Speeding is a hidden cost to your business – it accounts for around 5% of your fuel bill. The safety of other road users is at stake and your drivers are playing Russian roulette with your insurance cover. This week I rode my motorbike through to Auckland from Christchurch. Typically, I look to overtake trucks on a clear straight as the bike is more nimble through the upcoming corners. Heading towards Waiouru, I’ve got a truck and trailer tank combination in my sights. Knowing I’m approaching the desert road where I’ve seen more traffic officers than anywhere else, I’m being even more pedantic than usual about my speed. I’m travelling between 99-101 km/h and this truck is pulling away from me.

Further on, I’m on highway 39 heading for Ngaruawahia, it’s dark and raining when I pull onto the road behind a scrap truck. He leaves me as if I’m standing still. However the top accolade goes to the concrete pump truck that overtook me on the Auckland Southern Motorway travelling at 25-30km/h over the speed limit.

The speed at which your vehicles travel is not just the responsibility of the driver. Any manager that is worth their pay cheque doesn’t need the existence of Chain of Responsibility legislation to recognise this.

How do YOU manage speed?

There are a number of tools which you can use to identify those drivers who are likely to be speeding.

• Driving assessments give you feedback showing how much recognition a driver has of appropriate speeds.
• ARM profiling provides an overview of a driving attitude
• The driver training truck simulator soon to arrive in the country will be able to provide feedback similar to a driving assessment.

Each of these options are a one – off option. In cab technology, particularly GPS, provides ongoing feedback regarding the higher speeds being reached on a regular basis. It also gives immediate feedback from the focus you give to managing speed. So as you talk more to your drivers about what is a reasonable speed to be travelling, the GPS reporting will reflect that, providing you with comfort that you are having a positive effect on both cost and safety.

Why should you manage speed?

As a manager, you need to manage the speed of your vehicles. It is a direct cost to your business and the statistics supporting the correlation of speed and accidents highlight the indirect cost to you and to other road users.

Look at your fuel bill for last month. Divide this by 20. This figure on the face of your calculator represents the opportunity you have to increase your profit every month, just by managing speed. If you need a cash incentive to manage safety. This is it.

Your GPS is a cost saving total. As always, some systems are easier to use than others but if you are not using your GPS fleet tracking system to increase your profit margins, you need to question the value it adds to your business.

So what role do your systems play in getting you ahead of the competition?  Your systems are collecting a wealth of information about your business.  Their reports are objective and based on real data.  These reports don’t tell you what you want to hear – they tell you what you need to know:

• What is your average fuel consumption, by vehicle?
• How much time does your fleet spend idling?
• What is your average turnaround on a customer’s site, or in your own depot?
• What is your average loading (by number of pallets, tonnes, litres, etc) on your local trucks then each of your distance routes?

In the face of rising prices, managing these items could keep your outgoings at least stable, with a side benefit for the environment too.

Targets: lift your eyes to the horizon

Consider what measurements, such as those above, are most appropriate for your fleet.  Review your current figures to determine your actual performance in each area and set some realistic improvement targets.  Your role is to provide leadership to ensure the business is consistently successful, your staff are the ones who will deliver the targets which you identify. Tackle fatigue – long distance drivers know their routes, their customers and their truck’s performance, sometimes to the point of complacency. Give your drivers a challenge to meet fuel consumption targets which can also address excessive idling and speeding.

Task your managers and sales team to learn what is delaying turnaround at customer sites; poor planning by you or them?  Delivery time clash with another company? What can be done to reduce the time your vehicles spend in your depot? Your staff are in charge of every element here. You don’t earn money by having vehicles stationary in the depot, so minimise the time that they are spending there.

Innovative alternatives

Evaluate external options to address poor load utilisation.  Firstly, if you are spreading your costs between too few units loaded on the vehicle, your price per unit needs to be higher to the customer.  How long will they accept that?  Secondly, there may be another operator who has a similar problem.  Is a complementary load sharing agreement possible instead of competing?

Just because your company has always been self reliant for finding customers and delivering your own promises, it doesn’t make it the right answer for the future.  The availability and mobility of business data now means that you can monitor the progress of any freight which you have asked a partner operator to deliver so you no longer have to worry that your promised service levels are being compromised, you can see for yourself.

Now is the time to innovate in your business; scan your reports and look for trends which indicate any hazards or opportunities on the road ahead.

