Asset management is more important than ever for trucking companies in this era of significant capacity issues due to backups in the supply chain.
When a trailer isn’t rolling, the money isn’t flowing, and neither are the goods.
And according to ACT Research, orders for trailers at the manufacturer are extended through the end of the year, leading trucking companies to search for new ways to improve driver and asset utilization to increase uptime to meet growing customer demand.
Georgia-based Brown Trucking uses trailer tracking from SkyBitz on its 3,500 trailers and 700 power units to alleviate capacity issues.
Knowing trailer location, cargo status and other trailer details is “critical to make sure we are as efficient as possible and getting maximum utilization,” said Brown Trucking President Michael Silverwood. “We can’t go without tracking trailers.”
And companies like SkyBitz, Phillips Connect and BlackBerry Radar, among others that develop trailer tracking systems, are innovating their trailer tracking to mitigate two major issues in the freight industry: driver retention and supply shortages.
ISAAC recently integrated BlackBerry Limited’s BlackBerry Radar, a multi-sensor trailer monitoring and reporting system, into its ISAAC Open Platform ELD to provide fleet owners greater visibility into their operations, allowing them to better optimize their driver hours and improve trailer utilization. The combination gives an aggregate view of near real-time data on tractor and trailer operations, including route and mileage, temperature, humidity, door open/close and cargo load state, in a single console. This helps to better manage and automate dispatch operations, driver messaging and hours of service compliance to boost productivity, improve asset utilization, reduce costs and improve services to customers.
