Fleet Management Software

It is easier for businesses having limited vehicles to manage on their own. However, for medium to large scale businesses, it is recommended to opt for unified Fleet Management Software like the one Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations offers.  Any business that owns a fleet of vehicles to transport goods from one location to another or from the store to straight at the customer’s doorstep, requires management. In the era of digitally transformed competition, it is mandatory to optimize the latest technology to stay ahead in the race. Even those ventures fall into the category of providing outsourced services for transportation.  D365 F&O can resolve fleet management challenges faced by managers such as:   Tedious administrative tasks such as invoicing, quoting, dispatching, and keeping customers up to date are time-consuming.   Fluctuating fuel costs can add a significant cost to your budget.   Unforeseen vehicle breakdowns can cause delivery delays and a downfall in productivity.   The inability to reach drivers while they are driving adds another challenge to the list.   Inability to maintain driver’s productivity as losing good drivers is an expensive affair.   Lack of coordination among fleets scattered in various locations.   Scattered data leading to poor decisions is one of the major concerns.   How Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations help your Business?  Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations delivers unified Fleet Management Software that allows you to manage buses, trucks, delivery vehicles, and a lot more. Instead of directly calling drivers, this solution enables live vehicle tracking, route progress, and even late or missed stops. It allows various robust functions such as:  Driver Management  D365 Finance and Operations helps manage your driver by automatically recording locations, trips, and driving behavior. Monitoring their activities, driving patterns and vehicle utilization becomes easier. You can easily create and manage a driver’s profile and identify if they have an expired license. You can also access alert emails/SMS for long driving hours. Check if any of them violate the rules. In addition, it also delivers insightful statistical reports on driver management.   Trip Scheduling and Route Planning   This feature of the single Fleet Management Software allows you to create trip specifying instructions and waypoints. You can schedule trips and predict optimal routes based on traffic. You can get accurate data on turn-by-turn driving directions, estimated driving time, and distance. Besides, it calculates and generates routes for the fastest travel hence saving you fuel. Route planning is automated. You can easily search, plot, assess, and print your route.   Vehicle Maintenance   With vehicle maintenance, you can create better schedules, and maintenance plans based on industrial rules while tracking vehicles needing sudden attention. In addition, you can track their history based on their type (e.g., four-wheelers, two-wheelers, loading capacities, etc.) You can also track budgeting vs actual maintenance cost.  Vehicle Tracking   The solution enables real-time vehicle location visibility and tracks historical data on routes, site visits, vehicle speed, idling, and drivers’ behavior. Moreover, you can also claim live traffic updates, excessive speed monitoring, unauthorized vehicle uses tracking, etc. You can also create personalized maps with custom geo-zones as well as landmarks.   Track Tyre Efficiency   Now you can track tire efficiency through Tyre serial number or Tyre Card No. The Tyre factsheet generated gives out all the transactions and analysis of a Tyre while current running Tyres on the vehicle with actual mileage and life are also tracked.   How Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations Favors Your Business?  Having all the above-given functionalities eventually works in a business’s favor. With driver management, trip planning, scheduling, and other features, your business is bound to see a difference in productivity.   Cuts Fuel Cost  With this software, you can manage your fuel costs by identifying every potential aspect that can help you consider every aspect that can save you fuel, be it finding the shortest route, avoiding traffic, or using the vehicle to its full capacity. It can address all the aspects that will help you save costs on fuel.   Reduces Vehicle Maintenance cost   Since the user can track vehicle history, km traveled, fuel consumption, engine hours, and other factors, you can pre-determine the maintenance requirement and take preventative measures before bigger damage.   Improves Driver’s Safety   This solution allows you to track your driver’s performance, expertise, background, capabilities, behavior, and other factors before assigning them trips.   Make Timely Deliveries   You can identify the ideal vehicle for delivering a specific item or a category of items with maximum capacity, followed by customizing routes to the shortest. This way you can boost productivity by delivering more items in a day thus helping you ease up on secondary trip planning.   To Sum it Up   Having Unified Fleet Management Software like Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations has become a necessity these days. Since logistics usually operate on razor-thin margins, profit depends upon the optimization methodologies you conduct. If you are looking for D365 Finance and Operations implementation, you can Contact Trident Information Systems, a Gold Microsoft Dynamics 365 implementation partner with a massive team of experts and a robots track of accomplishments.  

