#bulbthings

Finding the right balance of what to outsource, what to keep in-house, and even what to insource is key to running an effective business. Bringing services back in-house can help create a more agile supply chain, increase reputational value and protect quality of service and product.

Let’s be straight. When it comes to managing your company's assets, what problems do you encounter? Do you know how your assets are performing, how much are they costing you,  where are they and even who’s using them and how? The answers to these questions are usually very different when outsourcing compared with managing in-house (insourcing).

In many organisations, physical assets are the foundation for success and future growth. The effective management of these assets (asset management) is essential to the overall success of organisations.

Around the world, hundreds of billions of pounds are spent on managing assets. However, along with monetary significance, the rising importance of asset management is being fuelled by factors such as whole asset life cycle, return on investment (ROI), total cost of ownership (TCO), health and safety and compliance set by regulating bodies.

With this in mind, the asset management outsourcing trend has shifted. Companies managing their assets are beginning to realise the benefits of insourcing compared with outsourced service arrangements.

“Right-sourcing, or finding the right balance of in-house maintenance services, outsourced services, and even insourcing, is the best way to stay competitive and cost-effective”

So what’s the problem with outsourcing?

The decision to outsource is a major strategic one for most companies, since it involves weighing the potential cost savings against the consequences of a loss in control over the product or service both internally to the operation and externally to customers.

Some of the major potential disadvantages to outsourcing include poor quality control, lack of meaningful data and information necessary for decision making, delayed supplier responses to client queries and issues, decreased company loyalty, a lengthy bid process and a loss of strategic alignment.

In particular, on the matter of cost control, there's a "blackbox effect" since the nature of outsourcing arrangements can create a barrier in shared knowledge. This causes a lack of transparency and the ability to have full visibility and control of the costs of your assets. This can lead to problems in identifying where potential savings can be made.

In addition to this, problems with outsourcing arrangements usually lead to terminating or taking the outsourced services back in-house. The issue is that if you are outsourcing a range of business activities, if things go wrong with your service provider, it is much more difficult to re-insource as there is a dependency on the service provider to carry all your asset related activities. Is the risk worth taking? Probably not.

In light of this and with the development and increasing availability of smart asset management tools organisations can easily and affordably take back control of their assets in-house. This means the risks associated with outsourcing can be mitigated by managing them more effectively internally.

Smart asset management tools - The new insourcing trend

How times have changed. Outsourcing is no longer the answer for managing assets effectively. Outsourcing isn't what it used to be and it certainly isn’t as profitable as it used to promise as a cost cutting exercise.

The rise of smart asset management tools has filled a void in the requirement for affordable and easy to deploy software that can be maintained and automated in-house delivering unrivalled results compared with outsourced suppliers.

Insourcing asset management activities will require you to be well equipped to take on the job. This can be costly if you are not using the right tools. Using smart asset management software can make a significant difference in cost compared with outsourcing. If you invest in powerful and easy to use tools, why outsource?

But while it is evident that there are numerous advantages from insourcing, there is a danger businesses are moving to this model for the wrong reasons - such as a mishandled outsourcing contract - rather than the organisation’s genuine ability to perform a superior service in-house. This often requires a business case proposal and the ability to demonstrate a worthwhile return on investment.

The insourcing trend now exists since smart asset management tools are aimed at specifically reducing asset running costs, improving safety and maximising operational efficiency. They remove the laborious time consuming tasks associated with managing assets by automating and collaborating in real-time with users and suppliers and provide an easy to use platform to achieve this.

‘The insourcing trend now exists since smart asset management tools are aimed at specifically reducing asset running costs, improving safety and maximising operational efficiency’.

Some of the rich features they offer are accessibility anywhere, anytime accompanied by using mobile apps. All asset information is stored and consolidated into a single database to manage, locate and report on all your assets, in a user-friendly and easy way.

The use of alerts and notifications are a great monitoring tool. These are used to control tasks and guide employees through business processes. This is also achieved using workflows to ensure work is followed through from initiation to completion. This provides transparency across the business and helps to collaborate all the stakeholders into one common platform.

Finally, smart solutions increasingly use IoT/big data technologies to provide the capability to collect data from sensors embedded into physical assets. This allows to get real-time information about the usage of assets in order to take the right actions, control costs and improve service to end-users.

Reaping the benefits of the new insourcing trend

One of the major downfalls with outsourcing is the lack in quality of service and the failure to meet client expectations. In an ever-changing environment businesses need to adapt and improve operational efficiency to be profitable and competitive.

‘If you want a job done properly, do it yourself!’

For example, if you own or run a fleet of vehicles and equipment, outsourcing this requirement would make it more challenging to influence culture and improve driver behaviour.

We believe this can be best  achieved organically in-house. This is a very important part of asset management and the ability to change attitudes in the use of assets since this is safety related.

The benefits to insourcing and managing your assets and users in-house is far reaching and invaluable to businesses. The actual investment involved in implementing smart asset management tools pays for itself usually within 4-6 months.

So why make the switch?

The number of reasons and justifications to in-sourcing completely outway the dying trend of outsourcing your asset management functions. Businesses today need to be in full control of the assets they operate.

By embracing the insourcing trend with the power at your fingertips at a click of a button, you can take full control and unlock the hidden secrets of your assets and make those all important savings.

