Case Study : How Indian Automobile Manufacturer Streamlined Their fleet Management Operations & Doubled Buyer Confidence

Overview 

An Indian Automobile manufacturer having several hundred dealerships under its belt including multiple distribution centers was keen to enable the fulfillment of inventories using their own self-distribution services. Not fully satisfied with third-party logistics services over years, they wanted full control of fleets, inventory, and most importantly cost control. GPS fleet management vehicle tracking solutions by SynergyLabs provided them all the integrated suite of tools they needed to achieve the strategic lead in their vision of streamlining the process of fleet operations. And in parallel, they also needed driver safety including maintenance while improving their profitability and customer loyalty. 

The Challenge 

With several hundred manufacturing plants across India, logistics teams or transport managers had a tough time monitoring assets from the warehouse to the distribution centers. To know the whereabouts of the assets from the warehouse to the distribution centers, they missed an appropriate system to enable asset tracking and fleet management, hence fleet upkeep posed a great challenge for them. Until they realized the manual process fell short of delivering the full visibility into the whole operations of fleet management across their fleet and supply chains, they already incurred millions of lost revenues. 

Optimizing fuel efficiency and driver hours to manage expenses was also another major challenge they faced. Having been in service since 1991, the Indian automobile manufacturing company has been enabling a safe driving experience for millions of users across India with highly efficient vehicle models, helping them build long-term customer relationships over the years. 

For the company, the vehicles and drivers were not under close monitoring- fuel waste and unsafe driving behavior like hard braking hit their bottom line. At the same time, trucks in transit that confronted major mishaps on road added to high fuel spend monthly. 

The Solutions 

GPS fleet management vehicle tracking solutions by SynergyLabs simplified visibility into the complicated process of fleet management including drivers, major operations that improved focus on managing logistics time and fuel efficiency. 

“Embedding the vehicle tracking system solutions from SynergyLabs was simple, providing us excellent flexibility and convenience to start operating within just a few days of training”, the operations manager at the Indian automobile manufacturer company. 

The core challenge for the automobile manufacturer stakeholders and peers was to eliminate the headache of manual processes that were managed through an Excel spreadsheet- majorly involved keeping track of vehicles and trip reports as well as driver logs and other paperwork. In the fast industry like self-distribution logistics operations with thousands of fleets to manage, vehicle tracking solutions have been the right component to do away with the manual process, increase productivity, and keep up with the scalability. 

An integrated suite of tools brings every significant role to the same platform that provides efficiency with enhanced features and tools. 

“Since the solutions can be plugged into the existing ERP and CRM system of the company, the company had peace of mind and helped improve operations with driver behavior, fleet safety among others”, says Safety and Compliance Director. 

• Easy monitoring of activity logs with a vehicle tracking system

Operations managers were fast to get each and every activity report around vehicle trips, driver logs including accurate distance covered by each fleet. Day-to-day basis reporting to leaders and stakeholders became effortless that improved communication and visibility for future company-wide decision making. 

• In place of a paper log, the drivers had it easy filling all details from anywhere just by clicking a few buttons, improving their productivity and satisfaction. 

• Having worked with vehicle tracking activity logs also helped improve visibility into what drivers are up to and also what they are doing on a daily basis. It helped the company to ensure the drivers remain compliant with the driving hours and save a significant amount that was wasted for idling hours. 

• Safety measures and avoiding future threats in the industry were fully ensured. Connected by real-time vehicle tracking systems, they were able to receive alerts in real-time of driving behavior. Complete visibility into the drivers’ performance- speed, braking, and acceleration was made possible. The activity logs easily communicated if there has been an infringement on safety that could probably cause risk. Accurate anticipation of threat scope and mitigating the risk to road safety can ensure reliability and trust for the Indian automobile manufacturer company. The feature can be applied to both staffs in the logistics and users of the automobiles to help reduce the probability of risks. 

• Ensuring fuel efficiency and fleet productivity 

The SynergyLabs vehicle tracking system provides a real-time dashboard to boost fleet productivity and encourage fuel efficiency. 

• A real-time dashboard provided a full report about the driving styles. It helped analyze the most effective and safe driving patterns for drivers so that the company could promote safe driving and also economical driving behavior. 
• The same dashboard made it easier for the company to see which fleet was in use and monitor their real-time activity. Using route analysis features, fleet activity was easy to track. The automobile manufacturer company benefited from this dashboard that helped them analyze mileage reports and trips covered. 

Technology used 

SynergyLabs vehicle tracking systems are designed to work with low-energy Bluetooth technology also so that important data can be fetched about fleet management in real-time across Android or iOS devices. Our fleet management solutions as we offer using vehicle tracking solutions can be customized suited to the exact requirements of the business by leveraging powerful frontend and backend programming languages such as – 

• Python
• JavaScript
• Django
• C#
• .Net
• RoR
• Angular 
• React