Let it be the sector of logistics or any other vertical that depends on trucks for transportation of its products, the presence of a fleet management system is a pre-requisite. It is an essential software that allow fleet operators to track the location of the trucks conveying the deliverables along with other parameters.
But why is the need for fleet management systems so predominant? Well, for starters, it is quite easy to monitor 5 or 10 trucks manually. You can hire a fleet operator who can be on call with truck drivers to know the status of the delivery.
The main problem arises when the fleet grows to a size of more than 50 trucks. And we all know that the average size of a fleet is much larger than that. It hence becomes almost impossible for a company to manage the operations of the fleet manually. In a nutshell, without a completely-packed fleet tracking solution, companies will fail in their tasks that depend completely on the fleet trucks.
Let us see some of the potential problems that a company is inclined to face in the absence of fleet track systems:
1) Lack of Real-Time Supervisory Information:
The simplest yet the most beneficial aspect that you’ll miss from the absence of a fleet management system is the large amount of data-volume that you can use to enhance your fleet operations.
Fleet management system, enable a person to monitor any vehicle in real-time. Not only the location of trucks, but other parameters like speed, acceleration, and braking actions can also be monitored remotely. Hence, you can ensure the exact time on which the driver delivered the shipment to the customer. Moreover, you can also check the amount of work and effort your truck drivers put in to accomplish the given task.
2) More Fuel Consumption:
You may trust your truck drivers enough to ask them for their exact locations on call but how can you trust them with other factors on a telephonic conversation. For example, they may ask you for more money to fill the gas saying that they exhausted the fuel in the tank. You won’t have proper evidence to confirm if the fuel tank really emptied or if the driver was lying to you. Moreover, you also can’t confirm if the truck ran out of gas due to illicit driving habits. Still, you’ll have to pay them to make sure that your customers receive their goods on time.
However, with a vehicle management system, you can track the amount of fuel consumed by the truck and also track the parameters that result in its depletion quickly. Thus, you can make sure that the truck has an appropriate amount of fuel at all times and also mitigate factors to reduce fuel costs.
3) Delayed Deliveries:
Without the help of a vehicle management system, you won’t have a way to determine aspects that resulted in a delay of the cargo delivery. These systems will help your fleet handlers to have live information about service schedules form any location at any time. Hence, they will have a clear picture of the current location of the cargo conveying truck along with its estimated time of arrival at the customers’ doorsteps.
Additionally, the time associated with arranging and report-making procedures will also decrease considerably. Since all the information will be available on the software, all you’ll have to do is download the information and print out its hard copy. This will help you reduce mundane documentation tasks and focus more on other productive tasks.
Furthermore, since you’ll be monitoring live data related to cargo shipment, you can track various variables in real-time and make sure to reduce discrepancies that may result in delayed delivery of the shipment.
4) Driver Management:
There are different factors that may break your record of on-time deliveries. However, in most cases, all these factors are somehow related to truckers. They are the most important link to a business that depends on trucks for the transportation of its products. It doesn’t matter if your fleet has as much as 1000 trucks unless you don’t have a series of skilled and good truckers.
With the help of fleet management software, you’ll have a deep insight into the driving habits of truckers such as their usual speed, route selection, etc. You can share this information with the respective drivers to help them uplift their profiles and use improve their driving and cargo handling habits.
Moreover, you can also make sure that drivers comply with traffic rules so that they don’t get stopped by law enforcement. Moreover, you’ll be able to make sure that the driver is indulged in safe driving habits and doesn’t speed up unnecessarily.
On a Concluding Note:
Fleet management systems are quite essential for industries that deal with trucks for the transportation of their products. They are a necessary aspect for a company as they boost up its supply chain and plays a crucial role in boosting the customer satisfaction rate.
Even though there are various fleet management systems present in the market, the ones using the Internet of Things as a framework are a notch above the others. An IoT powered fleet management system creates a wide-spread connected environment between trucks and the fleet handlers using a platform hub. It use a myriad range of sensors that can keep a track of variables that may affect the timely delivery of the products.
By using the prowess of IoT, companies can boost their methodologies and create a seamless framework for monitoring and management of fleet vehicles.