What problems do you face with your asset/fleet management outsourcing arrangements? And what is your view on the current trend in insourcing using smart tools?

The Authors

Leslie Depond - BulbThings CCO, co-founder

Some say what’s taking shape is a more productive symbiosis between man and machine — and successful businesses will be the ones that embrace and optimise it. Whereas some would say that technology and automation is taking our jobs away.

The threat of automation and IoT. Is this really the case? I mean, if we are creating and adopting technology to improve our lives and leaving the laborious jobs to robots and smart automation systems then aren’t we collectively in control of what does what, when and how?

Or to better put it, is this a process of self improvement and the pursuit of transformation? Evolution?

In 2013 Oxford University released a paper, The Future of Employment, according to their findings the top 10 most likely jobs to be automated include telemarketers, insurance underwriters, watch repairers and accountants’ clerks. But high on the list are also legal secretaries, models, estate agents, cooks and dental technicians. It’s a surprising variety. But many feel the predicted rise of the robot is still just a theory.

This could be another example of statistics flying in the face of common sense. People will always be at the heart of a successful business. If you want a formula for a great business you have to fill it with great people and no amount of robots can replace that.

That may be true but it also raises the point that humans, for the foreseeable future at least, are in charge and whether or not a job can be automated doesn’t mean it actually will be automated. There are a number of potential inhibitors including the capital cost of automation as well as certain jobs requiring human interaction.

“The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency”

For example consider waiters and waitresses, we would expect them to be non-automatable. Why? Because what can be observed is the requirement to make pleasant small talk with restaurant customers beyond what we could see a robot server providing.

Nonetheless, algorithms have been created giving waiters and waitresses a high probability of computerisation. Some restaurant chains have introduced tablets to their tables, which are able to take orders, recommend specials and take payment more efficiently than a human server.

Making The Age of Automation work for everyone

This era of technological change is like nothing seen in the past. Technology is getting “smarter,” taking on more cognitive abilities and tasks once thought to be reserved for people. This sophistication combined with the global reach and speed of change and adoption of technology is changing the way goods are produced and services are delivered, with a range of implications for labour markets around the world.

‘It is essential that we approach this wave of innovation in a way that creates widespread benefits for people, society, and business’

This second machine age, as it has been called, is defined by a number of significant technological developments, including Big Data, 3D Printing, the Internet of Things, remote connectivity, and industrial and autonomous robots.

Companies across various industries are embracing these technologies to improve operational efficiency and performance, reduce waste and conserve natural resources, reach new markets and audiences with speed and convenience, and support product and process innovation.

The pace, nature, and ubiquity of technological change will have significant impacts on job availability, access, and quality. Some jobs will be replaced by machines while new jobs are created and existing jobs take on new and different tasks.

‘Automation is anticipated to change some fundamental ways of working and with it the relationship between employers and employees’.

Considering the happiness and satisfaction of the workers who fill existing and new jobs will determine how well companies are able to capture the productivity, quality, and innovation gains possible through automation.

Businesses have a strong interest in ensuring that they, and their workforce, are prepared for an era of massive change. This means not only mitigating the negative impacts of technology but also harnessing it as a powerful driver of economic opportunity and improved well-being.

“Businesses have a strong interest in ensuring that they, and their workforce, are prepared for an era of massive change”

The Internet of Things in the coming years will embed sensors and actuators in almost every type of machine and physical asset. This is enabling new ways of monitoring and managing all the “moving parts” that make up a business, from fleets of vehicles to air temperature and quality to the flow of goods or materials through plants, distribution centers, and even onto store shelves.

This provides businesses a number of benefits in terms of operational efficiency, precision, and transparency. It could also create new jobs as well as improve existing jobs by enhancing worker productivity.

Nothing is infallible or perfect

Consider this scenario: If jobs were to be taken by automation and robots resulting in mass unemployment, then how do we stimulate consumer demand if well-being, affordability and lifestyle that businesses and economies thrive on is compromised by machines doing the majority of work?

Robots are not paid so how could people afford to live and buy things if they are not contributing to the economy? We could end up with a paradox.

The economy has to work for everyone. Employment is essential to productivity, economics and globalisation. The progress of technology, automation and the IoT will inevitably replace some jobs, but it will create many more in high-tech industries and services in order to sustain the technological growth.

“The economy has to work for everyone. Employment is essential to productivity, economics and globalisation”

Nothing is infallible. Computers, machines and robots rely on power, programming and maintenance and every so often we see a glitch occur. Power outages, malfunctions related to maintenance and upgrades that fail to sustain.

These are some of the concerns that ensure automation and robots cannot completely supersede people. Automation and robotics rely on humans as their creator to manage them, provide instructions and help them to adapt based on the requirements and strategies of businesses.

A Jobless future? Or Human Folly?

Actually, worries that rapidly advancing technologies will destroy jobs date back at least to the early 19th century, during the Industrial Revolution in England. Media acceptance of the idea that, because “the robots are coming for your jobs,” in future there will soon be “no work for human beings.”

The fact that a computer can do something better than a human being doesn’t mean that the computer will replace the human being. The market will determine whether it is economical to do so, given the costs and perceived benefits.

In reality, when machines replace one kind of human capability, as they did in the transitions from hunter/gatherer, from serf, from freehold farmer, from factory worker, from clerical worker, from knowledge worker on to whatever comes next, in each case, new human experiences and capabilities emerged.