At university I wrote my thesis on the role of metro freight hubs to reduce the total number of vehicles in a city centre. Separating the long distance feeder vehicles from the nimble delivery vehicles. Locating these operations at a mutually convenient location to ensure that the minimum number of trucks could be sent into the city carrying maximum loads. The UK environment, which I was considering at the time, has a bigger congestion problem than NZ. Do not follow in their footsteps – learn from their lessons and avoid creating the same issues which they are facing.

Greenwash or Business Intuition?

Higher load factors mean lower cost per unit and in turn a more competitive price for your customer.

Higher load factors mean fewer trucks causing congestion in loading and unloading areas.

Fewer trucks mean lower total overhead. Fewer trucks mean lower emissions. Fewer trucks to carry today’s freight means there is spare capacity to manage the projected growth over the coming years. Continuing at the current levels of utilisation is not a sensible way to protect your profit or your future generations.

Stay alert, think ahead and plan your trip.

When you have made the decision to launch your company into the world of GPS technology you have some important facts to consider.  You know your operation better than the GPS Supplier, so you need to drive the training and support to suit your operation.

By setting specific goals that you want to see achieved, you will ensure that the system pays for itself and starts delivering value to your business.  Maybe you want to track hours or kilometres so you can recover your costs more accurately from your customers.  You may want to manage driver time or become more fuel efficient by cutting down on idling.  You can have the system send alerts when a vehicle is due for servicing, registration renewal or Road User Charges purchase helping you to maintain good grades, not only with the new Operator Rating System but also with your drivers, customers and members of the public.

As part of this process, determine who in the company will benefit from the system?    When a dispatcher has the ability to see a vehicle’s current location or know up to date information about the vehicle’s loads, they can give a greater level of customer service with faster and more accurate responses to queries and requests. Both time and money are saved when the communication time between the driver and depot is reduced.  The real time information allows both the driver and dispatcher to plan routes more efficiently.  The more efficient the route, the more deliveries can be fit into the day and less fuel consumed due to the reduction in needless back-tracking.  Different reports can be produced for management at all levels allowing an accurate and easy to understand diagnosis of the where’s and how’s that the company is making or losing money.  This allows actions to be taken to either rectify the problem areas or continue with the implementations that are working successfully.

What departments do you want to see improvements in?  The reality is that time and money may be saved in a number of areas.  The important thing is to discuss with your potential GPS system supplier the changes you want to focus on.  This is the start of a relationship, not a one off project.  If the supplier understands what results you want to see, he can help to define the most appropriate training for your staff.

GPS companies will offer training to your company as part of the implementation process.  They are there to help, so make sure that the training is tailored to your needs and designed with your results in mind.  All staff who will be involved in the new system will benefit from training specific to their usage and this will initiate the results you want to see them produce.

You know that the GPS system is going to help your company save time and money. Consider the changes you want to make and install the system in a way that will best deliver those results.  When you follow through with the changes you have chosen to make, you will see what a positive difference the right GPS Supplier can help you to make in your operation.

And a concept it is. Almost 15 years later, it is still talked about, but it is not yet a reality. Whilst there are benefits for safety, emissions and traffic flow on congested routes, there is recognition that a driver adds value to the process of navigating from A to B.

Having said that, an Aussie trucker has just hit the media for following his GPS navigation unit down a road that was wholly unsuitable for his truck. Despite a warning sign prohibiting truck access, the driver put blind faith in his GPS unit, and rolled his truck as a result.

We had a similar story in New Zealand a couple of years ago when some tourists followed their GPS to find a route from Hanmer Springs to Nelson, via the Molesworth gravel road and ended up inadvertently camped out.

The message remains the same: GPS cannot and will not replace common sense.

GPS Fleet Management systems are evidently so much more than a navigation tool. Incidentally it is more than a RUC reclaim tool too. Absolutely, it facilitates RUC reclaims but there is so much additional value locked up in the package. Are your managers able to make your system work for you? Do they have the right approach and authority to make or suggest the changes which will help your business succeed?

Like the driver taking cues from the way the truck is handling and the road signs showing the terrain ahead, your manager needs to understand the information supplied by the GPS and apply their skills and experience to determine what changes are required to make improvements.

Those skills and experience will mean that you are able to;
? Prioritise the opportunities
? Decide what needs improving and how to achieve that
? Recognise when the system reports “don’t look right”

No matter how good the technology gets, you can’t do your job using computers alone.

The time you have spent working in your business has prepared you for working on your business.

