9 Secrets to Reducing your Fleet Expenses
As a fleet owner, your day-to-day costs can quickly add up. What you don’t know is there are further hidden, expensive...
Read moreA specialist diamond drilling company, Corecut is headquartered in Broxburn, West Lothian. The company operates a fully mobile workforce and has strategically located offices throughout the UK.
Operations Director, Ewan Crocker was looking for a GPS fleet tracking system that would increase operational efficiency and help him to better manage his fleet of 37 specialist vehicles. He also wanted to reduce the company’s operational costs through accurately tracking hours worked and decreasing fuel usage.
“We have built an enviable reputation within our industry by building a highly trained team of CSCS qualified operators, which has successfully completed thousands of contracts promptly and precisely,” says Mr. Crocker. “We chose Verizon Connect because we needed a system with comprehensive functionality; through optimising our mobile workforce, we have improved our efficiency and productivity levels vastly.”
Mr. Crocker believes each vehicle has increased its productivity in several ways: “The ‘Nearest Vehicle’ function has enabled us to streamline which vehicle is sent to a job and because we also have Garmin integration they get to the job site via the quickest route. Verizon Connect ‘Live Fleet’ with Google Maps allows us to see at a glance where the entire fleet is and pinpoint the location of the job.
The Garmin integration also enables us to send out messages to our entire fleet simultaneously. They know exactly where they need to go and when they need to arrive by; we can confirm the instructions have been received and the jobs accepted. For safety, we can also predetermine the messages that the drivers send back to us. This vastly increases our productivity because, in an instant, we know everybody is on course and ready to start work.
The system has also enabled me to calculate how long each job takes the team and, if they finish a job early, I can send them to the next. It also enables me to forward plan job scheduling – a great time management asset.
Fleet tracking has also allowed me to monitor when a vehicle arrives on site and leaves - so late arrivals, long lunches and early departures are kept to a minimum. I can ensure that we’re punctual when arriving on site and that we leave on time when the job is done. Think about it, if a van carrying two men arrives just 30 minutes late to a job, that’s already one hour of productivity lost. It’s easy to accurately monitor overtime hours and customer disputes are resolved painlessly.
The savings are actually estimated to be greater than four hours per van per month; Ewan also remarks on the simplicity and extra contracts that Corecut wins, “It was an easy decision to choose this system. We are able to understand and optimise the movements of our operators – that, on its own, has paid for the system 10 times over”.
“Keeping a closer eye on the drivers, optimising their routes and keeping them moving, significantly decreases the time my operators spend on the road. All this time adds up and I can definitely schedule more jobs because of it. I just have more control!” concludes Mr. Crocker. “Our reputation for customer service is growing thanks to fleet tracking and it’s definitely winning us business.”