The question is, as always, not whether individual jobs are being replaced, but rather what is the net effect of all the changes in employment. ATMs and PCs for instance don’t instantly appear out of nowhere at no cost. They have to be designed, built, marketed, sold, introduced in the marketplace and in the workplace, and reconciled with all the other things and systems going on.

“The question is, as always, not whether individual jobs are being replaced, but rather what is the net effect of all the changes in employment”

All of these activities require large amounts of human time and effort. The net effect of ATMs and PCs is not simply the removal of the jobs of bank tellers and the secretaries. We have to add in all the other jobs and work that are being created, and then see what the net effect is.

A final thought

In our opinion a “jobless future” is not possible. It is a restructuring of skills in order to support technological growth. We are expected to be smarter and to evolve leaving the repetitive work that doesn’t really allow us to progress, discover and innovate.

Afterall, we are using automation and robots to make our lives easier. We feel the process is about delegating what we don’t need to perform anymore. Therefore the future will be a tougher, more competitive and a higher skilled environment to survive in.

In the third of this five-part blog on how to manage your physical assets effectively, we explore and provide tips on what it takes to perform best practice fleet management for light vehicles, optimise those costly and laborious tasks and gain full control of your drivers and fleet performance.

A productivity revolution is brewing within the fleet industry. The development of faster, better, and more sophisticated fleet management systems that use telematics and IoT technologies, coupled by a surge of increasingly powerful driver apps and the ever-widening preference of mobile technology will serve as the primary medium drivers are using to fulfil their daily fleet tasks. The fleet managers of tomorrow will marvel how we were able to accomplish what we did with the primitive tools of our era.

With all of this astounding technology advancing within fleet, it becomes almost redundant without a fleet strategy, as would a business starting up without a business plan!

Smart fleet management systems are the missing link to a fleet strategy as the adoption of next generation systems that drive automation and connect assets in the fleet promise to ensure fleets are smarter, better informed and better equipped to be adaptable to strategic and financial needs of the fleet.

Tip 1 - Define your fleet strategy

An effective fleet strategy is important as it defines an organisation’s approach to fleet management. To develop a genuinely effective vision for a fleet, the fleet management strategy must link in with an organisation’s other strategic priorities. The strategy must be considered as part of the organisation’s overall approach to asset management and should also link in with environmental aims.

A fleet strategy is a clearly written document that identifies the business need for the fleet, helps secure a fleet that is fit for purpose and sets out how the organisation intends to manage its fleet in the future.

The fleet strategy is underpinned by a fleet policy which is a document simply to put a corporately-agreed infrastructure in place that covers as many of the fleet strategy areas as possible, from setting out the objectives of the policy through to guidelines and rules which apply to the driver population. A fleet policy will only work in practice if there is support for it within your organisation, so buy-in from stakeholders from the very start and throughout the process of its production is imperative.

Vehicle drivers, passengers and other users can offer a broad perspective on the strategic direction of fleet management. Consultation with these groups of users will contribute to a strategy being well informed.

Tip 2 - Automate tasks

Fleet administration is a very busy place to be in, and the amount of time and cost it adorbs is typically in the top three priorities of a fleet manager in terms of efficiency improvements. The wide variety of tasks associated with the day to day running of the fleet such as paperwork, compliance checking, managing fines, tax and MOT duties, invoicing costs with suppliers, analysis of data for trends and costs is critical to the operation of the fleet.

Automating tasks is a highly beneficial area to consider when selecting a fleet management system and the functionality and capability they offer. Interfacing or Application Programming Interfaces (API’s) help to fetch and return data in real-time with other data sources such as suppliers systems or other internal systems (e.g. HR for driver information) allowing you to increase internal efficiency through quicker integration and reusability.

For example, if for instance you want to analyse supplier data from fuel cards, creating an API with the fuel supplier or importing data from the fuel card company can allow your fleet management system to automatically compare mileage and fuel consumption for any particular vehicle in the fleet against the fuel card transactions to highlight any anomalies and potential invoicing cost errors. This saves time and overspend. In turn, this method can be used for your leasing contracts with leasing suppliers. In this example, you could compare supplier offers prior to approving any new leased car requests or renewals to ensure that you are selecting the most competitive offer against cost, term duration and any hidden terms and conditions that perhaps would not be preferential to your company's fleet policy.

Using automated workflows drives an organisation to become more efficient by helping remove wastage, such as becoming paperless, cuts out unnecessary work like duplicated data entries, better use of human resources which overall saves money and will help an organisation to grow and improve.

Workflows also achieve this by identifying and removing the unnecessary steps/processes within any task. Modifying the order of the steps can make the process more efficient. For example, some steps could run simultaneously as opposed to sequentially. Tasks can be assigned to the people with appropriate skills to perform the task, rather than allocating to anyone who needs work to do avoiding compromising quality. Fleet managers can concentrate on strategic business oriented activities, rather than the day to day operational tasks, such as task allocation and monitoring progress.

Workflows can answer questions like: What actually needs to be done?, Who am I doing this task for?, How long should I take to perform this task?, Who else is involved in the process?, What will happen after I action this? Workflows improve visibility by tracking and allowing a staff member to instantly check the status of an item/task. It allows the key people to see the critical processes at every point, identifying problems, bottlenecks and monitor end to end performance throughout.

