Situation

• Operating since 1920 as a truckload and less than truckload carrier serving Southern Ontario and upstate New York, Fluke wanted to improve driver and equipment efficiency with the goal of reducing costs.
• With limited insight into fleet status, Fluke was sometimes forces to direct budget and resources to locating trailers, which resulted in higher fuel, maintenance and labour costs.
• Fluke also wanted to improve compliance with MTO regulations in terms of driver hours, tractor operating durations and speed limits.
• Accountability to customers in terms of accurate ratings and billing was also a key priority.

Approach

• Phase 1 of the project focused on implementing 120 TELUS GPS systems, powered by Fleet Complete into Fluke's tractor fleet.
• Fluke is next planning to implement the TELUS GPS systems into its trailer fleet, with the goal of reducing the fleet by 20%.
• For Phase III, Fluke envisions equipping service vehicles with mobile computing so drivers can track the status of shipments and ensure efficient and timely service.
• Key reporting features that enable Fluke to increase efficiency and reduce costs include daily driver speeds, driver activity, mileage for maintenance insight and traffic flow reports.

Business benefits

• Improve insight into fleet status for enhanced business operations and dispatch.
• Track driver speeds to reduce instances of speeding, which improves fuel economy and safety and reduces accidents.
• Promote accuracy in driver logs to ensure compliance with DOT regulations and reduce fines.
• Track driver hours to reduce the amount of overtime and ensure more effective resource planning and allocation.
• Improve maintenance costs by establishing rules for vehicles in terms of the number of hours they can be in operation between service intervals.
• Capture more accurate information on speeds and time flow to assist in new customer quoting, rating and contract negotiation processes.

Solution

Founded in 1920, Fluke Transportation is a truckload and less than truckload carrier that provides same day and next day delivery for companies located in Southern Ontario and upstate New York.  With a diverse fleet of tractors and trailers, Fluke was having difficulty in tracking its fleet and gaining real time insight into operations and status.

As a result of this limited insight, Fluke was directing more budget and resources than were required to ensuring the efficiency of daily operations.  For example, if customer requirements spiked on short notice, Fluke often brought in more equipment to satisfy the immediate customer need because it could not determine the status and availability of its existing fleet accurately.

"In our business, we measure value by how quickly we can ship to customers," says Jack Mayes, President, Fluke Transportation.  "In our efforts to consistently achieve that value, we were experiencing higher costs from obtaining additional equipment to satisfy customer needs or from sending drivers out to look for trailers."

With the goal of improving operations, ensuring equipment efficiency and reducing costs, Fluke wanted a solution that could provide up-to-the-minute insight into its fleet.  As part of Phase I of its operational improvement project, Fluke installed the TELUS Fleet Tracking Bundle, powered by Fleet Complete, into 120 tractors.  Already heavy and loyal users of the TELUS Mike system, Fluke saw the evolution to GPS capabilities with TELUS as a natural progression.

With the implementation complete, Fluke has now begun to focus on the reporting capabilities inherent in the system.  While the company is still in the process of creating reports based on its business objectives, Mayes is gaining insight into areas of his business that were previously unavailable to him.

"The reports that we are leveraging so far have helped our business tremendously with efficiency improvements and cost reductions," says Mayes.  "We run daily speeding reports and do random audits on speeding.  If we see a trend with any one driver, we can report back to him right away.  But the drivers know we have implemented this process, so we rarely see anyone speeding, which improves fuel economy, ensures driver safety and reduces accidents.  Those things alone are worth the cost of the system."

Fluke is also running samples of drivers to show activity over any period of time.  On a weekly basis, Fluke's safety and compliance department compares those reports to driver logs.  The new accountability factor has motivated drivers to be more accurate and detailed in their logs, which assists in DOT regulation compliance and reduces fines.

For Mayes, the biggest advantage has been reducing overtime.  "One of our largest revenue challenges is the amount of overtime we need to run to meet our just-in-time commitments.  Now we can track hours, see who is running out of regular time hours and find ways to replace those drivers before the overtime kicks in.  With our previous system, we wouldn't know that information until payroll.  Having proactive insight has helped us significantly and those changes have an immediate impact on the bottom line."

Mayes has been so satisfied with the tractor implementation that he's looking forward to even greater benefits in subsequent phases.  The next step is to roll the GPS systems into its trailer fleet, starting with the reefer trailers.

"I estimate a 20% reduction in the number of trailers we use.  Reducing our trailer fleet from 400 to 325 will create an immediate cost savings of $375,000 - and that's just from having insight and information that we can act on.  That's how powerful this solution is for improving the way we do business everyday," says Mayes.