You know what is acceptable in performance and service standards, and you know what causes these standards to be missed. Now you can easily find out when the standards have been missed and go and do something about it. There is real cash to be released by delivering productivity and safety improvements and making effective use of manager’s time.

The driver who saw the sign and carried on regardless, rolled his truck over. What is the equivalent of ignoring the signs when running your business?

I’ve been a truck driver before and whilst I enjoyed the driving, the job itself wasn’t particularly challenging. My frustration during that year was that I thought I gave great customer service, practiced defensive driving, conscientiously tried to use the gear box well (a Pom and a road ranger gear box never was a good combination…) but if I was judged, it was only ever on the number of deliveries I made, although there may have been a few unofficial measures too as I was a girl employed via a driving agency…

So on this trip, whilst I covered 10,000kms on my motorbike, I spent some of my time thinking about how I was riding. I’ve got a good trip computer on the bike so I could see in real time what effect my riding style was having on my fuel consumption; a quick way to learn how best to manage that particular bike for fuel efficiency.

I think one of the easiest costs you can tackle is your fuel bill, so that is where I concentrated my efforts on my ride. With a bit of knowledge and a lot of discipline, I made a huge impact on my fuel consumption. I got plenty of chances to validate this – a 240 km tank range needs replenishing 4-5 times per day on a trip like this – and at best I used 8.4 litres on a 240km run, at worst 14.6 litres; nearly a 40% saving.

But it isn’t the improvements I want to talk about specifically – It is the amount of concentration which it took to make that big leap in fuel economy and the pride when I got to the petrol pump and I could see a real saving.

As a truck driver, it’s a different story – it’s not my fuel bill and the boss isn’t interested in how I do the job, just whether the freight is delivered in one piece or not – right? But YOU are the boss, and you want him to care.

How do we get the message out to the kids out there that trucks are like a career outside and a career in IT all rolled into one? I really enjoyed the challenge of beating the stats my trip computer fed back to me, and with professional drivers, your GPS / telematics system means you can now give them this type of information. You can offer your drivers the bragging rights about improved fuel efficiency, tyre wear, bodywork damage, wear and tear on their engine and drivetrain – all whilst reducing your costs. You can give drivers feedback about the job that they took on (driving a truck), not the job that you thought you offered them (getting the deliveries done on time) and both of you end up winning.

Imagine a driver turning up to a job interview with his latest GPS performance reports in place of his CV? Having these measures and the challenge to show that I could be the best of the best on the fleet would certainly tempt me back behind the wheel. Using your systems to give your drivers that feedback and to create healthy competition will also have the knock on effects of increased teamwork amongst your drivers and supervisors, improved productivity and reduced costs.

Make a start now – attract the best and retain the best by working smarter.

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!

There are a number of things you can do to look good in these areas and the responsibility is split between you and your drivers.
Things you can do;
- Spec the configuration of your fleet to suit the work which it is doing; the right engine size and load capacity for the work
- Consider streamlining your vehicles with wind deflectors
- Plan the trip route so there is minimal doubling – back making up extra fuel and tyre burning KMs
- Keep up the maintenance on your trucks so the engines are burning as efficiently as possible and the running gear is not wasting energy as it is transferred to the road
- Work with your tyre supplier to get the right specification of tyres for the work you are doing to prolong tyre life (and reduce the tyres thrown on the scrap heap)

Things your drivers can do;
- practise fuel efficient driving – all the time and everywhere
- stop idling the trucks, turn them off when they are not in use
- reduce average running speeds
- monitor tyre pressures
- conduct vigilant walk around checks to look for early warning signs of required maintenance

You should start to notice the difference in your costs almost immediately, but it is often hard to motivate your drivers to become involved, and to monitor which drivers are most successful, or remain interested for longest in this initiative.

Have you got GPS in your fleet? Have you been heard to utter the well aired phrase; “this system costs me the price of a truck, how do I make it earn its keep?” Here is the answer. Use the data which your GPS system collects about the activities of your fleet on the road to give some feedback to your drivers to help them to help you to save money on fuel and tyres. Like dieting, it is easier to stay motivated when you have some good feedback.

The vast majority of the drivers I know are true professionals, proud of their skills out on the road. Until recently, the only feedback you have been able to give them is about the condition of their truck, or any customer comments. Now you can give them the actual results of their efforts on a regular basis, using the basic activity data collected from their truck whilst they are driving.