In addition to workflows, collaboration features are key to gelling all the communication together. Collaboration is the experience that integrates people, processes, and technology and improves the connections between people and the information they need to share to produce results.

Collaborative fleet management software works by offering a range of extended features such as access anywhere at anytime, apps for mobile workers and suppliers to integrate in near real-time, optimised for a range of devices like smartphones and tablets, direct apps access from suppliers or using real-time alerts and notifications to control tasks, highlight concerns, errors and missed events.

Tip 3 - Connect your vehicles

This is 2015. Isn't it time your car was as smart as your phone? Actually, it is. In today's economic climate and with rising fuel prices, businesses are working hard to improve processes and cut waste in any way they can. For example, fleet management On-Board Diagnostic (OBD) connected systems are plug-and-play and affordable solutions to give you the information you need to make informed decisions in near real-time and improve the efficiency of your fleet, saving time, fuel and money whilst increasing customer satisfaction.

Vehicles in your fleet generate massive amounts of data and most of us don't realise this potential. With the right OBD hardware and accompanying apps, you can use that data to monitor and save fuel, locate vehicles in your fleet, know when vehicles are being used and who is using them and even diagnose those annoying dashboard engine warning lights.

In addition to saving money on fuel costs, OBD dongles let you monitor the health of a vehicle. Using OBD dongles, you will be immediately notified if a vehicle has an engine problem. This allows you to fix only vehicles in need of repair instead of wasting time adhering to rigid maintenance schedules. This ensures that fleet managers are aware of any problems so they can assist drivers by making sure they take the necessary actions before any damage is done and avoids unnecessary repair costs.

So in summary, connecting the vehicles in your fleet to a smart fleet management system delivers the following benefits:

Better fuel economy

Monitor mileage and optimise leasing contracts

Knowledge of where your vehicles are at all times

Remotely diagnose and decode engine management warning lights

Identify where and when inefficiencies occur within a fleet

Efficient routing for faster delivery and response time

Optimised customer service

Lower vehicle maintenance

Loss prevention of vehicles and assets

Improve driver behaviour

Assist drivers when needed

Tip 4 - Monitor driver behaviour

Driver behaviour behind the wheel is one of the single biggest influencers of inefficiency, rising fleet costs and increasing carbon emissions. “Driving at 70mph, for example, is said to use 15% more fuel than at 50mph, while cruising at 80mph can use up to 25% more fuel than at 70mph.”* Furthermore, harsh acceleration, braking and steering can also have a significant impact on fuel and vehicle maintenance costs.

TomTom’s latest research portrays an intriguing European study that has put performance among drivers under the spotlight. Key UK findings include the discovery that:

“Working time pressures make more than half of van drivers (59%) more likely to speed and take risks on the road; and

Three-quarters of van drivers (75%) admit to breaking the speed limit in their work vehicles, with 24% doing so regularly.

Despite these revelations, an overwhelming 70% claim to be better drivers than road users that do not drive for work purposes.” **

So how are your drivers performing? Have they been empowered to improve standards? The opportunities to make significant efficiency and safety gains using smart fleet management tools to monitor and improve driving styles is invaluable to fleets in reducing costs, improving safety and unlocking hidden savings.

Monitoring your drivers in the fleet requires connected solutions. This allows you to monitor the characteristics of the vehicle's behaviour performed by the driver. Below are ways that OBD tracking dongles that connect to smart fleet management systems can monitor and optimise driver behaviour and improve performance behind the wheel whilst reducing costs:

Analyse current performance - Analysing the current driving performance data from your fleet management software identifies any problems and sets the start point from which to improve.

Setting Targets - Giving drivers a clear idea of where their driving performance should be by settings a series of minimum standards for fuel consumption, speeding, harsh steering, sudden breaking, revving and idling.

Benchmarking (KPI’s) - Benchmarking against industry peers or indeed across the fleet will ensure targets are realistic and that performance meets predefined standards.

Sharing information and plans - Getting buy-in from both drivers and senior management and outlining what you hope to improve and by when is an important factor in changing driver behaviour. Identify where incentives can be given through healthy competition and/or rewards. Demonstrating that financial incentives can be self-funding.

Identify/address problem drivers - Using driving scores or league tables to entice healthy competition and highlight those under performers helps to target training to improve their standards and empower them to adopt a better driving style. Using alerts to those drivers via an app can notify them in near real-time of concerns around their driving performance.

Rewarding drivers - Clear communication and feedback on progress help to achieve the best results. It is a good idea to promote the drivers performing to the set standards as advocates to sharing success stories. Considering incentives such recognition and competition works just as well as cash, vouchers or holiday incentives.

Review and refine - Set clear timelines to measure programme success against predefined KPI’s that is linked to the overall company goals. A continual improvement strategy helps to ensure steady progress.

TIP 5 - Accident Prevention

Let’s not forget that vehicle accidents take 1.3 million human lives a year globally and cause some 20-50 million injuries. These statistics are staggering and it’s obvious why accident management is a big and crucial part of any fleet manager’s job. When accidents inevitably occur, managing injuries, costs and downtime is a serious risk to any operational fleet.

