GPS Fleet Management – Do you know where is your car/fleet ?
Introdution
With the new technologies it´s possible to know here are your car/fleet at this moment and in real time. The big question is: Do you know where are your car/fleet at this moment?
The main goal of this course is to provide the knowledge and the skills to manage any kind of vehicle fleet through all its activities and key aspects. The course is aimed to executives, middle managers, fleet managers and any professional related to fleet management.
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What is GPS ?
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is funded and controlled by U.S.Department of Defense (DOD). It´s a sattelite-based navigation system made with a network of 24 sattelites with a geostacionary orbit around Earth. This 24 satellites ensures that in any point of Earth there at least 4 visible satellites.
Image from : http://www.colorado.edu/geography/gcraft/notes/gps/gps_f.html
Why do we need GPS ?
It´s the fastest way to reach a certain point or to give the distance and direction to that point. Also it´s the fastest way to localizate our position in a map.
What can we get from GPS ?
Position ( geographical coordinates), hours at that localization, number of satellites that devide can see, speed if we are moving and altitude.
Apliccations
Aviation , navigation (sea or land ), fleet control, mining, construction, recreation ( jogging, bike, geocaching), ….
GPS Fleet Tracking
My article will focus in this theme.
How can a company take advantage of GPS Tracking ? I will give three examples with the some situation, a urgently pickup package in a client that was not expected:
- Company that don´t have tracking GPS
You contact the operations department. They will have to check which car is going to pass near that client (if they know), check the address and compare with your address client, check who is driving that car and then will have to check the cell phone number of the driver. Now the driver will have to think what is the best route to pass at that client and in the others that he already have.
Can you measure the time lost in this operation ? Probably 30 minutes to 1 hour, if it will be possible. Then you have to call to the driver.
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- Company with tacking GPS
You contact the operations department. They make one click on the computer to see the exact localization at that time of all the cars of the company . Operations department check which car is most near of that address, click on the car in the fleet management software and they will have the information of the driver, route,phone number, … Contact the driver and tell him after the “x” client you will have to pass in the “y ” client.
Can you mesaure the time lost in this operation ? Probably 3 minutes to 7 minutes and the driver don´t have to think which is the best route. You have gain time, gain money, save fuel and your operations department will have also gain time to find solutions to other company problems.
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- Company that have tracking GPS connect to a monitor
You contact the operations department. They make one click on the computer to see the exact localization at that time of all the cars of the company . Operations department check which car is most near of that address, click on the car in the fleet management software and they will have the information of the driver, route,phone number, … Enter in the information of the route of that car, add the client in the software and the software transmit that information automatically to the monitor of the selected car.
Can you mesaure the time lost in this operation ? Probably 2 minutes to 5 minutes and you don´t have to contact the driver. You have gain time, gain money, save fuel and your operations department will have also gain time to find solutions to other company problems.
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For me, this is the best solution, probably it´s the most expensive, but it´s the most simple and fast to solve this example. You will have in one system everything that you need:
- localization of the clients (address, contacts,products,..)
- localization of your fleet (alarms of maintenance when a vehicle reach to a certain kilometers/mileage, date of insurance and warning that you need to renew, … )
- Person who is driving that car at that moment and contacts (historical driver behaviour)
- best routes to certain point/points.
Drivers rankings
With the fleet management software you can create a drivers ranking of all the employers of the company. Every time a driver have an infraction or an accident the company can write in the profile of that person the occurrence. This way the company can check all the occurrence of a driver since entering the company in the fleet management software.
Maintenance of your car/fleet
For me this is one of the most important situations where the GPS with fleet management software can help.
In a company if a car is not running it´s not making money. There are many companies that don´t use GPS with fleet management software, by lack of maintenance I have discovered cars that don´t run with blocked filters, engine problems, high consume of fuel and also broken engines (no oil in the engine). By lack of maintenance in the right time, companies lose money and don´t make money because of lack of transportation.
If you have only one car this will be an easy task, but if you have 50 cars or more this will not be an easy task. How can we make this a simple task ? Very simple, put the system working for the company. I will give two examples:
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Company without tracking GPS
Must rely on the driver attention and information, if it is a shared car, it means that have more that one driver and normally the people give less attention to that detail. Other solution is every week or every month there is a person that will check the kilometers/mileage of every cars of the company at that moment and have to compare with the last ones. Can you measure the time lost in this operation ? Probably 5-10 minutes per car, because first you have to check if that car is park in the company, next you have to find the keys and then you have to search where the car is park.
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Company with tracking GPS and Fleet Management Software
First thing is to create a profile to each car (you just have to do this one time to each car), if you have 50 cars you have to create 50 profiles. In the profile you can put photos, brand, model, year of fabrication, color, year of acquisition,VIN number, identification of the engine, extras, specifications, tires (measures and installation date) ,insurance (start/end date) , circulation tax / road tax (start/end date) , maintenance ( expected date or kilometers/mileage). At this moment you have to choose if the cars are going to make the regular maintenance by expected date or kilometers.
I have choose the option in kilometers , every 10 000 kilometers the cars have to done the regular maintenance. How are we going to do this ? This company have tracking GPS and Fleet Management Software, which means that i have the information of the exact kilometers/mileage at this moment of every cars of my company in the profile that i have created earlier in the fleet management software. It is at this point that we put the system working for us, create an alarm to every cars of your company that when it is missing 500 km/miles to maintenance should send a(n) sms/email to a certain person(s) with the information of the plate of the cars.
You can put this alarm checking the km/miles one time every day, week, month, i prefer one time every week. For this alarm work you have to fill the kilometers/mileage of the last maintenance and the kilometers/mileage that you want that the car do maintenance, i have put maintenance at every 10 000 km, but you can edit to more or less, it depends for each car or the company policy.
Cars ranking
Like the drivers you can also check a car ranking by brand, by model,… Every time you do a maintenance or the car need to be fix, the company should insert the cost/days that the car have stopped in the fleet management software. Also you can scan the bill of the car cars parts and insert in the fleet management software, this way you have all the information that you need at a distance of a click. With the help of reports, the company can check which brand/model is more reliable.
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The audit is a key tool to know the overall status and provide the analysis, the assessment, the advice, the suggestions and the actions to take in order to cut costs and increase the efficiency and efficacy of the fleet management. We propose the following fleet management audit.
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