How Trucking Firms Use Technology To Increase Profit & Productivity
It’s no secret that, in 2014, most businesses will use technology on a daily basis. The thing about technology is that it helps us to be more productive, and it can perform a range of repetitive and menial tasks for us. Technology is great for saving us time to work on more-important things.
Without technology, the pace of life in the business world would be much slower than it is today. Can you imagine how much slower everything would be in our lives if we didn’t have technology around us? We’d be living in medieval times in some respects!
Believe it or not, today’s modern trucking companies use a plethora of technology. Some people might assume that drivers just get told what loads to carry and where to drive them to. But technology ensures the whole end-to-end process is smooth and efficient.
Do you run a trucking business? If you do, how much technology do you use in your organization? Maybe you’re planning to start your own trucking business soon? The focus of today’s blog post is to give a few examples of how technology gets used in the trucking industry.
You never know; you might not have thought about using some of these examples for your own business!
New trucks
It’s perhaps unsurprising that the newer the trucks you use, the more technology you can take advantage of. A lot of today’s trucks offer plenty of driver helper functions, and the technology doesn’t just stay in the cab!
Cleaner burning technology means today’s diesel motors emit smaller amounts of harmful CO2 gases. That’s good news for the environment, and also good news for trucking firms too! It’s a well-known fact that our government is keen to reward those that drive “greener” vehicles; it does so in the form of tax rebates.
Is your fleet of trucks a few years old? If so, you should consider selling them and bringing in some of the latest energy-efficient models on the market. And in case you wondered where to sell your trucks, classifieds websites like AutoTrader are a good place to start.
Your drivers will also thank you for buying new trucks. That’s because they won’t have to deal with reliability issues so much when they’re out on the road!
Smartphones
The great thing about smartphones is that they are like cell phones and computers all rolled into one small device! Many trucking companies are realizing the benefits of giving drivers smartphones.
Companies can contact drivers when they need to. And drivers can use them to check company-wide email communications. They can also use them to find out where the nearest truck stops, for example.
Another benefit of smartphones to drivers is voice calling. Let’s face it; when you’re out on the road for several days, you are going to miss your loved ones.
Today’s smartphones have powerful built-in cameras. It’s now possible to make HD-quality video calls to friends and family. Especially as high-speed 4G and LTE mobile data technology is so widespread across the United States in 2014.
GPS tracking
When you run a trucking business, you will no doubt have a fleet of trucks that you operate on a daily basis.
A country like the United States has thousands of miles of roads. In the days before technology, trucking firms would have to rely on drivers to “phone home.” In other words, letting them know where they are every so often.
As you can imagine, there are several downsides to such a way of doing things. First, there is the trust factor. Some dishonest drivers have lied about their location in the past. In a nutshell, they did so to attend to their own personal agendas when they should be driving.
There is also the safety factor. Imagine if you were an ice road trucker driving between Alaska and Canada. Such journeys are dangerous, and help might take a while to reach you if you got into trouble out on the road!
Today’s solution for trucking companies involves using GPS tracking technology. At a low level, GPS tracking technology is pretty simple. A device fitted to each truck emits a signal to a satellite in space with its location.
Back at the office, employees can track the location of each truck on a computer. They can use an online map that updates in real-time, so that they know where everyone is at any given moment.
Some people consider GPS tracking to be a “big brother” move on the part of trucking firms. But, at the end of the day, those firms need to account for the whereabouts of each company vehicle.
There are many reasons why this is a necessity with today’s trucking firms. First, they can ensure that all pick-ups and drop-offs can get timed well so that the most-efficient use of each truck occurs. Second, it gives trucking firms peace of mind. Especially when drivers have to haul an expensive or valuable cargo!
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Let’s face it; most transport contracts between trucking firms and their customers are worth a few grand! The work that truck drivers do is pretty time-consuming and demanding.
Drivers need to get paid for their work, and your trucking firm needs to get paid by its customers. Some trucking firms prefer the conventional paper invoice approach for issuing bills.
In the 21st century, most things get carried out using the Internet or some kind of computer network connection. Your larger customers might use a system called EDI or “Electronic Data Interchange.” And it’s something you should think about using too.
EDI is the term given to a set of standards or “protocols” for transmitting data. That data gets sent and received in specific formats between organizations. EDI systems can work with accounts systems, for example. That means you can issue an invoice to your customer via EDI, and they receive it in a usable format.
Such systems save companies a lot of time and money. If you deal with large corporate customers, setting up an EDI system will be a good investment for your firm.
Thanks for reading today’s article!
