Nominee

Fleet management with vehicle tracking

Being in the manufacturing and transportation business, availability of vehicles and operational efficiency were crucial areas for Gujarat Ambuja Cements. Due to manual processes, the company was finding it difficult to determine the exact cycle for a vehicle carrying cement from the factory to a particular destination and carrying raw material as a return load back to the factory

With a mission to improve operational efficiency in terms of cycle-time monitoring and fleet management, the company deployed a combination of home-grown system and third part system based on a smart card that takes care of vehicle tracking and dispatches intimation to customers via SMS.

It was sometime in February 2006, Gujarat Ambuja thought of introducing a Vehicle Tracking System (VTS) to assure availability of vehicles for cement despatch. Earlier, no knowledge of status of the consignment was available, which was leading to deviations in vehicle requirement planning.

Gujarat Ambuja has a dedicated fleet of vehicles called the Ambujanagar Unit for transportation of cement and raw materials. The vehicles carry cement to customers and as a return load take back raw material like gypsum and fly-ash from nearby supplier locations to the factory. At times it took more than a week to complete a round trip for the vehicles. This delay led to deviations in vehicle requirement planning for cement transportation and raw material receipts.

Almost two years ago, the company after realising the losses incurred due to the problem went through the presentation or demo of smart card-based VTS. They had already tried a GPS- or GSM-based system, which was not successful.

“As compared to the GPS- or GSM-based system, where the monthly recurring expense is around Rs 700 to Rs 800, in addition to the capital cost of Rs 20,000 per vehicle, this system is cost- effective. In the smart card-based system there is no CAPEX. The recurring cost is around Rs 200 per month per vehicle. Moreover, the technology is simple,” says Bihag Lalaji, Assistant VP, IT, Gujarat Ambuja Cements.

The company has employed a cost-effective idea of smart card-based VTS with the help of a solution provider KeyBell Systems, Karnal.

Says Lalaji, “We chose the particular vendor because of the high commitment level, availability of infrastructure, customisation, and setting up of kiosks (tracking points), as per our requirement. The promoters of the company are themselves into the business of transportation hence they can understand the need of the system well.

Smart VTS

The VTS is based on smart card and uses Internet connectivity. A smart card reader is installed at each tracking point, which sends details about the vehicle number, date and time after the card is swiped. Further, the online Web application is hosted at the site www.Truckkhoj.in, which provides complete data security. In addition to viewing user information online, the tracker has an option to receive data / reports in his local server, for further analysis.

In addition, the company has developed in-house a software that connects to the central server every 10 minutes and fetches the latest vehicle tracking records. Using this data, as the vehicle passes the last punching booth towards the destination, the system sends an SMS to the customer informing him of the vehicle’s whereabouts. The system sends another SMS to the customer whenever material leaves the factory. The in-house ERP system displays various reports on vehicle tracking, cycle-time as well as analytical reports to facilitate decision-making.

This system is implemented on the company’s intranet and has been made available to transporters as well as enabling them to monitor their own fleet.

Unlimited benefits

The project has enabled better fleet management. Now the transporters have a fix on reasons behind vehicular downtime. They know how long it takes to load raw materials and they can measure the performance of drivers. Transporters can plan availability of trucks based on the latest tracking data and make optimum use of their fleets.

The implementation has also enabled better customer service. Customers get timely information via SMS regarding their dispatches so that they can arrange for unloading of material before the consignment reaches their premises.