Speeding has recently been revealed as a major contributor for many businesses. Research has found that company car drivers are more reckless than private motorists on European roads.“According to a survey conducted by a road safety group, one-third of business car vehicles on the road are involved in an accident every year.  At-work drivers are considered a “high-risk” group by insurers, in general, due to these figures, and high mileage.”***

Preventative measures can be performed to avoid loss of life, injuries, accident costs and downtime. It is crucial that actively monitoring and managing your driver behaviour across the fleet and maintain vehicle servicing according to the vehicle manufacturer's servicing regime helps  prevent accidents from occurring.

So it is clear to see that adopting a smart fleet management solution coupled with collaborative automation and connected solutions to manage your fleet is key here to controlling spend, driver behaviour and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 

How many of these tips do you apply and how well did it go so far? Which one are you going to try next? 

Your experience and opinion matter so why not share it?

BulbThings can help you optimise usage of your fleet  alongside other enterprise assets so you can manage all your assets more effectively and control costs with one tool. To learn more about BulbThings please visit our website www.bulbthings.com or feel free to drop us a note at [email protected].

* Roaddriver.co.uk - Tips for Eco-driving

** TomTom, https://blog.business.tomtom.com - Driver Performance

*** Pendragon Contracts - blog.pendragon-contracts.co.uk

The Author

Mobile Devices & Printers

In the second of this 5 part blog, we explain what businesses need to understand to adopt best practise when it comes to managing and optimising business mobile contracts and printing.

Every business is paying money for their office printing and mobile device contracts – that’s a given. So you’d imagine that everyone knows how much they’re shelling out, right?

The truth however, is more than a little astounding!

Do you know exactly where all the mobile devices, printers, multifunctional devices, faxes and scanners are in your business? Think about it – that not only includes all mobile devices such as mobile phones, smartphones or tablets but also those big stand-alone printing devices at the end of the corridor and all the little printers hidden away on desks that everyone had forgotten about. When did you last do a mobile device user check or a floor walk to figure out who exactly is printing what and to which device? Do manual checks still exist with the availability of smart asset management solutions? We think not!

These are some of the cost factors. Then there are the consumables. Do you have this area under control? Who orders your paper and cartridges? How much are you paying for them? Who deals with your printer consumables and what are the costs incurred when it comes to those tucked-away devices we just mentioned?

Does any of this sound familiar? If so, we hope you will find our tips useful and an eye opener as to how best to manage and control the unnecessary costs associated with mobile devices and office printing.

Mobile Device Management Tips

One of the main high-cost areas related to mobile devices comes from excessive consumption. Mobile contract packages that are not correctly selected or monitored increases costs. Businesses should really be managing all their assets in a software package that provides usage and cost optimisation capabilities rather than just technical management of the devices. Also adopting and configuring a user policy within the software helps to control situations such as setting alerts and notifications when users are approaching their data and voice allowances. Mobile contract packages should reflect the type of user, how they work and what they need in a mobile device package.

The following areas provide some tips to consider:

Purchasing & Negotiation

Inappropriate mobile devices - All too often, users want the latest gadgets with all the coolest features. Whilst business needs to be competitive and effective with how it communicates, there is a lot of unnecessary cost when selecting mobile devices. Choosing devices that are suitable is the key as the latest tech comes at a premium!

Tariff selection - Tariffs that do not include the correct offers that reflect the type of user such as the correct level of data allowance or inclusive minutes usually incurs additional charges. Using one tool can help you to ensure that your user policies are in line with your tariff selection.

User reviews - Knowing your users roles and responsibilities helps to tailor mobile devices and the packages/tariffs on offer. Giving too much away or too little impacts on costs.

Automated orders - When done manually, mobile devices/IT equipment orders can be cumbersome. Asset management solutions will allow you to manage individual or grouped orders using workflows that include validation steps and interactions with your suppliers and users. Automating your orders and returns will save you lots of time.

Ongoing Contracts and Cost Control

Contract Monitoring - Managing the contract start and end periods is a key factor in optimising costs. Re-negotiating costs for timely contract renewals is often a cost issue for businesses. Monitoring how you use your business mobile devices and regularly reviewing whether you are on the most appropriate tariff helps to optimise your contracts. A smart asset management solution can remind you of contracts coming to an end and will help you to compare tariffs among your suppliers (or with a single supplier).

Controlling spend - Reconciling invoices from your mobile operator supplier adds cost and pressure on resource. Trying to find errors in supplier invoices results in over paying and recouping costs. This is not the most practical method of keeping costs down. Smart asset management solutions empower you to quickly and easily compare costs you should be paying (based on initial contracts/tariffs) against invoices. Typical invoice errors are billing for a user that has left the company or invoicing the wrong plan. These errors can represent between 10-15% of the total amount of your monthly invoice. This tool is invaluable to businesses as this helps drive down cost and reduce time on resource.

Security - You should also include mobile devices in your security review. Mobile phones and devices contain increasingly important information and data and failure to adequately protect that information can have serious implications for your business.This helps to avoid costs associated with security breaches and protects business reputation.

Improving User behaviour 

Policy - Have a clear mobile device policy describing how you expect employees to use business mobile devices. Cover areas like whether they are allowed to make personal calls, how they can use the phone hands free when they're driving, and when they're required to have devices switched on. This helps to improve user behaviour.

