Partner Article

Why 2013 Should be Your Year for Telematics

Whether you are running a field service business or operating a fleet as part of a business, never have there been so many capable tools available to manage your vehicles and field personnel efficiently. Today, telematics technology enables every aspect of mobile operation to be measured, recorded and analysed to fine-tune your operational, safety and business performance.

Telematics Today

The term “telematics” today refers primarily to vehicle-based systems that integrate GPS sensors with wireless communication and computer technologies linked to the Internet to deliver greater intelligence to dispatchers and managers, enabling organisations to improve a variety of field- and fleet-oriented business operations and services.

Vehicle telematics solutions provide field service business owners and operators with extensive, real-time information and intelligence on vehicle, driver, and work performance. Using this data, you can improve driver and mobile worker productivity and safety and evaluate and improve mobile operations to increase performance, efficiency and regulatory compliance.

Key Benefits of Vehicle Telematics Solutions

• Manage vehicles and field service workers in real time
• Increase the number of jobs performed or deliveries completed per day
• Improve customer service with faster response times
• Improve communication between dispatchers and mobile workers with two-way messaging
• Manage payroll and overtime costs with more efficient routing and time tracking
• Decrease fuel costs by managing driver behaviour
• Improve driver safety behaviour
• Protect from unwarranted liability claims and customer complaints
• Lower emissions and company’s carbon footprint

Studies[1] have shown that such measures have resulted in:

• 32% Improvement in fleet utilisation
• 31% Reduction in daily mileage
• 25% Reduction in idle times
• 22% Reduction in fuel consumption
• 21% Reduction in vehicle and operating costs
• 11% Increase in service revenue
• 9% Improvement in workforce productivity

Organisations from a variety of sectors that involve fleets of vehicles and/or groups of mobile workers are already utilising telematics technology to great effect and many industries are already benefitting from deploying a solution including Field Services; Construction; Telephone and Cable Networks; Utilities;; Transportation and Logistics; Ready Mix Concrete; Waste Management; Public Safety; Retail Delivery and Service; and Heating, Plumbing and Electrical businesses

The Elements of Vehicle Telematics Systems

Essentially, a telematics device—including a GPS sensor and computing and communication capabilities—is fitted into the vehicle and then wirelessly transmits to a “cloud”-based data centre which then delivers it, typically over the Internet, to the end user(s): dispatchers, Service managers, fleet managers, depot managers, business owners, HR, Operations and many more.

The transmitted data typically includes the vehicle’s location, speed and time, but also may include work order information, driver behaviour and vehicle diagnostics data such as mpg, fuel use or vehicle faults as determined by the telematics system. In more comprehensive solutions, it can also include data from additional on-vehicle, special-purpose sensors that detect any number of vehicle events and load conditions. At the office, a dispatcher or manager can view the data on maps or reports in real time via a secure link to the cloud-based data centre.

Selecting a Telematics System and Supplier

Some telematics providers supply individual components; others offer complete, end-to-end integrated systems or platforms. As more companies bring more specialised products and technology to the market, the potential for overall mobile worker and fleet performance improvement increases correspondingly.

When choosing a telematics system, you should ensure that all components are truly interoperable and that the system is easily scalable, both to meet today’s requirements and to allow for future needs which may include a larger fleet, more varied or complex field operations or additional capabilities. This is why it often makes good sense to select an integrated, full-suite solution provider, rather than “cherry pick” individual components that may or may not work efficiently together as needs evolve.

Many businesses start with a basic solution for a specific aspect of their mobile operation. After gaining experience in its use and realising its benefits, they often decide to expand the solution to incorporate other, more comprehensive work management capabilities. That’s why it is important that the initial solution is capable of such expansion to protect the initial investment and training, without needing to “start over.” You may also consider integrating the new capabilities with your current back-office software to increase productivity while using the software you already know.

Key Elements

There are three key elements to a comprehensive field service management capability:

• Managing the work
• Managing the worker
• Managing the assets

Products, systems and solutions are available for each of these elements individually or to provide virtually any combination of all three. Whatever the company’s needs may be today, a flexible solution can meet today’s objectives and provide a growth path for the future.

Managing the Work—Workflow Management and Customer Satisfaction

The dispatcher or field service manager needs a clear understanding of what is happening in the field to help optimise scheduling, routing, and job performance. A work management solution provides real-time vehicle tracking and alerts for managing productivity. The dispatcher can: see the location and status of each vehicle in the fleet or in a specific area on a map; determine the closest vehicle to a new work requirement; see when a vehicle enters and leaves a work site; and relay instructions to the driver. Management has complete records of operations from which better, more informed decisions can be made.

