Knowledge is power.

With increased awareness of the potential for systems to add value to transport, many operators are exploring how to link systems together to get even greater results.

Being able to trace a job from the first phone call or email from your customer, through quoting, planning, allocation to truck and invoicing allows you to really get to grips with your business.

How much did that Truck earn last week? Hang on I’ll have a look.

How many jobs like this have we done for this customer this month? Here’s the report.

How long does it normally take us to load a truck for this job? I’ll pull up the averages for the last few times we were there.

A two tier market

Four years ago, GPS systems were all about functionality – about the bells and whistles that each system could offer. There has been some frantic activity since then, with the number of suppliers more than quadrupling and the number of features on offer increasing at a similar rate.

We are now seeing the GPS market slowly align itself into two tiers. The second tier is still focusing on the features of their system. The first tier suppliers are now concentrating on addressing the challenges faced by transport operators, and developing their systems accordingly.

Interestingly there are relative newcomers to the market who are helping to set the standards in the first tier. Unfortunately, however, some of the new players, simply do not have the requisite experience and are taking short cuts to get to the market.

Equally, in the second tier, there are some newer players who are starting small, and working their way through the lessons and who will emerge as strong players in the future. Oddly enough, there are also some long termers in this sector who appear to have learnt nothing from their experiences and are still banging on about how great their system looks, and not noticing that most operators are past being impressed by a system that does little more than put a truck icon on a map.

There will be some suppliers falling out of the industry in the next few years. The current trading issues in parts of the industry will tell on those suppliers who have been helping themselves, before they have been helping their customers.

Want to manage your jobs smarter? We’d love to help!

Job management and dispatch systems have been around a lot longer than GPS systems, however, they seem to be in no better shape.

Job management systems allow the dispatcher to;

  • record customer jobs
  • allocate rates to the jobs from the agreed rates list
  • allocate the job to a truck
  • record the pick up and delivery addresses,
  • record number of pallets / sheep / boxes
  • add special instructions for the driver
  • print the jobs out for a driver or send to a screen in the cab for the driver
  • allow each job to be confirmed, either by key entry form paperwork or by the driver from his in – cab screen
  • export all jobs for invoicing through the accounting system

These systems aren’t dependent on the technology partnerships in the same way that GPS companies necessarily are. They are based on a series of databases with no communications networks relying on the telcos, no GPS locations which depend on the quality of the hardware, no vagaries of mapping – Google or otherwise. The dispatch system supplier can control how and what his system can or can’t do for you.

All we need here, is

  1. some specific features,
  2. a supplier who is willing to understand the needs of a transport operator
  3. some technical support people to hold it all together
  4. a positive customer service experience, (as judged by the transport operator not the supplier!)

Is there a supplier out there who is doing this job well? All of our experiences to date show transport operators who don’t use the system they have to its full extent because it doesn’t suit their work processes, or who need to do part of the process manually because the system doesn’t do that bit for them. Or who have given up asking for a bug to be fixed because after 10 months of phone calls, they are no further forward.

We’re looking for a Job Management System that you believe is a cut above the rest. The prize for the winning system, is greater market share. We have spoken to customers of all of the systems we know and haven’t found a strong contender who is able to consistently meet the four criteria above.

As technology and awareness is increasing, more and more transport operators want visibility of their operation from cradle to grave. Until we can find a good dispatch system, there is no point integrating it to a GPS system to get live visibility of where jobs are up to. If the basic information is not correct, the decisions made from that information will not be the right ones either.

Nominate your supplier!

If you have a supplier who does this job well, we’d love to hear from you at; cwatson@ccslogistics.co.nz As with all business, if you give your supplier a good reference, he will get more customers, will learn more lessons, and will use that knowledge to enhance his system to help you out too.

Don’t forget, at CCS Logistics we don’t receive commissions from any suppliers, we evaluate each system on its merits and customer feedback. We don’t just recommend a system and leave you to it. We make sure you get the right system and that the supplier understands what support you need to make it work for you, so you get the results you are looking for. Right now though, we would appreciate your feedback to find the suppliers who really are delivering. Go on, give them a leg up and tell us about them!