Access abroad - Allowing user access when abroad can be very costly, especially if it is not business related. So restricting use from abroad is one effective option as well as setting notifications and alerts to avoid additional costs and take preventative action against user consumption.

Communication - Using an app or dashboard to share performance figures with users can incentivise them to be more cautious and careful with their devices. Such an app allows them to make new demands on-the-fly (e.g. adding an option to their plan, mobile device repair) so you can provide an enhanced user experience.

Monitor User metrics - There are a few useful metrics you can track to take corrective actions at the user level. Asset management solutions can provide such metrics and relevant alerts according to thresholds defined in your usage policy:

User Consumption - The biggest concern is controlling user consumption. Examples are where usage consumption is far less than what the tariff actually offers, meaning you are paying too much and not using enough. Or the opposite.

Renewal/Repair rate per user - Monitor details of particular user activity such as the number of times a device was replaced, changed or repaired due to damage. Identifying these important areas helps to train and coach user behaviour and improve usability.

Printing Management Tips

Optimising office printing is actually quite simple. It requires little effort, but having the right tools to monitor and then take preventative action is key. Some tips are as follows:

Colour printing in large quantities across a printing/copier fleet is a major issue when trying to find savings. User control and again, user policies is the best way of monitoring printing costs and user behaviour in real-time.

Purchasing & Negotiation

Printer Selection - Knowing what type of printer to use is a critical factor. Choosing inkjet, all-in-one printers, laser printers and photo printers must reflect the type of business and printing requirements that meets your budget and running costs. Selecting a printer that is not geared towards your operational needs can be a costly mistake. Knowing who will be using the printer and how often it is likely to be used helps towards choosing the correct printer for the job that is cost effective.

Consumables - Selecting the most competitive supplier for printing cartridges or toners is simple and cost effective. Perhaps buying in bulk can save printing costs in the long run but requires an increase in initial capital investment. An asset management tool can compare your historic costs against new competitive offers resulting in optimising costs in the supply chain.

Color printing - Colour printing consumption is the biggest cost driver. Be sure to configure printers and copiers to Black & White printing by default. This simple act will help you avoid many prints that do not require colour saving wastage and cost.

Notifications and alerts - Configuring alerts for things like significant colour printing consumption or large quantities in the number of pages printed is a clever way of training user behaviour. Users that know they are being monitored will consider what they are doing avoiding errors or printing outside of a fair use policy.

Controlling spend - Managing invoices from your printing suppliers can be time consuming when reconciling errors. Costs will increase due to the required resource needed to perform checks. Using a smart asset management solution enables you to import supplier invoices and compare costs and usage against any invoice anomalies.

Improving User behaviour

User access - For most all users there are opportunities to set up a PIN to unblock restricted access to colour printing options and paper finish.

Preventative monitoring - Monitoring users, printing spools and queues helps to avoid issues like users printing large quantities by error.

Without doubt having a smart asset management solution to manage all your mobile devices and printing is key here to controlling spend, user behaviour and the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). BulbThings can help you optimise usage of your mobile devices and IT equipment alongside other enterprise assets so you can manage all your assets more effectively and control costs with one tool. To learn more about BulbThings please visit our website www.bulbthings.com or feel free to drop us a note at [email protected].

The Authors

Nile Zahran - BulbThings Senior Project Manager

HGV & equipment inventory fleets

In the first of this five part blog, we will provide tips on managing different types of enterprise assets starting with HGV fleets and associated equipment inventories. The purpose of these articles is to share and provide clarity on the best approach in managing them as part of an overall fleet/asset management strategy with view to helping you save time and money.

The HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) industry has been under much scrutiny in recent years due to the number of accidents involving cyclists and the need for the DfT (Department for Transport) to tackle road safety. In addition there has been much debate about the shortage of HGV drivers in the UK logistics sector with MP’s concerned that “just 2% of all HGV drivers are under the age of 25, with 60% over 45”.

This presents a potential ‘ticking time bomb’ in encouraging the recruitment of younger people into the haulage industry, as a way of solving the driver shortage crisis.

With this is mind and by following our five tips below, we hope you find them useful and effective to help save time, money and remain compliant:

Tip 1 - Driver recruitment & retention

Retaining good drivers in your fleet is a skill all too often lost. Fleets are finding they can use the data they collect on driver performance in their retention efforts. It can be used to measure driver performance on fuel economy, safe driving or other metrics, with top drivers getting incentives or bonuses.

Larger fleets tend to go beyond that with predictive modeling by using predictive analytics for recruiting and retention. This type of data analytics lets fleets not only identify the drivers most likely to have an accident before it occurs, but also those drivers most likely to leave.

Regular driver license checking with the DVLA helps to ensure that you and your drivers are compliant.

Tip 2 - Driver Management Using tachographs to record information about driving time, speed and distance ensures that drivers and employers follow the rules on drivers’ hours . Regular checking and recording of tacho data is mandatory to maintaining and protecting your company's Operators license (O license). GPS tracking is another great way of monitoring drivers’ hours but with the addition of driver behaviour and location.

Vehicle tracking systems record the speed of vehicles, which means employers can see straight away when a driver is speeding. Drivers will be aware of this so are much less likely to break the limit.

