Tag: real time tracking
The complete guide to Dispatch Management Software
As the demand in the supply chain industry is increasing, the logistics and transportation industries rely more on technology to streamline the operation to prevent any shipping delays.
The process is a lot more complicated than simply sending a delivery truck to pick up the package they’d like to deliver. There are many questions you need to address, such as delivery schedule, driver/vehicle assignments & availability, routes considering traffic, and tracking process.
These are the challenges of dispatch management, but these same issues are addressed with effective dispatch management software.
What is a Dispatch Management Software?
A Dispatch Management Software is a process of organizing, assigning, and optimizing delivery schedules and routes for businesses in the delivery, maintenance, and service industries. Dispatch Management Software optimizes your routes and schedules while maximizing efficiency, and minimizing costs.
How Dispatch Management Software works
By integrating with GPS tracking and mobile apps which provide real-time updates, you can track the real-time whereabouts of your vehicles, traffics conditions, and assignments of available carriers. This, along with advanced routing algorithms, provides automated assignments for pickups, drop-offs, service calls, deliveries, etc. These applications can provide Proof of Delivery or Service completion, with photos, signatures, and driver notes.
Keeping track of the locations and statuses of drivers allows you to improve your dispatching. It also helps connect a dispatcher with drivers for faster, better communication.
The software can help schedule plan, optimize routes, providing real-time routing, monitoring driver behavior, alert notifications, and calculate total route costs which allow your company to lower turnaround times and costs.
Why does using Dispatch Management Software dramatically improves your business’s efficiency and performance?
Leveraging dispatch management software brings you huge benefits by automating every process.
Without an efficient dispatch system in your business, time is wasted manually tracking the vehicles, planning routes, and managing driver schedules. With dispatch management software, managing all these processes is automated and easy.
Key aspects of dispatch management software
Better delivery routes
Instead of planning routes manually, dispatch management helps you generate optimal travel routes more efficiently.
Based on which vehicle is closest and available, service time commitments, and route preferences, what kind of capacity the vehicle has, traffic, the application provides planned routes with information on the estimated arrival time and mileage of each stop and route. Optimal routes will result in faster delivery & service times, increased customer & driver satisfaction, and cost savings.
Reduced service costs
Effective dispatch management not only saves time by optimizing routes but also saves money. Drivers spend less time on the road, along with optimized and improved routes, which results in reduced fuel consumption and reduced operation time.
According to ABI Research, the cost savings from having a dispatch management system could be well over 12% in profitability and 13% in vehicle utilization with a 15% decrease in travel time.
Dispatch management software also provides you with impactful reporting so that you can see precisely which areas need to be improved to lower costs and increase profits.
Improve customer & driver satisfaction
Customers always want to know where their packages are and when they are expected to receive their packages.
Dispatch management software can provide both you and your customers with real-time updates on driver’s whereabouts and estimated delivery schedules. Some applications allow clients to communicate directly with the driver.
These tools increase driver satisfaction because you don’t have to worry about a delivery delay due to unexpected traffic conditions, reducing driver’s stress levels. It can also avoid any irregular schedules by optimizing routes, assignments of available drivers and vehicles.
Improve driver behavior and safety
Real-time monitoring and data enable a dispatcher to measure driver behavior and safety. Dispatch management software allows a dispatcher to track the delivery process in real-time and respond to emerging issues through phone calls or chat. Dispatch management software will notify a dispatcher and driver via notifications whenever unexpected issues happen.
Astreon Dispatch & Order Distribution
Our dispatch management software is a fully-featured and integrated module to manage tasks, pickups, drop-offs, destinations for all order management business needs.
Contact our specialist today to learn more about how we can help your business.
Cargo theft in North America – 4.4 billion USD in economic losses
How GPS Tracking mitigates risk in the global supply chain.
Since COVID-19 hit the world and has affected in-store shopping, many people are opting to use online shopping. This can lead to supply chain disruption due to the higher demand. This demand is accelerating other risks, “cargo theft”. Cargo theft is a significant risk in global supply chain when it comes to global transportation by land, air and sea. In fact, cargo theft increased by 23% in the third quarter of 2020 from third-quarter 2019 in the U.S. and Canada. It was an estimated total of $33.77 million in stolen cargo across U.S. and Canada according to the statistics by AJOT .