Managing your logistics and transport operations can be quite challenging especially due to the Covid-19 Pandemic which has hiked rail freight traffic in various parts of the globe. Two industry trends are majorly driving this growth i.e., customer demands after hitting shortages, and packed truckload ability. These situations lead organizations to look for alternatives to beat the rising challenges. Adopting advanced fleet management software is one of the most effective measures which logistic managers are opting for, to keep up with the competition.   There are six modes of transportations – road transportation, maritime transportation, air transportation, rail transport, intermodal transport, and pipelines. However, the logistic managers prefer one which stands up to their four requirements – the one who could transport maximum product volume at the maximum speed over the greatest distance at a minimum cost. All the companies pick their models according to these standards.   Current Challenges Faced by Logistics Companies   As of the current scenario, measures to cope with challenges need a new outlook such as adopting an advanced Fleet management software to centrally manage freight forwarding, rail, yard & fleet operations effectively. Current challenges include:   The Recovery Playbook   This pandemic has highlighted the weak spots in supply chains which have led the stakeholders to pay closer attention to supply chain resilience and seek clarity on their recovery plans. To stay adaptable, the supply chain is required to enhance its visibility, provide reliable analysis and adopt active freight procurement options.   All of the above issues need digitalization as early as possible. A good freight forwarding software would do just the thing. This is the perfect time to make investments in digital asset procurement.   Keeping up with Sustainability   Sustainable practices include route optimization and reducing half-full trucks. Companies that practiced sustainability are more likely to keep with the decarbonization movement than those that neglected its importance. Digitizing the supply chain opens up the scope for manufacturers to trace the product to their source, allowing them to grow their business keeping up with the customer demands. A suitable fleet management software can help trace the environment and energy tracking.   Single Source Dependency   As the Covid-19 pandemic hit, manufacturers who completely relied on partners and suppliers in one country, faced delays and correlated costs. For example, many supply chains witnessed failures as China imposed lockdowns throughout the country.   Experts have recommended decentralizing and diversifying supply chains to survive this dynamic environment. A suitable fleet management software that offers ERP for transport and logistics allows the manufacturers to proceed with a sourcing model which is more adaptable than the older one.   Poor Data Quality and Lack of Analysis   This is a major issue in railroads and intermodal carriers. They provide tracking data in different formats with different standardization and consistency levels. There is a lack of analysis and reporting as well, therefore reports like transmit time, future planning and cycle time are either manual or non-existent. To overcome this challenge, opting for a centralized software solution that integrates the essential features of rail depot software and yard terminal software is ideal.      Cold Chain Optimization   Since there is a sudden ramp-up of vaccination production and distribution globally, supply chains controlling temperature have been put to a test. In order to maximize their efficiency. The supply chain managers need the real-time reporting which they can get from a well-developed fleet management software, for better data visibility on cold shipments with the help of technology.    How to Find the Right Technology to Centrally Manage Freight Forwarding, Rail Yard & Fleet Operations Effectively?  Fleet-oriented companies tend to operate on thin margins. Therefore, their profit is heavily dependent on their operational measures. Look for ideal fleet management software providers who hold relevant skills and experience. Trident Information System is a Microsoft Gold Partner who provides all the necessary features a logistic company needs such as:   Real-time GPS Tracking: An ideal Fleet management software provides real-time GPS tracking, which helps in controlling spiral fleet running and maintenance costs and real-time vehicle tracking and reporting.     Manages Driver’s Behavior and Location: it tracks drivers’ behavior, previous routes, and current location. Also, it monitors the driver’s activities and driving patterns.   Trip Scheduling and Route Planning: it will create trips and navigate unique routers followed by certain instructions based on traffic.   Maintains and Tracks Vehicles: generates vehicle maintenance schedules and offers real-time vehicle locations. Monitors previous travel data like routes, speed, idling, and so on.   Tracks Tire Efficiency:  tracks tire efficiency and generates a factsheet presenting tire efficiency and so on.   Temperature Tracking: this is the feature not everyone offers; it helps with cold chain optimization by tracking the temperature needs of the goods you are supplying.    Generates Reports and Analysis: this feature offers reports customized in yards, rail, cargo, and customer levels. Generates a set of reports on real-time rail terminal status and future planning.   Transport and logistics management can be quite tricky especially during this most challenging era ever. All the challenges have one thing in common i.e., their solution – digitalization. Such organizations need a unified solution to cut time, money, and complications. Trident Information system offers ERP for transports and logistics which offers all the essentials Combined with IoT you need to run a transport and logistics business. For further information or a demo, you can contact us.