Why Fleet Management Matters for Shippers
In the complex sphere of supply chain management, fleet resources remain indispensable and irreplaceable. Shippers tasked with overseeing their fleets, be they captive or outsourced, to ensure the successful completion of deliveries.
Yet, this task begs the question: what’s the most efficient way to manage these essential assets? The answer is simple – proactive fleet management.
Understanding fleet management
At its core, fleet management is a strategic method by which shippers enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of their vehicle and driver operations. This is achieved through sophisticated tracking and oversight mechanisms, transforming the potentially chaotic world of fleet logistics into a well-oiled machine.
The critical role of fleet management
Without a doubt, fleet management plays an instrumental role for shippers and all other entities involved in last-mile deliveries. Given the impossibility of delivering goods without a robust fleet, tracking and managing these vehicles becomes a crucial business operation. Furthermore, transportation often represents a significant cost center for shippers, thus elevating the optimization of fleet management to an operational imperative. How can one achieve this optimization? The solution lies in deploying a comprehensive fleet management system.
Decoding the fleet management system
It’s worthwhile to delve deeper into what a fleet management system brings to the table. Beyond enabling improved tracking and management, this robust solution offers a host of sophisticated capabilities that can revolutionize fleet operations. According to a study, 45% of fleet managers in the U.S. achieved positive ROI by leveraging a fleet management system.
Read also: Choosing the right carrier can enhance your fleets capabilities
The Locus Hybrid Fleet Management Solution: An Insider’s Look
Birds eye view of fleet:
Locus’ fleet management solution brings a much-needed upgrade to the dispatcher’s role. Traditional solutions often fail to provide complete visibility, leaving dispatchers in the dark and unable to track their fleets effectively or make real-time rerouting decisions. Locus’ control tower solution provides real-time tracking of fleets and empower dispatchers to take control of vehicles during any time of the fulfillment journey in case of unscheduled halts or route deviations which could lead to SLA breach, and make swift adjustments in case of unexpected stops or deviations.
Dynamic reorder sequencing:
Our solution enables seamless sequencing of on-demand orders within existing routes, allocating them to the most appropriate resources. This maximizes your delivery capabilities, allowing last-minute additions to be handled by the best-suited resources.
Transporter Management:
Regardless of whether you’re a shipper or carrier, managing your transporters effectively is a business imperative. Unfortunately, many transporters rely on legacy systems, like Excel for tracking, which lack API integration, leading to opaque and error-prone transactions. Locus’ Transporter Management System resolves this problem by providing a dedicated portal for each transporter, complete with a dashboard for tracking vehicles, drivers, and deliveries, generating invoices, and calculating payments. Importantly, all data on the transporter’s dashboard is visible to the client via their dispatch management platform. This promotes transparency and enhances operational efficiency.
Driver Companion App:
Tracking driver tasks and deliveries forms a critical component of performance assessment for shippers and clients alike. Legacy systems, however, often fall short in enabling precise tracking. The Locus Driver Companion App changes the game by allowing drivers to update all activities from check-in to proof of delivery, equipping shippers with vital data for driver evaluation, fleet management, and proof of delivery—even extending to third-party fleets.
Redefining Carrier Management:
A common challenge among even the largest shippers is the lack of substantial captive fleets, resulting in outsourcing or contracting deliveries to third-party carriers. Selecting the right third-party fleet comes with its own hurdles. With a conventional fleet management system, shippers often lack access to an expansive carrier network, and the absence of automation makes the carrier selection process laborious. Factors such as Service Level Agreements (SLAs), costs, weight, and geographical parameters have to be manually assessed before assigning orders. As the demand for online shopping soars, manual carrier assignments become increasingly untenable. Beyond this, the monumental task for shippers is to ensure a high-quality customer experience through third-party carriers and maintain effective tracking of these deliveries. Locus’ advanced hybrid fleet management system, ShipFlex, allows shippers to access a wide carrier network, identify high-performing carriers, and use rule-based automation to streamline carrier assignments. This eradicates manual carrier assignments and reduces the possibility of errors.
For any shipping and logistics organization, a comprehensive fleet management strategy coupled with cutting-edge technological solutions is non-negotiable. These are the tools that enable stellar customer experiences and create a profitable last-mile delivery operation. Locus has been a trusted partner in this journey for many shippers, including global giants like Unilever, Nestle, TATA, LuluGroup and more. By optimizing their fleet management process, we’ve been able to enhance both driver and customer experiences, transforming the economics of last-mile delivery.
If you believe your fleet management could benefit from a revamp, we at Locus are ready to step in. Schedule a demo today and let us show you the future of efficient fleet management.
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