Administration is perhaps the least popular work of any entrepreneur. At the same time, it is one of the most important parts. Think of accurate mileage registration or knowing exactly where your material is located. Solutions like those from GPS-Buddy increase work convenience and reduce administrative burdens. Entrepreneur Toon van der Linden is using it more and more.
Van der Linden has been working with GPS-Buddy for almost ten years. Before that, we had to manually read the digital tachograph with a device. For that, the cars have to come home. Sooner or later, that goes wrong. The same applies to driver registration. "Because now everything is done automatically through one portal, you don't have to worry about it and you know it's done well." An additional advantage for Toon is that now one portal is used in the office.
The XT4 tracking unit is the beating heart of the system, offering many different possibilities to assist customers. This is because the system is fully customized to the customer's preferences. You can choose from options such as CANBus and Tacho coupling, CO2, machine operating hours, planning, and much more. It is a fully modular system. "That's the beauty of the system," says van der Linden, "you can apply it to more and more things." What we use most intensively is the Tacho and CANBus coupling in the trucks. These are required for mileage and driving time registration, but also record driving behavior and fuel consumption. "It is becoming increasingly important to consider the CO2 emissions within your company. Just think of the CO2 performance ladder. This way, we have perfect visibility on that."
One of the office staff opened the GPS-Buddy portal. On the map, blue dots were slowly moving. "Those are the trucks on the road right now. If a car is standing by the side of the road often or for a long time, you still call to find out what's up. We see what employees are performing and how long it takes them to do the work. I understand the sensitivity, but at the same time it is in the best interest of our company. If we can work efficiently, then the employees benefit as well. Such a tracking system is unthinkable, everyone here realizes that. There are also advantages for the drivers. Before, you would often call to find out where a car was and whether the work was finished. Now I can see it at a glance. We have agreements with customers where we promise to change a container bin within one or two hours. Thanks to the tracking system, I can see which vehicle is closest to the loading and unloading location. You can plan and work more efficiently.
"Since we've been working with the system, employees are more conscious about handling material and productivity has improved."
The portal also contains dots that do not move. Those are the so-called RFID tags, GPS-Buddy's latest product. Van der Linden is in the process of mounting those on their equipment. This mainly involves container bins, of which the company has dozens on lease. "That saves us a lot of searching for exactly where the container is," Toon knows from experience. "It also helps prevent theft. You shouldn't think about a container getting lost. That costs us thousands of euros." The tag - which is about 10 by 3 centimeters - can be inconspicuously attached in or to an object. The built-in battery is guaranteed to last eight years.
"It saves so many administrative hours, prevents errors and ensures conclusive registration. For that reason alone, I think it has added value."
The units in our trucks have recently been replaced with new 4G models. This is all due to the shutdown of the 2G network. Unfortunately necessary, but it does prepare us for the future. We see this as just a first step and are excited about the next possibility - we were just talking about 'smart traffic lights' that turn green as a truck approaches to improve traffic flow, save fuel, and therefore reduce CO2 emissions.
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