I have found there are two common hurdles which are preventing you from using your systems to make a difference;
- you don’t have enough confidence in your data to share it with your drivers and to use it as a performance measure
- you aren’t sure that it is the best use of your time, so you keep putting off looking into it

These are both valid reasons and you aren’t alone in these thoughts. There are a few simple checks you can make to confirm the accuracy of your data and most issues are easily resolved. For example when dodgy idling times are being reported, this is normally due to an oversight when briefing the installer and can be easily fixed. As for finding the time; saving between $1,000 and $10,000 per month in fuel use is a very real possibility; is that worth an hour of your time?

Of course your GPS system won’t reduce your fuel bill, but you can use it to help your drivers to improve the behaviours which increase fuel consumption and other factors which will help you to build an environmental policy for your customers. Why not start this week?

Research published by TERNZ and case studies such as Alexander Petroleum (who celebrated an 18% reduction in fuel consumption earlier this year) confirm that targeting driver behaviour and operational planning issues which GPS can highlight, can make a significant difference to the fuel bill. Imagine only paying 11, or even 10, of the 12 fuel bills that you currently receive per year?

One of the services which CCS Logistics provides is helping transport companies to get more out of their GPS systems, and a key opportunity is in fuel savings. As one of my customers said to me; “we’ve spent the same money on technology recently as we would on a new truck – its time to get the same returns from these systems as we expect from the trucks”

Fuel Saving – how?

As with all projects, you need a consistent approach. Know what you are expecting to see from your operation and compare that to what you are actually seeing. It is quite normal to look at your reports in detail for the first time and to have a nasty surprise about down time, speeding, or other events – you are not alone!

The difference between getting results and getting a reaction when you start to address these behaviours is in the approach that you take. It doesn’t have to take much time to make a difference but by being methodical and consistent it makes the time that you do spend on it worthwhile.

When we work with our clients we take one of two approaches, depending on the size of the fleet;

1. If you only speak to each driver once, here’s what to address to make the biggest difference”
2. If you only do 3 things this month, to improve fleet fuel performance, do this…”

A Focus on Fuel Efficiency leads to a Focus on Idle Time

One of the key elements which can easily be targeted is the time spent idling – when the engine is running but the truck is parked up. Whilst at the outset, the figures can be pretty startling, we normally see a significant improvement within three to four months. For each of the fleets on our fuel efficiency programme, we have found up to 5% of the fleet do not make the same scale of improvement as the other trucks.

This is due to one of three reasons;

• Driver attitude
• Profile of work
• Incorrect data

Don’t shoot the driver – you have a 66% chance of being in the wrong!

What kind of work does the truck do? A swinglift truck needs the engine running whilst he is loading and unloading containers so is bound to have a higher idle time than the rest of the fleet – the profile of his work means no matter how much you talk to him about idling, his truck will always show a lot more idle than straightforward delivery trucks.

It is quite possible that when your GPS was installed, a few leading questions were not asked; Does the truck have an idle timer, a turbo timer, on board scales or self levelling suspension? Is it likely that the driver will spend time with the electrics of the truck live for any reason when the engine is not running – listening to music radio, monitoring the RT or CB? The standard install for GPS takes the electrics being live as the trigger to report that the engine as running. If the truck has any of the characteristics listed above, this could be seriously misleading. We identified one linehaul vehicle which reported the equivalent of 4 days of solid idling – yes 96 hours – in one month. The manager was confused by this as the driver of that vehicle was really enthusiastic about the project and was receptive to all of the feedback he had been given. The truck was suffering from a wrong assumption made at installation time, and nothing the driver changed in his day could fix that up – it needed a technical fix.

Many operators have had GPS in their fleet for over 2 years before we help them analyse their stats and start spotting the anomalies so they can start delivering lasting benefits. Taking the time to work out what is important to you, and getting benchmarks in place will set you up. Giving the reports a reality check before you speak to the drivers will earn you their respect in stead of going in all guns blazing and making it the driver’s problem.

The same rules apply with the use of this system as anything else – GPS is an extra tool not the only tool. Check what you see against common sense before acting – ignorance is no defence when you are managing a fleet.

Rule 2: How much fuel should be used to get the job done? See Rule One

So there’s no room for the “pipe and slippers” style of driving in your fleet then? This is the way the UK ambassador for SAFED describes the Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving initiative which he has just launched to NZ in conjunction with MoT and NZ Transport Agency. In the UK, following the fuel strikes of the late 1990’s where there was a massive public backlash against rising fuel prices, the UK Department for Transport invested in the development of a programme to help heavy transport drivers to maintain their fuel spend at old levels, despite rising prices. It worked. And now the programme has come to New Zealand.

