This story first appeared in the May issue of DieselTalk – CLICK HERE to download the magazine FREE
A longstanding specialist crane and freight provider is embracing technology in its bid to drive improvements in maintenance and health and safety.
Swanson Transport Ltd (STL) has been operating across the greater Auckland area for more than 70 years.
It employs more than 80 staff and its fleet includes a range of crane, curtain sider, tipper and flat deck trucks.
In 2010 STL installed the Teletrac Navman GPS fleet tracking system to improve productivity and communication with drivers.
The next year it purchased Lupton Carriers, a niche warehousing unit with general freight trucks, taking its fleet to 65 vehicles.
With such a big and diverse fleet, the company needs to run a tight maintenance schedule, both for preventative maintenance and to keep all vehicles up to date with registrations.
It uses the Director fleet tracking software to create form messages for the MNav in-cab messaging terminals.
One of the messages is a pre-trip checklist.
“Previously we did these on paper and they were time-consuming,” general manager Nick Longuet-Higgins says.
“Now the drivers can take the MNav as they walk around the trucks and can fill in the checklist after completing the safety checks.”
Longuet-Higgins says a defect form was created to keep track of minor issues.
“It’s stuff the drivers might forget to mention at the end of the day but if they can fill out the form straight away on the MNav, they won’t forget to,” he says.
Defect forms are emailed twice a week to the workshop manager for assessment and repair as required.
Regular maintenance such as 10,000km services are all tracked by Director and the system sends alerts when the next is due.
Some vehicles need more specialist servicing, such as vehicles with automatic transmissions or the crane trucks. Once a service is finished, the workshop manager enters the completed maintenance work into Director then resets the triggers for the next service.
“The maintenance schedules all used to be in our workshop manager’s head. Now with all the needs tracked and recorded using a GPS fleet management system, everyone has complete visibility into the maintenance schedule,” Longuet-Higgins says.
“The system has saved us a lot of time. All the information is right there and we don’t have to go and find it.
“We used to do a one-hour walk around on Saturdays to get the hubo readings for all the trucks. Now this data is automatically available.”
Longuet-Higgins says a significant milestone was achieved earlier this year when STL was awarded Gold Fleet Saver status from ACC.
Being certified through the Fleet Saver programme is a way for businesses to lower their ACC motor vehicle levies by demonstrating strong safety management practices.
“We use the Teletrac Navman system to provide proof to ACC of our safety management practices. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to do it,” he says.
STL also uses the MNavs to streamline health and safety processes when performing complex lifts with a crane truck.
A written lift plan is required before a complex lift and must include the hazards and what everyone’s responsibilities are to eliminate, isolate or minimise them.
“We created a form in the MNav so staff do the lift plan on-site and then it is automatically recorded in the system,” Longuet-Higgins says.
“It’s quicker for us, keeps the guys safer and helps us meet our health and safety requirements.”
STL has also found the MNav’s high definition replay function useful in improving safety, he says.
“We might look at the ‘Replay a Day’ function if a truck has been in an incident. You can see if a vehicle has swerved, it’s that detailed.
“It’s also a good backup for drivers. If another motorist has caused an accident, it shows exactly the path of our vehicle which can be very useful in situations where it is disputed as to who is at fault.”
STL also monitors speeding and will talk to drivers individually if the system shows they’ve had over-speed events. That provides an effective way of monitoring and changing driving behaviour.
Beyond maintenance and health and safety, the Teletrac Navman system has provided some other business benefits, Longuet-Higgins says.
Using Director, the company can send reports to key customers to keep them informed, for example, of how long loading takes at their sites.
It can keep a log of driver hours and even send emails to dispatchers regarding their vehicles or assets and their status – location, in transit and so forth.
STL is also getting a significant refund in road user charges every month, Longuet-Higgins says.
No RUC claims used to be made because they weren’t worth calculating manually, he says. But now every time a truck travels off the road it’s logged automatically and there is no refuting the data.
