A pallet recycler operating in the South was looking for a missing trailer for a month before he finally received a call from police in Michigan. It turned out that it had mistakenly been used by a customer for a load heading north. And asking around, it seems like a lot of pallet companies have their own missing trailer stories to share.
The problem with managing trucks and trailers has grown as pallet companies expand and their transport operations become more complex. Trailers can get lost; loads can be stolen. Trailers can also sit too long empty and not be utilized properly.
One way that the transport industry is getting a better handle on managing road equipment is through the use of telematics. Telematics involves technology installed in the vehicle to transmit information over long distances, such as GPS.
The use of GPS truck tracking systems has become increasingly popular on the road, and now the GPS tracking of trailers is also on the rise. According to pallet companies interviewed for this article, GPS provides valuable insights about equipment location, utilization and operational efficiency. Vendors are also quick to point out that GPS information can also provide other value such as in capturing data to support preventive maintenance programs. If you haven’t thought about tracking technologies for your road equipment, or if you have existing equipment but haven’t reviewed it in years, it might be time to take a fresh look.
GPS on Trucks
St. Boniface Pallet, a leading Canadian pallet company, installed GPS on its trucks about three years ago. “We went to GPS as a way to identify opportunities to better utilize time,” explained Rob Anderson, president of the Manitoba-based company, whose market reach extends into neighboring Canadian provinces as well as the United States. St. Boniface decided to go with a monthly plan that runs around CAN$60 per month per unit, which Anderson believes provides good value. He noted that there are probably options to run GPS more cheaply, such as buying the device outright and installing it yourself.
“Anytime you are in the office you can go to the computer, and it will show you where the trucks are, and that’s helpful because you can tell if they are going to be back in 10 minutes or are they going to be an hour. And the drivers see that screen when they are in the office, so they know we are looking at it.”
One way that St. Boniface has benefited from the GPS technology is through analyzing past delivery trip data to see which routes are the fastest, and which were the slowest. Sometimes, routing decisions being made by drivers were weighted more on past practice and comfort level rather than with optimization in mind. St. Boniface used the GPS data to reinforce using the fastest route to customer locations.
“Driving a truck is costing $50 to $100 per hour, depending upon how you do your math,” Anderson said. “If you can save just two hours a month, which is like a half hour per week, then the equipment is paid for. The return on investment is almost days. And that’s a compelling reason to do it, I think.”
And even though you may already have GPS, if you haven’t reviewed the technology lately, you might be missing out on valuable new features for the same or similar money. Case in point, Pallet Consultants, a leading pallet company in the Southeast, has been running truck GPS units since 2012. Last year, however, after receiving a vendor presentation, the recycler realized it could receive much more functionality for about the same price it had been paying previously.
“We went ahead and replaced all of the tractor units,” stated Brian Groene, president of Pallet Consultants. “It went from a ping every 10 minutes to live feed time, so we can see where our tractors are, every second.”
Additionally, the GPS records any harsh event such as sudden braking, acceleration or swerving. While cameras are constantly active and can be monitored remotely, they only start recording video footage in response to harsh events such as sudden braking, acceleration or swerving. So far, Groene, said, the technology has helped two Pallet Consultants drivers successfully challenge two traffic tickets.
The tractor GPS also provides a WiFi hotspot, which enables drivers to use their tablet computers to review receiving information needed for customer delivery.
GPS on Trailers
In addition to the new truck GPS, Pallet Consultants also ordered 450 GPS units for its trailers. At the time of our interview last month, most of them had been installed. “We haven’t begun to tap into what the GPS and the software for tractors and trailers can do,” said Gus Gutierrez, CEO of Pallet Consultants. “There are so many options.
“You can set it up so that the system will tell you if a trailer has been sitting at a customer for more than three days. I need to be turning a trailer every 1.5 days, so if a customer has four or five trailers sitting for three days, it sends you an alert.”