Not only is this safer for the individual driver, but the company's image will also benefit as the majority of fleet vehicles are branded with the company's name and information. Members of the public will often report incidents of speeding and careless driving and when this involves a company vehicle, such reports can quickly bring a firm's name into disrepute. Vehicle trackers can, therefore, help to maintain or improve the public image of a business.

A driver communication strategy is just as important as an asset management strategy. Do you know your drivers? Do they know you? How often should you communicate with them? One benefit of a driver communication strategy is that it increases the fleet policy compliance to help reduce unnecessary costs. Fleet policy is a crucial part of a company’s overall cost-control strategy.

“The best time to control costs is before they occur and the way to do this is by establishing policies and procedures that inhibit unnecessary spending and protect corporate assets.”

All too often, managers attempt to control fleet costs on the back end. Fleet policy provides the mechanism to curb money-wasting behaviours.

Tip 3 - Vehicle & equipment inspection checks Vehicles - Daily routine inspections of HGV vehicles is a critical safety precaution and is more comprehensive than inspecting cars and vans. Referring to the HGV inspection standards  helps to prevent:

Vehicle downtime

Accidents

Unplanned maintenance

Part of these checks help to also reduce fuel costs such as ensuring that drivers maintain properly inflated tires, avoid excessive idling, check for defects and drive the posted speed limit. Using an inspection checklist  will ensure that your vehicles remain healthy and compliant.

Equipment - Checking the operation of equipment and tools for defects prior to use is also crucial to driver/employee performance. These include inspections such as PAT, LOLER, PUWER and any PPE clothing. This helps to maintain risk assessments and audits and in turn helps you to track and control associated costs. This isn’t rocket science, but it is effective in producing time-proven end-results by the simple fact of drivers and employees complying with a written fleet policy.

Tip 4 - Maintenance & Compliance

Transport operators who choose to take a systematic and preventative approach to Fleet Maintenance Management outperform and win more business than those who choose to stick with reactive type maintenance regimes. A well-designed and automated preventive maintenance program offers resounding benefits including reduced costs per mile, advanced identification of premature failures, increased service life and enhanced customer satisfaction.  

“The value of preventive maintenance in reducing operating costs could mitigate the effects of other adverse variables like rising fuel prices”

Tip 5 - Asset Tracking

Vehicles - Many companies choose to install trackers onto their vehicles in order to improve the efficiency of their staff. Vehicles can be monitored to ensure that they are sticking to the routes and jobs that they have been assigned. A driver cannot claim to have been stuck in traffic for hours if this is not the case as the tracking device will show his or her precise movements.

Vehicle tracking allow you to respond to customers more quickly by sending the right vehicle at the right time. Thanks to GPS tracking, you can pinpoint the location of any vehicle in your fleet at any time and dispatch them to the nearest job, whilst identifying areas of reduced productivity and explore ways to increase their time utilisation.

This also means that drivers cannot make fraudulent overtime claims. Long haul drivers, in particular, often work with little supervision so could exploit their employers by claiming extra hours. Without a tracking device, there is often little evidence to counter a fraudulent overtime claim. However, a tracking device can show exactly what time a vehicle was parked up for the night. Fuels bills will also be reduced if drivers stick to the speed limit and do not wander off course.

Being able to locate a vehicle in the case of breakdown is also an important benefit of a tracking device. The sooner the location of a stranded vehicle is confirmed, the sooner a recovery can take place. The stranded driver can be found quickly and there is little risk of them having to stay with their vehicle for a long time. Additionally, from a business point of view, the benefit of a vehicle tracking system is given due to the fact that the vehicle will be found and repaired more quickly, wasting less money on waiting times.

By law, commercial drivers must take regular breaks and employers can ensure their drivers are doing so if they are tracked. This not only ensures the business is complying with its legal obligations but also benefits the individual driver's safety at work.

Equipment - Like vehicles, equipment can be also tracked. GPS tracking your equipment and or large kit inventores gives a level of insight into your business that essentially creates a positive return on your investment. To put it simply:

“Tracking equipment will allow your business to operate much more efficiently and at lower cost”

Some of the benefits are as follows:

Slash tool costs - As projects continue to become scarcer and less profitable, tool-intensive organisations are looking internally for cost improvement opportunities that can deliver immediate and significant bottom-line improvements.

Stop tool loss - Organisations that track equipment through GPS can report that tool retention increases dramatically. The reason? Tools are suddenly returned on time. Field workers start taking better care of the tools assigned to them. And tools that have not been seen for a long time "miraculously" start showing up.

Improve Materials Management - Tracking materials and consumables is a tedious but critical task in most organisations. Paper and spreadsheet systems are not only labor-intensive, they’’re also error-prone. Automating your material and consumable management processes leads to improved accountability, reduced waste, optimised inventory levels, reduced paperwork, less manual tracking and counting, and improved billing accuracy.

Streamline Tool Inspections and Calibrations -  For many organisations, strict adherence to a tool inspection and calibration schedule is mandatory and regulated by governing bodies and auditors. Companies can be held responsible if they fail to comply or are unable to prove compliance. Tool inspection and calibration in fleet management software as a functionality helps ensure that your tool, equipment and fleet repairs are always performed on time and automated with detailed records of calibrations and inspections enabling you meet regulatory requirements.

