Fleet Management Software Helps You Do More with Crews You Have

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For Great Pacific Elbow, an HVAC sheet-metal manufacturer outside of Los Angeles, logistics are an enormous concern—literally and figuratively.

Great Pacific runs a fleet of 15 trucks ranging in size from tractor-trailers to utility vans, and it covers territory as far north as San Francisco and down to San Diego and into Arizona. To cover such a large swath of the map, it needed a way to know where its trucks were in real-time—and to communicate updates and job status changes effectively. Get the details wrong and drivers could be stuck hundreds of miles out of position, throwing residential and light industrial clients’ installation timetables out of whack.

To get it right, Great Pacific enlisted the help of GPS Trackit, a leading fleet management systems provider. The GPS Trackit platform combines GPS-enabled monitors in each truck with an easy-to-understand dashboard that gives fleet managers at-a-glance the ability to see every truck and a long list of mechanical, efficiency, and routing metrics. “By being able to see where our drivers are at all times, we can give our customers a call about when to expect a delivery before they call us angry and ask where a driver is,” says customer service professional Elizabeth Maldonado. “The ability to give very specific information about driver location and ETA definitely helps with customer service.”

Offering a better customer experience is just one of the benefits that come with a well-designed fleet management system. Great Pacific and other HVAC providers are also seeing dramatic cost savings and increased productivity from the strategies they learn from the monitoring platform.

Reduced Costs

Great Pacific puts thousands of miles on its trucks per week—and fuel is the single biggest variable expense for most HVAC service operators. GPS Trackit’s monitors connect directly to the engine management system of each vehicle in the fleet and provide diagnostics about vehicle health and fuel efficiency. By keeping vehicles proactively maintained and monitoring drivers for fuel-sucking behavior like hard acceleration and unnecessary idling, operators can save up to 10 percent on fuel costs. Properly maintained vehicles can also have a service life that extends up to 100,000 more miles—which reduces the frequency of new vehicle purchases.

Optimized Routes

GPS Trackit’s Google Maps-based dashboard gives managers the ability to quickly and easily optimize every crew’s routes. Better routes mean the same number of crews and vehicles can cover more clients while driving fewer overall miles in a given week. That means less fuel cost and more revenue-producing calls with the same number of employee hours.

Increased Productivity and Accountability

One especially useful tool for Great Pacific and other HVAC providers is the integrated two-way communication system built into the GPS Trackit platform. FSM Driver lets crews review and update customer information and job status in real time digitally, which significantly reduces time-consuming paperwork. They also receive updated scheduling and routine information immediately, saving time and money. And because the monitors know precisely when and where a truck is at any given time—and how long it stays at a given job—the aggregated data serves as a very useful tool for compiling time cards and establishing accurate job cost estimates. Many contractors use a geo-fencing feature to establish an acceptable coverage area for a given truck, and get notifications if the vehicle leaves the “fence line.” Others use it to allow—and monitor—off-duty employee use of company vehicles, a benefit that can serve as a powerful recruiting tool.

Improved Driver and Vehicle Safety

Study after study shows that fleets with monitoring systems have fewer adverse incidents—and the incidents they do have are less severe. The proof is in how many commercial insurance carriers discount premiums for fleets with monitoring systems—or even cover the cost of their installation. Drivers drive more slowly and carefully in monitored trucks, and monitoring systems with two-way cameras like GPS Trackit’s VidFleet offer added protection in the form of predictive incident avoidance. VidFleet uses industry-leading AI to analyze a driver’s behavior in real-time and offers an audible voice warning when it sees what could potentially be a distraction—like phone use, dozing off, or simply taking eyes off the road for too long.

For many HVAC contractors, the cost of installing fleet management software was covered by cost savings within the first month. Add in the improved customer satisfaction reviews and safety benefits, and it’s easy to see why the systems have become a proven part of a fleet manager’s toolbox. To get a customized demonstration for your business, contact a GPS Trackit Fleet Advisor today.

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Posted In: Vehicles & Fleets