https://www.iotworldtoday.com/wp-content/themes/ioti_child/assets/images/logo/IoTWorldToday-mobile-logo.png
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
Iot World Today
  • NEWSLETTER
  • Home
  • News
    • Back
    • Roundups
  • Strategy
  • Special Reports
  • Business Resources
    • Back
    • Webinars
    • White Papers
    • Industry Perspectives
    • Featured Vendors
  • Other Content
    • Back
    • Q&As
    • Case Studies
    • Features
    • How-to
    • Opinion
    • Podcasts
    • Strategic Partners
    • Latest videos
  • More
    • Back
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Advertise
    • Editorial Submissions
  • Events
  • newsletter
  • IIoT
  • Cities
  • Energy
  • Homes/Buildings
  • Transportation/Logistics
  • Connected Health Care
  • Retail
  • AI
  • Metaverse
  • Development
  • Security
ioti.com

Supply Chain, Transportation & Logistics


Getty Images

Image shows a caravan or convoy of trucks in line on a country highway.

Toward Best Practices: Fleet Telematics and Efficiency 

The ELD mandate may be a central driver of fleet telematics, but smart fleet managers see potential beyond compliance.  
  • Written by Jack Vaughan
  • 16th December 2019

The Electronic Logging Device mandate caused fleet managers throughout the U.S. to take a new look at their telematics strategies. For some, the fleet-telematics effort goes beyond narrow compliance with a regulation to boost highway safety.

As they pursue new smart fleet projects in the wake of Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration directives, some corporations also look for optimizations and efficiencies to be gained through the use of IoT-related technologies.

The mandate for ELD is driven by driver safety to ensure drivers are not behind the wheel for more than 10 consecutive hours at a time. Gaining larger benefits on the back of ELD implementations is not easy, observers agree. Obviously, performance improvements do not magically appear simply because new equipment has been installed.

Analyst group Gartner sees such regulations as one of the forces behind fleet telematics systems growth of 15% (CAGR) — from 6.7 million units in 2016 to 13.5 million units in 2021. While Gartner notes the benefits of enhancing driver safety, it also recommends investing in related vehicle tracking systems to exploit telematics data and to improve fleet efficiency.

At least one consultant similarly sees ELD as a step in a meaningful direction, but not in itself an end.

“With fleet telematics, there are other potential benefits,” said Saleem Zafar, partner at consultant McKinsey & Company. “But, while a lot of fleet organizations are just literally ‘checking the box’ — meeting the minimum required criteria — others are also harnessing the power of data.”

Zafar said telematics project leaders need to think through the entire process as they forge a well-managed workforce. The process ranges from data collection, data analysis to how the data is used.

Plans must be made to integrate incoming telematics data into the organizational workflow. And, the overall project goals must be communicated thoroughly within the organization, if companies are to succeed with the new technology, Zafar said.

Telematics Maturity

Still, basic ELD benefits should not be overlooked, according to Steven Glapa, vice president of product management, Aeris Communications, an IoT platform provider.

“It starts with the fact that it is very useful to know where your fleet is, to have ‘dots on a map,’ he said. “We also see what’s called ‘the Hawthorne effect’ — that is, if you watch people more closely doing what they do for a living, they tend to be more productive about it.”

But more can be achieved if resources are aligned. A user’s place on a telematics implementation maturity curve, Zafar said, is usually less about the size of the organization and more about the technical sophistication of an organization. Knowing that, along with understanding how critical fleet performance is to a business’s goals, helps set the tone for successful implementations.

For example, Glapa said, an organization guaranteeing one-hour availability for its services should be early to adopt analysis tools for telematics data. It is a natural step the organization takes to ensure it meets its commitment to that one-hour service availability.

Fleet Project Values

Telematics has found roots in many fleets. But the next steps can be daunting. Managers should approach updates to existing telematics systems with a clear focus on broader objectives, according to Mark Botticelli, chief technology officer for transportation at Trimble Inc.