John Boocock, the UK ambassador has just finished training the Senior Drivers who are key to the delivery of this training programme across the industry and has also held a series of seminars around the country in conjunction with Peter Baas of TERNZ, MoT and NZTA.

John talks about the programme being not only a way of saving fuel, but also being a more relaxed style of driving. Reduce the top speed reached by your drivers, but get there sooner, by using OAP; Observation, Anticipation and Planning. SAFED case studies support my previous writings to you; reduce your costs and improve your customer service. Use less fuel, but also reduce crashes, incidents, road user complaints, R&M, and now that your drivers know what is expected of them and can plan their day accordingly, they are less stressed and better equipped with skills to get the load to the customer safely and on time.

So what is SAFED? It is a one day course for your drivers which teaches them how to make the best of the technology in their truck, including block changing up gears to stay in the green band for longer, how to stay rolling at intersections and other techniques which bring driving habits into line with the new breeds of trucks, rather than the models most learnt to drive in. The cynics amongst you will say “it’s just another training course” “it’s not relevant to our operation” but those who care to scratch the surface will find real savings which could make a real difference to your bottom line if you implement it diligently.

Why have I devoted my GPS column to this programme this month? Because I want you to earn more from your existing resources. I want you to use the drivers, trucks, fuel and GPS systems which you already have to generate more profit. Why should you have to buy an extra truck when you get a new contract? Why should your fuel bill go up just because you are travelling further?

Of course SAFED is a training course and we’ve all been on those. Get a day off work, get excited about something new, come back to work to find nothing has changed and settle back into the old ways…. But now that you have started using your GPS system to give feedback to your drivers, they know what you expect from them, they know if their average speed is in line with the rest of the fleet, if they spend too long idling or dally around the wash bay at the end of the day, or if they have a higher R&M bill than the other trucks…. So when they go on SAFED they have more tools at their disposal to become more efficient in everything they do and you can measure how much better they are by using your GPS based KPIs and Dollar based accounting; exactly the goal you have been chasing since you put GPS in your trucks because the salesman said you’d save money.

So where were we?

Rule 1: The priority is to get the freight loaded and delivered to the customer on time.

Rule 2: How much fuel should be used to get the job done? 10% less than we used last time.

On the other hand, servicing existing customers more efficiently – earning the same revenue at less cost – can only mean better profit.

You are not alone if you installed a GPS or fleet management system to improve your dispatch efficiencies. Just because that was the reason why you installed the system, doesn’t mean that that is all it is capable of.

Each of your major price groups can be addressed by making use of even the most basic data recorded by your GPS system;

• Fuel
• R & M
• Tyres
• Productivity

How much time do you spend looking after a mid sized customer?

• Checking orders
• Writing or key entering dispatch notes
• Instructing drivers
• Checking or resolving issues with the load

Question: How much is your fuel bill each month?

How do you feel about exchanging the time that you would spend looking after one customer for spending the same time improving the activity of your fleet? Perhaps you’re a little sceptical?

One earns revenue and costs you a bit of money too (time, tyres, R & M, wages…). The other cuts the amount you spend on these costs for all of your existing income. But for the same investment in time, you could save the equivalent of a month of fuel, is that worth more than the profit on one customer each year?

The driving behaviours that makeup your fuel bill also scrub your tyres away faster. By fixing these behaviours, you will also see a reduction in repair costs both in the drive train and bodywork.

GPS is about visibility: knowing what is happening with your trucks when they are outside of the yard. Because when you have the knowledge, you are inspired into action; using that knowledge to encourage your drivers to take the same pride in the cost and operational efficiency of their truck as you did when you were on the road every day.

Whichever GPS system you are using – its purpose is to help you understand what your fleet is up to without sitting in the cab of each truck. Yes – every system is different, some have better mapping screens, and some have better reports. Every system gives you visibility of operations that you wouldn’t otherwise have –it is an enabling tool. The value you get from your system depends largely on your motivation to make a difference.

Many of your reports from your GPS system will be easily understood and you just need to work out which ones are the most important for you to look at on a regular basis. A little attention ap[plied often will make a big difference. Sometimes the reports are not as easy to read as they might be but with a little assistance or a nudge in the right direction, they can be transformed into valuable management reports which inspire that improvement – in you, in your managers and in your drivers.

Stop chasing low paying work and start chasing better efficiencies. Use all of your resources (trucks, drivers, GPS, grey matter) to create profitability from the work you already have.