Technology Category
- Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration
- Functional Applications - Fleet Management Systems (FMS)
Applicable Industries
- Education
- Transportation
Applicable Functions
- Logistics & Transportation
- Maintenance
Use Cases
- Fleet Management
- Transportation Simulation
Services
- System Integration
- Training
About The Customer
Joseph Distribution is a logistics company based in Hanover, Maryland, specializing in express delivery and shipment tracking throughout the northeast United States. The company operates both local and over-the-road (OTR) operations, with open communication, visibility, and teamwork being core to its ability to provide exceptional service. As the company grew, it faced challenges in managing its expanding fleet and maintaining efficient communication and service levels. The company's operations were split between two teams, fleet and dispatch, which operated mostly independently of each other.
The Challenge
Joseph Distribution, a logistics company based in Hanover, Maryland, was facing challenges in managing its growing fleet. Initially, when the company had only a few vehicles, it was manageable to log hours of service on paper logs, manually input data into an Excel spreadsheet, and update vehicle statuses on whiteboards. However, as the company and its fleet grew, these manual processes became time-consuming and inefficient. The company had split its operations between two teams, fleet and dispatch, which operated mostly independently of each other. David Wilkins, Director of Operations at Joseph Distribution, recognized the need to move beyond these manual processes to maintain the same level of service and communication.
The Solution
Joseph Distribution embarked on a digital transformation journey by adopting the Motive Driver App and Fleetio, a fleet management and maintenance system. The Motive Driver App was used by drivers and the dispatch team to track mileage and hours of service, while Fleetio was used by the fleet team to track and assign vehicles. The company discovered that both platforms had a simple API connection, allowing for a powerful integration. This integration enabled fleet managers to easily analyze different data streams to keep their trucks on the road. Users could access engine diagnostics, location, and driver purchase behavior in a single interface. Fleetio’s platform also analyzed data from years of fault codes to help fleet managers identify upcoming maintenance issues before a breakdown could happen. The integration increased visibility across operations and improved communication, especially when employees began to work remotely due to COVID-19.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
Case Study missing?
Start adding your own!
Register with your work email and create a new case study profile for your business.
Related Case Studies.
Case Study
Airport SCADA Systems Improve Service Levels
Modern airports are one of the busiest environments on Earth and rely on process automation equipment to ensure service operators achieve their KPIs. Increasingly airport SCADA systems are being used to control all aspects of the operation and associated facilities. This is because unplanned system downtime can cost dearly, both in terms of reduced revenues and the associated loss of customer satisfaction due to inevitable travel inconvenience and disruption.
Case Study
IoT-based Fleet Intelligence Innovation
Speed to market is precious for DRVR, a rapidly growing start-up company. With a business model dependent on reliable mobile data, managers were spending their lives trying to negotiate data roaming deals with mobile network operators in different countries. And, even then, service quality was a constant concern.
Case Study
Digitize Railway with Deutsche Bahn
To reduce maintenance costs and delay-causing failures for Deutsche Bahn. They need manual measurements by a position measurement system based on custom-made MEMS sensor clusters, which allow autonomous and continuous monitoring with wireless data transmission and long battery. They were looking for data pre-processing solution in the sensor and machine learning algorithms in the cloud so as to detect critical wear.
Case Study
Cold Chain Transportation and Refrigerated Fleet Management System
1) Create a digital connected transportation solution to retrofit cold chain trailers with real-time tracking and controls. 2) Prevent multi-million dollar losses due to theft or spoilage. 3) Deliver a digital chain-of-custody solution for door to door load monitoring and security. 4) Provide a trusted multi-fleet solution in a single application with granular data and access controls.
Case Study
Vehicle Fleet Analytics
Organizations frequently implement a maintenance strategy for their fleets of vehicles using a combination of time and usage based maintenance schedules. While effective as a whole, time and usage based schedules do not take into account driving patterns, environmental factors, and sensors currently deployed within the vehicle measuring crank voltage, ignition voltage, and acceleration, all of which have a significant influence on the overall health of the vehicle.In a typical fleet, a large percentage of road calls are related to electrical failure, with battery failure being a common cause. Battery failures result in unmet service agreement levels and costly re-adjustment of scheduled to provide replacement vehicles. To reduce the impact of unplanned maintenance, the transportation logistics company was interested in a trial of C3 Vehicle Fleet Analytics.
Case Study
3M Gains Real-Time Insight with Cloud Solution
The company has a long track record of innovative technology solutions. For example, 3M helps its customers optimize parking operations by automating fee collection and other processes. To improve support for this rapidly expanding segment, 3M needed to automate its own data collection and reporting. The company had recently purchased the assets of parking, tolling, and automatic license plate reader businesses, and required better insight into these acquisitions. Chad Reed, Global Business Manager for 3M Parking Systems, says, “With thousands of installations across the world, we couldn’t keep track of our software and hardware deployments, which made it difficult to understand our market penetration.” 3M wanted a tracking application that sales staff could use to get real-time information about the type and location of 3M products in parking lots and garages. So that it could be used on-site with potential customers, the solution would have to provide access to data anytime, anywhere, and from an array of mobile devices. Jason Fox, Mobile Application Architect at 3M, upped the ante by volunteering to deliver the new app in one weekend. For Fox and his team, these requirements meant turning to the cloud instead of an on-premises datacenter. “My first thought was to go directly to the cloud because we needed to provide access not only to our salespeople, but to resellers who didn’t have access to our internal network,” says Fox. “The cloud just seemed like a logical choice.”