Introduction

Recently, IDEE Infocom Pte Ltd got the opportunity to work with an immerging local enterprise which provides Total Logistics Services to companies in the area of distribution and warehousing services in Singapore. Presently, the fast growing logistics company has got sixteen (16) prime movers and more than a hundred (100) trailers/chasis which need to be managed more efficiently.

Current Practice

Currently, traditional approach is used by the Operations and Customer Service Department where phone calls are made to customer/driver and estimated pick up/delivery time are given which more often than not results in unnecessary delays, unproductive route taken by driver thus lower productivity.

Challenges

Some of the key issues which the company need to address in choosing a tracking system include cost against benefit and increased efficiency. In other words, the system worth is judged simply on the basis of whether efficient savings in time and fuel more than outweigh the costs of installing and running the system. The drivers and the vehicles are one of the organization's main assets, so organization need to ensure the best from all of them.

However, one of the main challenges in taking on this project is our customer's stringent requirements for a reliable and robust Logistics Management System:

1) To be able to assign vehicle to collect goods/cargo from one location and deliver them to multiple locations and vice-versa.

2) It must also have the flexibility to allow changes to be made on an urgent basis when a last minute request for cancellation is made, so as not to affect the overall productivity of their entire fleet.

Beyond the above, our Vtrak system includes an automated SMS service which keeps both customers and supervisors in the loop on the estimated time for pick-up, arrival and delivery of the goods. This feature has proven to be highly effective in harnessing customer's relations.

For enhance security, all the prime movers are fitted with a secured system which allows only assigned driver to use the vehicle. This ensures full accountability and weed out any unnecessary and undesirable incident.