Smart Logistics - Fleet Management Solutions: Concept and How to Reduce Costs and Save Lives

For IoT fleet management solutions to take full advantage, you need to prioritize your needs and understand possible responses.

As the Internet of Things (IoT) market grows, fleet management is expected to be the vertical that will benefit the most. Business owners, supply and logistics stakeholders alike rely heavily on fleet managers to maintain fleet inventory and manage drivers while cutting costs. Lacking data-driven insights, fleet managers are often in the dark about how best to achieve their goals. IoT solutions present an opportunity to connect fleets, allowing fleet managers to gain remote, detailed insight into their operations to develop better business strategies. But even with such a wide range of opportunities in the world of IoT, knowing where to start can be a challenge, especially for newcomers.

There are many parts to creating, operating and managing a logistics fleet. You can't just load goods onto trucks, planes, trains, or ships and send them off, only to be satisfied when they reach their final destination. As a fleet manager, fleet maintenance, fueling, staffing and more are all within your purview. Driver safety and rising fuel costs are just a few of the many challenges fleet managers face. Often, this difficulty stems from not knowing the depth of the challenge in the first place.

Much of the buzz from IoT comes from the excitement over knowledge; enterprise IoT gives stakeholders greater insight into their activities, allowing them to make better decisions. According to a report published by MarketsandMarkets in 2019, the market size of IoT fleet management solutions is expected to reach USD 8.28 billion by 2021. To take advantage of this new technology, you need to prioritize your needs and understand which solutions can be applied in fleet management.

What are IoT solutions in fleet management and how can they help?

As mentioned earlier, fleet management consists of many parts. Therefore, we will have ample opportunity to capture data. Below we describe available solutions as needed to help further narrow down what should be investigated.

1. Driver management

If you take the time to focus on driver safety, meeting the required safety rules, and the strategic decisions drivers have to make while on the road, here are the IoT solutions you should invest in:

Predictive weather analysis to ensure real-time weather conditions drivers are exposed to and make real-time corrections. Sensors on board and along the route provide the most accurate weather information so you can further optimize delivery times.

In-vehicle analytics to ensure fleets drive reliably and efficiently. Companies don't need to have a reputation for careless driving, and you should know if teams are working on their delivery schedules overnight.

2. Vehicle maintenance

If you want to maintain the longevity and safety of your vehicle while staying within your budget, then you should consider the following IoT solutions:

Provides data such as tire pressure, vehicle battery and engine health for preventive vehicle maintenance. You can get standard engine diagnostic codes from your assets without manual intervention or readouts, so you can spot vehicle problems before they break down.

Remote asset maintenance, allowing monitoring of the health of assets that you may not have regular physical access to or updates. Buying and maintaining a fleet doesn't come cheap, so every asset counts, even the ones you sometimes forget about.

3. Green Fleet Initiative

If you are looking for ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your fleet, thereby helping you to be compliant and environmentally friendly, then you should invest in IoT solutions that do the following:

Reduce the idle time of assets and ensure they only burn fuel when necessary. That could mean routing optimization to avoid wasting gas in traffic, or monitoring driver patterns to guide drivers on best practices for fuel optimization.

in conclusion

IoT solutions will drive the industry towards connected fleets. This is an area where you can track your assets, monitor their health remotely; and reroute your teams to take the safest, most efficient routes. Fleet managers can track driving patterns to determine best and worst practices, ensuring drivers are driving cautiously. Green actions go hand in hand with cost-saving actions, backed by data, and mobilize various projects to protect the budget and the planet's environment. Networking fleets ensures better drivers, tighter budgets and safer vehicles. All of these will make your job easier.

Author: Reilly Dunn

This article is from a translation, if you want to reprint, please obtain authorization from this site first.