Other alerts are also available, he noted, such as if a trailer gets within a certain distance of a truck stop, competitor or other point of interest. Time alerts can also be set up.
Gutierrez especially appreciates getting a better handle on where trailers are located. The company can now just look at a display and see all of its trailers on the screen. Previously, he noted, you might be looking for a trailer for three weeks until the police called to say they had it. “It’s really helping,” he said. “And you can set up fleet maintenance on it as well. It is really incredible, what it can do.”
“We know where all trailers are at all times, now,” Groene added. “We know that if we have six trailers at a customer and one of them isn’t turning, we can address it and better utilize our assets. Instead of buying another trailer, we’ll say, ‘Hey, Company ABC doesn’t need six trailers there, they only need five.’”
Another benefit of trailer tracking cited by vendors is in eliminating the surprising amount of time spent by drivers searching in yards for trailers.
Trailer tracking is becoming increasingly popular across the transport sector. According to a recent study from telematics research and consulting firm C.J. Driscoll and Associates, trailer telematics (GPS) has become one of the fastest growing branches of the Internet of Things, with subscriptions expected to increase by more than 16% each year through 2022.
GPS for Deterring Theft
Cargo theft experts recommend installing truck and trailer GPS as a best practice in deterring theft. The approach is being used by some southern California companies that have been having theft problems.
“We use GPS in some of our trucks,” said Ed Montes of G.O. Pallets in Fontana, California, and a spokesperson for the North American Pallet Association (NAPA), a group of 31 California pallet companies that have organized to help deter arson, theft and pressure from authorities resulting from the arson blazes. NAPA’s total network includes over 100 pallet businesses stretching from San Diego to Las Vegas, and up to northern California. “We would like to eventually get GPS trackers on all of our trucks and trailers,” commented Montes.
Montes stated that other NAPA member companies are now using GPS on their trucks and trailers to help deter theft. “It is an added expense, but it brings peace of mind. Tracking technology has allowed a few NAPA companies to retrieve stolen assets, such as pallets and trailers.
Does GPS Make Sense for Small Firms (Spoiler Alert: Yes)
“Absolutely (it makes sense),” Gutierrez said, addressing the fit for smaller pallet shops. “And do you know why it would make a difference? When you are small, you don’t have a dedicated dispatch person. When you are small, you have your ops guy dispatching; you have the office clerk dispatching. You might have four or five different people involved. Sometimes you are so busy when you are small that you don’t lock things in properly with the right system in place. GPS would allow you to fly with barely no system at all. Where is the trailer? Just look at the screen. There it is at XYZ customer. Big or small, I think GPS would help.”
For its part, St. Boniface Pallet installed GPS at a small pallet company that it acquired last year. Anderson had GPS installed right away. It only runs two trucks and has one driver. After a delivery, he drives back into the yard and jumps out of Truck A and into Truck B and he is out on the road again. “I don’t think the staff have ever looked at the screen except to say, ‘Wow, that was a waste of money,’” Anderson quipped.
“But the thing is, it is constantly recording,” Anderson noted. “Two years from now, if we are debating about outsourcing all of our trucking, hiring a second driver, or whatever the conversation might be, we are going to have a lot of data, and the data is going to give us pretty much all of the answers we need. We won’t have to guess. From a cost perspective, even if it isn’t being used, having that potential data there when you need it is invaluable.”
Whether pallet companies like it or not, they often find themselves also being in the trucking business. Taking advantage of available transportation technologies can make them more productive and cost effective. In the case of GPS and telematics, each company is unique, and the business case depends on your current pain points with regard to truck and trailer management. Based on the positive interviews in this story, however, it might be well worth taking a closer look.
Truck and Trailer Tracking Suppliers
These companies have worked with pallet companies to track trucks and trailers.
GPS Insight
480-663-9463
gpsinsight.com
ORBCOMM
703-433-6300
RAM Global Solutions Ltd (Canada)
866-998-9335
https://www.ramtracking.com/ca/
Samsara
415-985-2400