If you are wondering where cargo theft is happening and what products are targeted, here are some interesting facts according to the reports from TT CLUB and SensiGuard
Cargo theft by location in North America
U.S. – Cargo theft by the state
- California: 23%
- Texas: 11%
- Georgia: 10%
- Florida: 9%
Canada – Cargo theft
- Ontario: 75%
- Quebec: 19%
- British Columbia: 2%
Cargo theft trends
According to the report from TT CLUB, it shows that most cargo theft type was Hijacking at 69% followed by theft of vehicle at 10%.
Regarding the location of the theft, it mostly happens in-transit at 74%. The cargo theft of food & beverage accounts for 33% of the top commodities stolen.
GPS asset tracking
Cargo theft is a headache for companies with multiple warehouses and operational lines of business. It is challenging to keep track of all vehicles/assets and take care of unexpected events. Without appropriate action, you are at higher risk of losing credibility with your clients as well.
How GPS telematics help detect and mitigate cargo theft
The No. of businesses tracking assets is expected to exceed 114 million by 2025 as we mentioned in a recent blog. This is a significant increase in demand for location-based and asset tracking services in the next few years. The industry started taking advantage of the benefits of GPS tracking.
What exactly GPS tracking can help?
Real-time tracking
With GPS Tracking, you can locate exactly where your vehicles/assets are when they are stolen. Based on the data from GPS Tracker, you can also check travel history so you will know where your vehicles/assets were stolen, how they traveled to the final destination and where they are now.
Geofencing
GPS Tracking has an amazing feature, Geofences. It is a virtual border drawn on the map in a GPS tracking system. You can create a geofence area where you would like to mark yards, clients, even routes. You draw the geofence border like the photo below. Once the geofence is created, it is used as a trigger for alerts when your vehicles/assets enter or exit from the geofence area. As soon as the GPS tracking detects the activity, it will send you an alert. In case of theft, once the GPS tracker detects unauthorized movements, you will receive alerts so that you can immediately act against the event.
Insightful GPS data
GPS tracking software provides you with insightful data you can use to protect yourself against future theft/attack. You can analyze reports that tell you what happened, where, and why the event occurred. Based on this insight, you can plan preventive measurements to mitigate risk. For instance, you can change the route based on the location where the theft happened.
Dash camera – GPS Telematics
Dash cams attached to your vehicles can be a huge lifesaver in terms of theft. Some dash cams have built-in or optional GPS receivers. Not only video recording, but also dash cams have features that will be able to detect motion or impact. Dash cams will send alerts if there are any unexpected events in or outside of your vehicles.
The most advanced telematics platform
Astreon has 30 collective years of experience in the custom software development, SaaS, and wireless industries. This has provided us with a unique outlook in today’s IoT industry as we develop and implement simple, powerful and easy to use applications for our partners.
We are one of the leading providers of solutions in the IoT industry. We are consistently introducing new wireless platforms, shaping the future and changing the way people do business. We provide you with the services and applications that you need to be more productive and responsive to today’s increasing industry demands.
Asset tracking systems are expected to be used by 114 million businesses globally in 2025
Asset tracking systems are expected to be used by 114 million businesses globally in 2025 – This has placed a huge demand on the logistics industry to prevent supply chain disruption.
A new study from Juniper research has estimated that the numbers of business tracking assets in 2020 reached 90 million, and will exceed 114 million by 2025. The research forecasts that $33 billion will be spent on asset tracking in 2025 globally. This is a measurable increase in demand for location based and asset tracking services in the next few years.
Supply chain disruption
Keeping track of assets is challenging for Logistics companies in supply chain operations. Especially for companies with multiple warehouses and multiple operational lines of business. With the recent growth of e-commerce and online shopping, logistics companies face difficult operational challenges as they adjust to this new growing trend. Increasing capacity, adhering to regulations, and managing the complexity of the supply chain are just a few examples. One key solution is tracking and optimizing the usage of assets through KPIs and Management tools.
Without having the benefit of an asset tracking system, and the benefit of KPI’s & reporting tools, it’s difficult for businesses to figure out what causes disruptions in supply chain. Managers need data-based insights into manufacturing and logistics processes to optimize the supply chain efficiently.
One effective way to solve this challenge is tracking assets and obtaining all data from every asset to analyze asset utilization. This is why many businesses use asset tracking systems today, with consistent increased demand for these services.
What is driving this growth in the logistics industry?
Utilizing asset management systems allows logistics companies to reduce their inventory and stock management costs and helps them use their existing assets more efficiently by tracking and managing assets in real-time. As a result, the deployment of asset management systems leads to significant cost-saving and immediate ROI.