“Companies choosing to update to newer systems need to understand the value of the update,” he said. “Is it, for example, to run your business more efficiently, or is it to generate incremental revenue?” With objectives top-of-mind, Botticelli continued, telematics fleet projects can be addressed in practical increments.

“‘Big Bang upgrades’ are costly and difficult, and they leave organizations wondering why they started down this path to begin with,” he said, “Using an incremental approach to IT projects is a cost-effective and less risky approach when upgrading systems.”  

The growing volume of IoT sensor data naturally calls for selectivity in project scoping. Telematics data typically is not streamed into back-end systems in companies unless the organization has already integrated into APIs or message queues that are capable of consuming this incoming data, Botticelli said.

For companies that do integrate into this type of data, depending on the size of the fleet, the incoming data can be quite large, arriving at a high frequency,” he said. “The system that uses this telematics-type data, once consumed, should be designed in such a way that it is not directly coupled to the data stream.”

Boxes Unplugged

There are aspects of fleet telematics project planning that are common to most project planning. For example, communications within the organization are essential in any project, but they can be particularly crucial in fleet telematics, McKinsey’s Saleem Zafar reminds us.

Failure lurks when information on the undertaking is not shared throughout the organization, he indicated. Project goals must be “fully explained to the people on the front line,” he said, emphasizing that this is an ongoing requirement.

“Maintenance of hardware is important. At times, there is some bad behavior,” he said. “Boxes can become unplugged.” If drivers are involved in planning, and driver benefits are considered and continuously communicated as part of the process, successful implementations are more likely.

Understanding how data will be used on the back-end, where it is analyzed, is key to up-front planning too. IT and fleet managers need to connect data, organize data, capture insights, make decisions and then look for continuous improvements, Zafar said. It begins with imagining what the back-end business analyst dashboards will look like.

“Picking the metrics to analyze is an important step, as well as deciding on the right cadence for reviewing those metrics,” he said. There are everyday conversations between dispatchers, terminal managers and drivers that provide clues to successful end-to-end IoT telematics system building.

In the end, to get the most value out of telematics, it is vital for organizations to nurture a wide performance-oriented management culture, Zafar said, reflecting on the message contained in “Driving value from fleet telematics,” a paper he co-authored with other McKinsey experts.

Tags: Connected cars Fleets Supply Chain, Transportation & Logistics Other Content Features

Related Content


  • Image shows a fire truck in New York City
    Nvidia Files Patent to Help Self-Driving Cars Detect Emergency Vehicles
    The company’s solution could prevent AV’s from interfering with first responders on the road
  • Image shows the inside of a Tesla Model X P90D full electric luxury crossover SUV car with a large touch screen and dashboard screen
    Teslas Using Autopilot Involved in 273 Crashes Since July
    Data revealed following NHTSA research into crashes with cars equipped with advanced driver-assist systems
  • Continental invests in Motovis
    Continental Invests in Chinese Self-Driving Company Motovis
    Announcement comes weeks after Bosch announced it was partnering with WeRide to develop autonomous driving software
  • Small Robot Company's Per Plant Farming robot
    Robotic Farming Services Rolling out to 50 Farms This Fall
    Small Robot Company is Britain’s first fully autonomous crop-scanning service

Leave a comment Cancel reply

-or-

Log in with your IoT World Today account

Alternatively, post a comment by completing the form below:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Latest News

  • Image shows Unilever's Alberto Prado at AI Summit 2022 in London
    AI Summit 2022: Unilever's Alberto Prado
  • Image shows a fleet of Cruise robotaxis blocking a San Francisco intersection
    Fleet of Driverless Cruise Robotaxis Block Street for Hours
  • Tesla Recalls 59,000 Vehicles Over Software Glitch
  • SoftBank, May Mobility Team on Autonomous Driving