Workflow Management

Workflow management solutions provide the organisation with a clear understanding of what is happening in the field, in real-time and over time, to help optimise scheduling, routing and job performance. The solutions help dispatchers manage a team of mobile workers and monitor their progress against the plan for the day. Dispatchers are enabled to handle in-day complications such as unexpected worker sickness, changes to appointment times, emergency trips and route overruns.

A few of the many capabilities and benefits that can be achieved from a comprehensive work management solution include:

• Optimising and automating mobile work schedules
• Communicating to laptop or smart phone to view work details, provide current work status and receive work assignments without returning to the office
• Monitoring arrival times, distances travelled, stops made and overtime usage
• Ensuring workforce is appropriately prepared for each appointment and delivery
• Comparing planned vs. actual work done per day or shift
• Adjusting schedules and reassigning work in jeopardy

Customer Satisfaction

The above capabilities lead directly to significant improvements in customer satisfaction, including:

• Increased on-time service delivery performance
• Increased first-time-fix performance by sending the most efficient, best-equipped technician to the job
• Improved communication with customers and workers about service call timing
• Alerting customers pro-actively to schedule and delivery changes
• Reduced customer loss due to missed appointment or delivery windows
• Reduced customer complaints for late or unprepared technicians

Workflow management solutions enable companies to reduce expenses while increasing individual worker and fleet efficiency, number of jobs completed, and customer satisfaction. They lead to a more efficient, productive and profitable operation with happier customers—a telematics workflow management solution makes good business sense.

Managing the Worker—Driver Safety and Productivity

Virtually any mobile operation can benefit from the adoption of a driver safety telematics solution. Aggressive and unsafe driving costs companies billions of pounds in employee injuries, lost productivity, fines, asset damage, litigation, poor fuel economy and excess CO2 emissions. Department for Transport (DfT) record 148,100 reported injury accidents for year ending June 2012. Among some of Britain’s largest fleets, over a third of their fleet vehicles are involved in collisions.

Typically, a telematics field service or fleet safety solution will:

Determine and record vehicle speed

• Measure and record the forces exerted on the vehicle during various driving manoeuvres such as turns, starts, and stops
• Evaluate and calculate the driver’s score for each manoeuvre, factoring in the vehicle’s attributes such as size and load
• Provide in-cab visual and/or audible feedback to alert the driver of unsafe manoeuvres and provide a general indication of driving performance
• Report scores for individual drivers as well as a composite score for the fleet based on company-set parameters and compare individual driver scores to the average scores for the fleet
• Compute driver hours of service for payroll, compliance, and fatigue management purposes

Telematics safety solutions enable drivers and companies to proactively reduce costs, improve fleet safety and increase productivity. The data obtained can be combined with other in-depth analytics to help identify root-cause driving behaviours. Safety solutions offer many benefits beyond driver safety—they also can help improve insurance rates, provide insight into fuel economy, vehicle maintenance and vehicle life expectancy, and improve business efficiency. All of these factors are closely linked to driver behaviour.

Managing the Assets—Vehicle Management and Utilization

A fleet of vehicles and related equipment is a major capital investment. Efficient management and utilisation of each asset increases its productivity and gives fleet and maintenance managers better visibility of how often and how much each vehicle is used.

Some of the specific asset management benefits include:

• Reduce capital applied to equipment lease/purchase and operating expense
• Optimise the use and number of vehicles and equipment needed to complete work efficiently
• Increase the amount of time vehicles are in productive use
• Reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions by monitoring and correcting activities such as speeding, excessive idling and route deviation
• Automate mileage and asset use reporting
• Automate vehicle maintenance tracking and notification for the entire fleet
• Reduce unnecessary maintenance costs
• Extend vehicle life
• Maximise capabilities of capital purchases
• Ensure assets are used only for authorised purposes
• Quickly recover stolen assets

A telematics solution can provide you with the data you need to maximise the use and return on your investment assets and, over time, help you make the right decisions on asset retention or replacement.

Conclusion

Managing field service people and their vehicles isn’t just “track and trace” anymore. Better data and more powerful and specialised analytics can provide real insight and an on-going business tool that will improve over time and help you drive the business more effectively. Many businesses have experienced an ROI on their systems within months, rather than years. The right system can make a significant improvement to your field service and fleet operations. Whichever telematics solution is selected, remember that data on its own is of little value—how that data is actually delivered, interpreted and put to use is the key to improving field service and fleet productivity, safety and profitability.

[1] AberdeenGroup Field Service January 2011 and Service Workforce and Fleet Management May 2009

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by John Cameron .