How an IoT Solution Can Complement Your Telematics Strategy

Telematics has transformed the supply chain in significant ways. From improving road safety through automatic driving assistance, to simplifying navigation realized from GPS technology, transportation companies have embraced telematics as a way to enhance vehicular technology and improve fleet management.

The “Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act,” or commonly referred to as MAP-21, includes regulation mandating the use of electronic logging devices (ELDs). This has provided a means for trucking operators to improve compliance through technology, leading to an increased demand for telematics solutions. This regulation, along with improvements in logistics technology, has eased fleet management and improved supply chain operations.

However, telematics can be taken one step further. Developments in IoT have increased visibility into fleet performance, and provided a means for additional monitoring opportunities. The ELD mandate has had significant effect on fleets and their routes, but without an IoT fleet management solution complementing a telematics strategy, fleet managers are missing valuable data points that can lead to additional opportunities to drive profit.

Improve Efficiency and Reduce Risk

Every year 4.2 million drivers spend 110 hours completing paper logbooks. These paper logbooks are prone to error, and do not provide complete fleet visibility. The ELD mandate helps to mitigate this, primarily through easing hours of service (HOS) logging. This is just one of the many logging tasks that drivers are expected to complete, but there is more opportunity to eliminate manual processes. Take for example the cold chain – maintaining and recording temperature are vital to a successful delivery. This requires error-prone manual logging, wasting time and increasing risk for temperature sensitive shipments.

Taking advantage of supply chain visibility can give back time to drivers to focus on their job: ensuring on-time delivery of goods. Without an IoT solution, drivers are spending valuable time on tasks that can be automated. Real-time trip, shipment, and delivery reports provide visibility not possible through implementation of a telematics solution alone.

Maximize Uptime and Increase Profitability 

In addition to reducing manual processes, IoT solutions can complement telematics to ensure uptime, leading to greater profitability. Fleet-wide tracking solutions go beyond truck-specific performance, and gives visibility into fleets as a whole. Fleet optimization is imperative to meet the demands of customer expectations as it relates to the supply chain. Maximizing uptime of trailers leads to more deliveries, which means increased profits as a result of these additional deliveries.

Simple telematics is just one piece of the puzzle: the revolution of IoT products has provided significant opportunity for improving efficiency by means of sophisticated fleet management, and reducing risk by providing comprehensive visibility into the cold chain. Fleet managers can increase profitability by reducing down-time and optimizing truck usage.

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