Roundups

View all

IoT Product Roundup: Canonical, InfluxData, Wiliot and More

23rd June 2022

IoT Product Roundup: Cisco, Telit, Draganfly and More

9th June 2022

IoT Deals, Partnerships Roundup: Google, Arm, Senet and More

26th May 2022

White Papers

View all

The Role of Manufacturing Technology in Continuous Improvement Ebook

6th April 2022

IIoT Platform Trends for Manufacturing in 2022

6th April 2022

Latest Videos

View all
Image shows Unilever's Alberto Prado at AI Summit 2022 in London

AI Summit 2022: Unilever’s Alberto Prado

Prado talks about how Unilever is using AI to accelerate the speed of new discoveries and gives them access to more breakthrough innovation

Image Shows John Lewis' Barry Panai at AI Summit London 2022

AI Summit 2022: John Lewis’ Barry Panayi on AI in Retail

Panayi talks about data and AI in retail and how individuals and the technology can work together

E-books

View all

How Remote Access Helps Enterprises Improve IT Service and Employee Satisfaction

12th January 2022

An Integrated Approach to IoT Security

6th November 2020

Webinars

View all

Rethinking the Database in the IoT Era

18th May 2022

Jumpstarting Industrial IoT solutions with an edge data management platform

12th May 2022

AI led Digital Transformation of Manufacturing: Time is NOW

9th December 2021

Special Reports

View all

Omdia’s Smart Home Market Dynamics Report

7th January 2022

Cybersecurity Protection Increasingly Depends on Machine Learning

28th October 2020

IoT Security Best Practices for Industry and Enterprise

20th October 2020

Twitter

IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

🤔 Looking for 3 Strategies to Avoid IoT Key Theft? We’ve got you covered! As tech companies continue to develop an… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

AI Summit 2022: Unilever’s Alberto Prado dlvr.it/STMpRN https://t.co/1dyLREr8N6

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Seoul Robotics Expands 3D Perception Platform across South America dlvr.it/STMhSV https://t.co/a10l3Eb2Kn

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Microsoft Extends Secured-Core Program to IoT Devices dlvr.it/STMg4k https://t.co/laBPF5VjC4

5th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Spot the Robot Dog Helps Police Ahead of Boston’s Fourth of July Celebration dlvr.it/STKWjb https://t.co/LdRg7a2xqU

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Another 59,000 @Teslas being recalled over a software glitch affecting the vehicle’s Emergency Call safety system… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

Join us in the premier #tech destination of #Austin this November 2-3 for our next #IoT event. Connect and collabo… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…

4th July 2022
IoTWorldToday, IoTWorldSeries

SoftBank, May Mobility Team on Autonomous Driving dlvr.it/STJrW0 https://t.co/mOYoBsgs14

4th July 2022

Newsletter

Sign up for IoT World Today newsletters: vertical industry coverage on Tuesdays and horizontal tech coverage on Thursdays.

Special Reports

Our Special Reports take an in-depth look at key topics within the IoT space. Download our latest reports.

Business Resources

Find the latest white papers and other resources from selected vendors.

Media Kit and Advertising

Want to reach our audience? Access our media kit.

DISCOVER MORE FROM INFORMA TECH

  • IoT World Series
  • Channel Futures
  • RISC-V
  • Dark Reading
  • ITPro Today
  • Web Hosting Talk

WORKING WITH US

  • Contact
  • About Us
  • Advertise
  • Login/Register

FOLLOW IoT World Today ON SOCIAL

  • Privacy
  • CCPA: “Do Not Sell My Data”
  • Cookies Policy
  • Terms
Copyright © 2022 Informa PLC. Informa PLC is registered in England and Wales with company number 8860726 whose registered and Head office is 5 Howick Place, London, SW1P 1WG.
This website uses cookies, including third party ones, to allow for analysis of how people use our website in order to improve your experience and our services. By continuing to use our website, you agree to the use of such cookies. Click here for more information on our Cookie Policy and Privacy Policy.
X