To enable the British haulage firm Abbey Logistics to plan and manage the tours of its trucks with maximum efficiency, it needed a state-of-the-art technology that was easy to operate – and found the right tool in a mobile terminal from Höft & Wessel.
“Here comes the sun,” according to the Beatles tune on their Abbey Road album. The British transport services company Abbey Logistics is less concerned about the sun than it is on making trucks of all kinds arrive as punctually and as reliably as possible. The Liverpool-based forwarding agency has made green logistics their credo. Radiating out from ten locations, some 200 trucks and 280 tankers are sent out on UK roads every day. Abbey Logistics has won numerous awards for the quality of its operations. And yet, whenever humans and traffic are involved, there will inevitably be errors and problems. For example, in the processing of freight documentation, or as result of faulty data. Or because of traffic jams. That is why the company is aiming to become even more efficient and competitive than it already is.
Amount of human involvement is reduced
A device called skeye.dart was recently installed in over 200 Abbey Logistics vehicles. The unit is a robust, easy-to-use PDA that can be integrated into an existing fleet with minimal effort, and which allows vehicles to be tracked via GPS and supports a data link as well as voice calls. “The good thing about the skeye.dart is that it reduces the amount of human involvement, so there’s less chance of human error,” explains Steve Granite, Managing Director of Abbey Logistics. Moreover, the skeye.dart is compatible with the Android operating system, so that it can easily be combined with existing software.
Operating the fleet in real time
The skeye.dart allows Abbey Logistics to go “live” 100 per cent. The coordinators based at the various locations know where each vehicle is at all times, and they are informed immediately when a consignment has been delivered. Unforeseeable events such as a mechanical breakdown can be tackled without delay. “The skeye.dart allows us to operate our fleet more efficiently,” says Steve Granite. This saves time and hence money. It also makes the operation of the vehicles more environmentally compatible, and this will further enhance the reputation of Abbey Logistics as a green service provider. At the same time as the data link to the central “brain” of Abbey Logistics improves coordination overall, the handheld from Höft & Wessel also provides excellent support in the field thanks to its easy-to-use interface: the PDA sports an ergonomic design, is fool-proof in terms of its handling, and with an integrated camera and barcode scanner it can be put to a wide variety of uses.
