Fleet Management News & Business Info | Commercial Carrier Journal
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/85392
THE BIG PIC DISPAT H SOFTWARE CAN PROVIDE DISPATCHC SOFTWARE CAN PROVIDE FLEET MANAGER aving a fully electronic offi ce to manage dispatch, human resources, accounting and other core processes is expected in today's business environ- ment. Even so, many fl eet managers looking for information on drivers often fi nd themselves having to troll through screens, Websites and third-party applications. Driver-related data often is collected using multiple ap- plications and stored in separate databases. Searching these different sources not only is unproductive, it also can lead to omitting important details that might make a difference in your relationships with drivers. U.S. Xpress is using business intelligence to create singular applications for managers, drivers and customers to con- sume data more easily. As part of this extensive information strategy, the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company recently analyzed how driver managers were spending their time. What it found was people using 300 different screens and sources of data. In many cases, data was being fed to driver managers in spreadsheets. "We wanted to change how their work got done by how the data was presented to them," says John White, president. Today, all driver-related data – including pay, home time, miles, safety and compliance – is visible in a single platform. This new management platform has "point-and-click" 58 COMMERCIAL CARRIER JOURNAL | JULY 2012 THE BIG PICTURE H MANAGERSS A CONSOLIDATED CONSOLIDATED VIEW O OFF WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH DRIVERS, HELPING THEM ANTICIPATE AND SOLVE PROBLEMS IN ADVANCE BY AARON HUFF calendar views of data to help users visualize the work life of drivers. Managers also get real-time exception alerts when drivers veer off route or do anything else outside of fl eet standards. Perhaps just as signifi cant is that driver managers now can be trained in days – not weeks. "We are much more ef- fective and effi cient in what we do, " White says. "This comprehensive informa- tion strategy has done in our organization what CRM (customer relationship man- agement software) has done for customer relations in a number of industries." Even without a large IT staff and the resources of U.S. Xpress, carriers of all sizes are able to expand their capacity for managing driver informa- tion. With a chronic shortage of qualifi ed drivers, savvy IT managers and executives are focusing on ways to increase the transparency and con- nectivity options for drivers to increase their satisfaction as well as performance. Transparency Nothing is more unnerving to drivers than having pay fl uctuate from week to week. Like any employee, drivers expect to at least maintain or exceed their standard of living despite having a vari- able pay scale based on miles, hours or both. Technol- ogy makes it easy to remove the guesswork for drivers through transparency. Carriers using Sylectus' 1