Beating Driver Fatigue on Long Hauls
There are so many variables that can be measured to improve the performance of your fleet. They vary dramatically from one industry to the next. Yet no matter whether you're tracking driver behaviour, vehicle location or asset utilisation, your business wants quick and easy access to the information that's being generated.
That's why systems integration is a crucial piece of the puzzle no matter what outcome you're trying to achieve. How do you accurately and efficiently move this data to the enterprise resource planning system of your multinational resources company or the job management system used by your local firm of electricians? This information can either be transferred from one system to another or sensors can be installed to transmit it back wirelessly. These are the key benefits of integration:
- Remote access to data stored on a machine or vehicle
- Wireless transfer of data into another business system
- Removing human input increases the accuracy of data
- Eliminating manual processes lowers cost of importing
- Quicker access to data means faster business decisions
Let's say a plumber completes a job and comes back to the office, where somebody in administration picks up the job card and transcribes it into a job management system. This information is then transferred into a billing system that generates a customer invoice. With systems integration we can measure the distance to a job, how long it took to get there and time spent on site. This can be mapped back into the company's job management system and billing engine, which means the plumber doesn't have to record this information and nobody has to input it when he gets back to the office. The company has faster access to more accurate information, can get its invoice out sooner and will hopefully be paid more quickly. It can also integrate with inventory management systems so the company knows what parts have been used and need to be restocked.
You can integrate with transport or freight management systems, to track when goods have been delivered so you can bill customers more quickly, or with enterprise maintenance scheduling tools so nobody needs to go out taking and inputting manual readings.
What if you're a construction company that has Caterpillar machinery with built-in GPS tracking, Komatsu machinery that uses a different system and a third brand of tracking units in your supply vehicles?? Integration means you can normalise the data from all three systems, view it together in the same place and push it into your project management systems. You can use that same interface to show fault codes and utilisation rates in large mine sites or even to remotely control machinery.
If you're a freight operator or a transport company, you might want to integrate with drive camera systems that detect when they need to record an event. This might be triggered by harsh braking that suggests a traffic incident may be about to occur. Maybe somebody pulls out in front of one of your drivers, who hits the brakes or swerves to avoid a collision. In another scenario a garbage truck could take a photo of every bin that it's emptied during a shift and record cases where the bin wasn't present. Or maybe the operator finds contaminants like concrete, oil or paint in the bin and takes a photo of that because it's not supposed to be disposed of in a household bin.
Navman Wireless already has about 45 technology partners in Australia who provide software or sensors that connect to our product. We know customers just want solutions that save them time, improve accuracy of information and help their business to achieve desired outcomes. Imagination is the only real limitation but finding that balance between functionality and usability is the key to continually improving the services we offer.