Fleet management software: fifteen vans, hundreds of spare parts
The problemFifteen vans carrying hundreds of spare parts, and nobody knew what was on which one.
What is fleet management software, and what does it keep track of?
Fleet management software holds together the vans, the parts on board and the work they have to do. On fifteen vans carrying hundreds of parts, every component has a tag and every van a UHF reader that picks it up; the logistics office runs the jobs from a cloud platform and technicians carry them out from a tablet app.
Fifteen vans out and about between private customers and companies, hundreds of spare parts on board, and at head office nobody who knew what was on which vehicle. This fleet management software was born to answer that question in real time.
What there was before
A telecommunications operator with fifteen owned vehicles, always on the move, carrying spare parts for technical support to end customers: maintenance and repair of lines, servers and routers.
Spare parts change vehicle during the day. They end up in a repair, or pass between two operators on a job. Every movement is legitimate, and none of those handovers gets recorded: at head office the on-board inventory becomes a guess.
What is on the vehicles
On every vehicle we fixed a UHF RFID reader, and on every component carried a tag: it is the vehicle that declares its own contents, without anyone having to tick a list. The tag is applied by the warehouse when the part arrives.
Each vehicle also carries a microcomputer for tracking routes.
Where the readings go
The readings go to a cloud web platform, where the logistics office manages the jobs, and to a tablet app the technicians use to carry them out on site.
On top sits the notification logic: when the reader does not detect a part that should be there, the operator gets the alert straight away. The same alerts cover updating parts on the vehicles and in the central warehouse, and the exchange of material between operators on a job.
What changed at head office
The inventory of every vehicle reaches head office in real time too. The logistics office knows how many parts and which ones are on board each vehicle. And every operator leaves knowing what to load for the jobs they have to follow.
From there come the two things the client saw. Less time spent managing loads. And fewer extra trips: the ones made before to make up for a missing part, with the pollution they brought.
When a part is missing out on the road
If a technician is missing a component, the software shows them a map with the other vehicles nearby, and they reach the nearest colleague who can help.
Frequently asked questions
How does the system know what is on each vehicle?
Reading is automatic: the tag on the component and the UHF reader on the van work without anyone checking by hand. The logistics office gets the on-board inventory of every van in real time.
Is hardware needed on the vehicles, or is the software enough?
It is, and we fit it: the UHF reader on the van, tags on the components it carries, and a microcomputer logging the route. We installed and support it alongside the software.
What happens when a part a technician needs is not on board?
The map shows the other vans nearby and the nearest colleague who can hand the part over. Swaps between technicians in the field are expected and send their own notification, which means fewer extra journeys.