Tools to provide optimum asset utilization
With asset management systems, managers can see which assets are under and overused. If assets are not being used efficiently, this leads to increased operational costs. If assets are overused, this might cause an increase in maintenance costs and frequency. For companies with larger fleets, they can track and monitor all assets. With this data, managers have accurate information to make key decisions on maximizing utilization, scheduling maintenance, and reduce extra costs.
Reduce equipment downtime
By leveraging the reports and alert notifications from asset tracking systems, you can track and monitor all assets’ data, including real-time location, mileage, breakdowns, fuel thefts, unauthorized use, dwell time, asset life cycle and more. By automating reports and creating custom notifications, you immediately know of upcoming maintenance for each asset providing notice and time to schedule maintenance and allocate assets accordingly. This helps reduce or eliminate unnecessary maintenance and repair costs.
The right asset tracker for your clients
Effective asset tracking gives businesses an advantage that propels them ahead of the competition. Astreon is a global platform with Resellers, Partners, and Clients all over the world. Astreon provides dynamic data including routing & dispatch, location, status and key sensor state of all assets in the field. Astreon has turnkey tools to quickly and easily allow your business to hit the ground running. We provide application hosting with optional white labeling services, hardware devices, connectivity, marketing and technical support. Everything you need to get started is here. Contact us today to become our partner.
How to improve customer service and safety in Limo & Taxi industries
Limousines or taxies are used for a variety of purposes that include personal & business commuting, weddings, VIP services, bachelor/bachelorette parties, corporate events, etc.
What matters most to consumers when choosing a Taxi/Limo service? Service quality, safety, price, vehicle quality, and design. Your customers also expect you to offer professionalism, high-quality service, and comfort. This is why excellent customer service is essential to increase your business’s reputation. It may be overwhelming at first to consider all these factors when you look to grow your business. But leveraging GPS Telematics & Dash Camera systems is a great first step.
GPS Telematics Systems for Limo & Taxi
Leveraging GPS Telematics is more common now in the transportation industry. In the fact, the GPS Telematics device market is expected to reach $ 2.89 billion USD by 2023 at a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) 12.9% between 2017 and 2023 according to the research report by GPS Telematics Device Market by Type, Deployment Type, Industry and Geography – Global Forecast to 2023.
In addition, the research shows that the GPS Telematics market is expected to have high demand in the transportation & logistic sector during the forecast period growing at a CAGR of 14.4% between 2018 and 2025.
As you can see, GPS Telematics plays a huge role in the transportation industry to operate management of functions such as routing, Telematics, dispatching, security, and safety. Let’s see how GPS features work for your business.
Real-time Telematics
GPS Telematics allows users to monitor drivers, vehicles, and assets in real-time. It provides Telematics information with high accuracy. This information includes routes, fuel, mileage, idle time, engine stops, and speed. Based on that information, GPS Telematics provides optimized routes to get your drivers where they need to be faster & safer, completing more jobs within the scheduled time. Efficient routes and arrival on time or earlier arrival enhance customer service and it leads to increased reputation.
Improving vehicle security
GPS Telematics enables you to monitor your vehicle and get key data. GPS Telematics gives you clear visibility into your entire pool of assets and their current status. Using real-time Geofence status with reporting and alerts, you can detect potential theft or unauthorized use. Prevent potential loss and impact on your business by taking immediate preventative action.
Dispatching
On-time departure/arrival and quick response times with customers are crucial to improving customer service. With real-time data from GPS Telematics, you can dispatch a limo/taxi and driver who is close to your customers. Excellent customer-facing tools like driver arrival notifications and arrival confirmations are automated tools to assist you and your team. Improved service helps build brand loyalty and increase customer retention.
Reduce liabilities
Reckless driving and unnecessary accidents can be a huge liability for your company. Of course, accidents are out of the question for the transportation industry. This is why monitoring and analyzing are important to reduce poor driving habits such as speeding and harsh braking. With a vehicle Telematics system, transportation companies can easily monitor driving behavior and detect which activity causes unnecessary costs.
Installing GPS Telematics provides your transportation business with many benefits. With compact mobile devices, combined with the extensive coverage of today’s wireless networks, GPS Telematics enables users to track and monitor virtually anything; not just where cellular service is available, but anywhere. The result is improved security, productivity, and a superior customer experience.
Astreon Vehicle Telematics
Add Recurring Revenue to your existing business
Astreon is a global platform with Resellers, Partners, and Clients all over the world. Astreon has turnkey tools to quickly and easily allow your business to hit the ground running. We provide application hosting with optional white labeling services, hardware devices, connectivity, marketing and technical support. Everything you need to get started is here. Contact us today to become our partner.