Tip 6 - Use a Fleet and equipment lifecycle management tool

Many organisations continue to use spreadsheets to manage their fleets. Whilst this is time consuming, limited in capability and inefficient, Fleet Management Systems are far more comprehensive, affordable, easier to use and user-friendly.

The key benefits of fleet and equipment life cycle management supports the focus on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). For instance, fleet management software can calculate the replacement dates of all of your vehicles and equipment and the costs associated with replacement. This will help a business replace these in a timely fashion and not be faced with unexpected costs.

An increasing trend is technicians and field agents using mobile devices to perform their daily tasks. Keeping track of these devices and controlling their usage and associated costs is an increasing challenge that an equipment lifecycle management tool can help with.

A fleet and equipment management system also ensures:

Keeping traceability of vehicles and kits to increase accountability and report adequately on costs allocation.

Automate administrative tasks (e.g. ordering/renewal of vehicles/kits, allocation to drivers, recording of damages and fines, shared/pool vehicles calendar, returns /re-sell)

Invoice reconciliation and correction

Supplier contract optimisation (leasing, fuel, etc)

Driver Management - Monitor driver behaviour and usage

Maintenance programming and compliancy control

Monitor fuel use and consumption

Up to date information on the total cost of ownership of an asset

Benchmark vehicles/equipment management activities against industry best practices

Keep all the information in one place for management to make timely decisions about assets in order to balance risk, cost, and benefit of equipment over their life cycles

Conclusion

It's important not to view fleet and asset tracking systems as a method of spying on your employees, but to see them as a means of protecting their safety as well as your business. The ability to be able to locate a vehicle or piece of equipment at any given time has obvious safety benefits. Should a driver be involved in an accident, their exact location can be pinpointed within seconds and passed to the relevant emergency services. If the accident happens to be serious, this speed could potentially save lives.

Managing your assets throughout their entire lifecycle can be complex, but having this information will help optimise your fleet. As the fleet management software automates tasks and performs all the analysis of vehicles and equipment data, it frees up employees to perform other tasks within the business.

BulbThings provides a complete fleet and equipment lifecycle management tool with an integrated fleet tracking system that uses the latest IoT technologies to collect and analyse vehicle and driver behaviour data. This collaborative web app allows you to interact with your drivers and get information about allocation, usage, critical events and costs in real-time, ensuring you are in control saving both time and money. In fact, you can save up to 20% of your fleet TCO. We’d be glad to offer you a free tailored ROI and cost savings estimate.

To learn more about BulbThings please visit our website www.bulbthings.com or feel free to drop us a note at [email protected].

The Author

BULBTHINGS DEFINES NEXT-GENERATION OF ASSET MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Make the most of your things - BulbThings, the Next Generation asset management

BulbThings defines next-generation of asset management software

Companies of all sizes to benefit from smart software that controls everything from phones to vehicles to plant equipment.

London, UK – 23 April 2015 – Bulb Software Ltd, the leading developer of smart asset management software has announced the launch of its BulbThings suite. This Cloud-based management solution is designed to help companies manage their assets ranging from handheld devices and vehicles to diverse equipment used by its customers.

This will ensure the assets are optimally available for staff to operate, it controls their costs, and it achieves efficiency gains through automation of operational and administrative tasks required to manage them.

The advanced package will provide a fully integrated lifecycle management and connected things solution.

BulbThings is an innovative software suite, which has been in development for over a year and its special features take advantage of web app technologies and the Internet of Things (IoT). Pricing starts from as little as $2 per asset.

BulbThings features the following smart features:

Single tool to manage all sorts of assets: BulbThings allows customers to understand not only the global cost but how much an individual staff member costs using their assets and it incentivizes them to operate more economically.

Simultaneous tracking and management of assets: customers can follow orders, contracts, events, and exits or returns of all assets. Bundled with the device-tracking option is real-time location and usage data.

Collaborative solution: this next-generation web app (built on html 5) provides notifications and alerts to asset managers, users and suppliers, meaning a customer can work more efficiently and in real-time.

Integrated strategic analysis: analyses data from multiple source (e.g. connected assets, suppliers’ invoices, user app) and provides managers with the insight needed to optimise asset usage and cut costs.

“BulbThings allows the management and best usage of vehicles, mobile devices, equipment and more,” commented Leslie Depond, Bulb Software Chief Customer Officer. “We know from talking to our customers that the BulbThings approach of allowing management of all of a user’s assets in one place, makes it much easier to control everything while keeping down costs. Whether your business is big or small, BulbThings will connect your assets via a single, Cloud-based solution. And as more things get connected in the enterprise, our solution will allow the tracking and management of them all.”

Bulb Software will be attending the following events in 2015 to promote the launch of BulbThings:

Tech Crunch Disrupt, New York City, May 4 - 6

Fleet Show, Silverstone, Northants, UK, May 12

Connected Conference, Paris , France, May 28

Enterprise Apps, Olympia Grand, London, June 24 - 25

For more information please contact:

Leslie Depond CCO, Bulb Software Ltd, Greenwich Digital Innovation Centre, 6 Mitre Passage, Greenwich Peninsula, London SE10 0ER UK

For more information about BulbThings product features and fees visit http://bulbthings.com (designed by Dare West http://darewest.com)

Email: [email protected]  Twitter: @BulbThings   Tel: +44 (0)800 020 9656

About Bulb Software