Situation

• Auclair & Landry sells, installs and repairs doors of all kinds, serving a large geographic market in Quebec.
• Some of the company's employees were taking advantage of the lack of supervision in the field, extending lunch hours and taking unauthorized breaks.

Approach

• In conversation with a trucking company dispatcher, Auclair & Landry's President learned about fleet tracking solutions.
• He and a member of the management staff set out to find a solution that would be suitable for a small to medium sized enterprise like theirs.
• Searching the Web, they discovered the TELUS Fleet Tracking solution.
• After considering a number of other options, Auclair & Landry chose the TELUS system.

Business benefits

• Auclair & Landry now knows the real time location of each of its vehicles, all the time.
• As well as improving employee time management, this knowledge also enhances customer service, allowing the company to provide accurate arrival times.
• The company uses the solution to help improve worker safety in adverse weather conditions, tracking their location and directing them to safety.
• The time taken per job has been reduced from an average of eight hours to six and a half.
• The company has grown, adding 8 new employees, allowing it to increase gross revenue from $2 million to $3 million per year.

Solution

Serving a large geographic market across Québec, Auclair & Landry sells, installs and repairs all types of doors, including garage, fire, swing, sliding doors and more.  Based in Québec City, with a newly-opened branch in Lévis, the company currently has 23 employees and a fleet of eight vehicles.

Auclair & Landry was experiencing time management issues with employees in the field, as some took advantage of the lack of supervision to extend their lunch hours or stop for unauthorized breaks.  When Claude Auclair, the company President, discovered how a transport company uses tracking devices to keep its dispatcher informed of the exact location of every truck, he immediately set out to find a similar solution for his own company.

Search the Web with a member of his management team, he discovered the TELUS Fleet Tracking Bundle.  This solution would allow the company to track its trucks in real-time, all the time, and was financially feasible for an enterprise of their size.

Today, each Auclair & Landry vehicle is equipped with a Mike GPS handset with an assigned IP address.  Data from the vehicles is sent via the TELUS wireless network to a secured server hosted by TELUS.  To view the data, Auclair & Landry simply connects to the Internet and accesses GeoExplorer®, a geographical information system which provides a wide range of user friendly tools that can be customized to meet their business needs.  GeoExplorer provides up-to-date maps of the area served by the company, real time tracking and historical tracking reports, as well as speed, direction, and location reports for specific vehicles.

As well as improving employee time management, the solution has helped Auclair & Landry consolidate its position in a very competitive market by allowing them to provide enhanced customer service.  The dispatcher knows the real time location of all available vehicles, enabling him to set realistic expectations.

"If it's minus 30 degrees outside and the dispatcher takes a service call from someone complaining about a door that doesn't close, he can tell the client how long it will take for our truck to get there," says Auclair.  "Our professional approach gives us a definite competitive edge."

Auclair also recalls a situation where the system helped one of his employees cope with sever weather.  "He had such a hard time seeing the road that he called me on his wireless and asked me to track his location in GeoExplorer.  Since there were no other cars on the road, he was reassured by the fact that I could send someone to his rescue if I saw him stop somewhere."

In addition, because the system tracks vehicle speed, it has reduced insurance premiums and maintenance costs as employees realize that they can no longer drive at excessive speeds.  "This generates significant cost savings related to brake maintenance, engine breakdown and fuel consumption", says Auclair.

However, one of the most significant business benefits is that jobs now get done much faster.  Auclair explains: "A job that would take eight hours now takes approximately six and a half.  We save 20% on labour and are much more competitive."  The company has also grown since implementing the solution, adding 8 employees and seeing its sales figures increase.  "With the expansion of our fleet, our gross revenue is approximately three million dollars per year.  When we signed our agreement with TELUS, it was approximately two million dollars per year," says Auclair.

Auclair has been impressed by the positive experience.  "all we had to do was install the handsets in our trucks and we were all set.  When I have questions or want to change or upgrade functionalities, I call my contact at TELUS, who gets back to me very quickly.  He also performs program updates very efficiently."