HOS, tachographs, and Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIR) are a fact of life for commercial fleet managers. The same mobile devices that allow communication and form automation can also be used to streamline compliance reporting, ensure expedient interaction with DOT authorities, and eliminate paperwork almost entirely from the process – all driving productivity.

If a company has a large, decentralised mobile operation that is service- and/or delivery-based, a telematics solution can also take the entire fleet and plot out optimised routes that cut down on miles driven, wear and tear on a vehicle, fuel use and, most importantly, time. All working together to allow a fleet manager to accomplish more – for less.

Maintenance.

The two kinds of maintenance are: planned (scheduled/preventive) and unplanned (failure). The first can be managed. The second becomes a downtime event that sinks productivity, adds unexpected costs (repair and replacement) and stunts profitability because that asset and its driver are unable to work. It also has a downstream effect on everything from customer satisfaction to other vehicle/employee schedules. Luckily, the first can largely prevent the second.

"Telematics automates the tracking of vehicle maintenance schedules and eliminates many of the old labour-intensive tracking processes..."

Telematics automates the tracking of vehicle maintenance schedules and eliminates many of the old labour-intensive tracking processes. Alerts can be scheduled when it’s time to perform regular maintenance activities, as well as to warn a fleet manager if a vehicle is operating out of usual parameters, or if an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) solution triggers a diagnostic trouble code (DTC), indicating the potential for a failure and allowing maintenance staff to address it before it becomes a downtime event 

This also allows fleet managers to schedule planned maintenance activities at a time with the least impact on productive work.

These systems can generally track any and all factors that have a direct impact on uptime and performance. From oil temperatures and fluid levels to tyre pressure and the presence of AdBlue in diesel, a telematics solution can help to diagnose a maintenance issue before it becomes a more expensive problem.

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SAS Global Communications, a leading provider of managed network and application services, is using an advanced telematics solution from Ctrack, an Inseego company, to enhance fleet performance and reduce operating costs...

Having adopted the Ctrack Online vehicle tracking system last year across a fleet of vans used by a team of engineers in its physical infrastructure division, the company has achieved a host of benefits including a material increase in productivity.

Following a review of the telematics marketplace, SAS selected Ctrack Online based on the usability of the system and its comprehensive reporting capabilities. The company had recognised a need to gain greater visibility and control over its engineers, responsible for the installation of network solutions at private-and public-sector sites across the UK. This has enabled its office-based team to use real-time positioning and vehicle status data to support improved vehicle scheduling and deploy the most appropriate resource to incoming jobs.

Meanwhile, SAS is using the Mobi Driver App, so engineers can record business and private mileage as well as provide supporting notes about individual trips via their smartphones. By electronically capturing this HMRC requirement, the company has been able to streamline administrative processes and replace a paper-based system that previously required information to be collated manually. Ctrack Online’s working time report is also helping SAS to verify time-sheets and overtime claims, resulting in further time and cost savings.

Alvin Thompson, Physical Infrastructure Manager at SAS Managed IT Services commented: “SAS has experienced clear benefits from using Ctrack Online in terms of productivity improvements and cost reduction. We have been impressed with the level of support provided by Ctrack, which ensured the telematics system has been set up to meet our particular requirements and was installed without any disruption to the business. We are already exploring how else to take advantage of its capabilities in terms of driver behaviour monitoring and duty of care compliance.”

Steve Thomas, Managing Director of Ctrack said: “By working closely with our customers we are able to help them deliver significant business benefits and achieve a return on investment. This is a key reason why businesses of all sizes are turning to Ctrack to implement advanced telematics solutions for their fleet operations.”

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