FLEET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (FMS)

Transcription

1 FLEET MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (FMS) A Brief Overview A Brief Description of the Components of a Full-Blown FMS A fleet management system is a complex system that encompasses features that covers the efficiency measurement of vehicles of the fleet, to the timeliness and customer services, to the behavior of vehicle operator. A full-blown system utilizes data from various sources, which includes but is not limited to information from a GPS system, manual data entry and data from other automated sources, for example, an intelligent refueling station. A sample set of information available from such a system is as follows. a. Vehicle Start / Stop report. b. Fuel Consumption. c. Tire changes and utilization. d. Tire pressure though out journey. e. Speed and Speed limit reports. f. Route taken / Monitoring. g. Driver identification. h. Driver driving style. i. Destination arrival time versus schedule. j. Refrigerated Carrier temperature report. k. Vehicle maintenance records / Monitoring. l. Vehicle Scheduling. m. Cost of vehicle operations. To support such a FMS, IT infrastructure is required. Apart from a database system, the infrastructure requires a Geographical Information System and maps so that vehicles can be located and routes identified. It is obvious that a full-blown FMS requires heavy investments and requires complex system management. For this reason, most companies find it difficult to justify for the implementation of such system. 1

2 Starfish emat (TF) Overview Starfish, Enhanced Mobile Asset Tracking with Telemetry Function, is the newest and one of the most advanced systems in Asset Tracking Technology. It uses the GPS system together with the GSM (GPRS/ICS - Internet Communications Services) infrastructure to bring back information to central control. Once back at the central control, the data from starfish will join all other pieces data related to the vehicle and the driver. The Fleet Management System programs will then process it and present the information in various forms so that different individuals in the company can use it. The Telemetry Function of Starfish means that it can bring back information of any measurable quantity from the vehicle. Some examples would be temperature in a refrigerated container, tire pressure, weight of the cargo it is carrying. Generally, any electronically measurable quantity can be sent back by starfish to central control. Communications In any asset tracking system, the communications infrastructure is crucial. This is because it is this that brings information back to central control. Starfish uses the GSM infrastructure and in particular the GPRS/ICS (Generalized Packet Radio Service / Internet Communications Services) function of GSM. This function allows mobile phone users to send Multimedia Messages (MMS) and to surf the Internet. Starfish uses this mode of communications because it gives the best priced versus communications speed and availability to the fleet managers. 2

3 Starfish and Fleet Management Systems Starfish is responsible for bringing back data from the vehicle to central control. The standard information that Starfish sends would be Location Information about the vehicle (Longitude/Latitude), Altitude, Speed and Distance traveled between two reported points. This information is derived purely from the GPS system and no connection to the vehicle is required apart from the power supply. To bring back other information, for example, temperature and tire pressure, additional equipment is required and connection to the vehicle s electrical systems is required. The decision as to what information is required apart from the standard information depends purely on what the company wishes to achieve with the fleet management system. In most cases, the standard information is all that is required to start with and to evolve the system with time. Call Centers Starfish do not operate with a Call Center. This fact alone would mean that Starfish is the best candidate for Fleet Managers. There is no third party involved in the monitoring. Central Control, Information and reporting Similarly, as to what is required at the central control depends purely on what the company wishes to achieve by implementing a fleet management system. Full-blown systems are very costly and may be overkill for most operations. Furthermore, unless there are excruciating reasons, for example, hazardous material handling, most operations would not require the full-blown Fleet Management System. Simple Fleet Management System Starfish provides a preconfigured and simple fleet management system over the Web. Most operations, in particular, those with small fleets, require only basic vehicle tracking features and reports to manage their fleets. It attempts to address the most common problem with fleets. These are as stated below. a. Where are my vehicles now? b. Were they speeding? c. Are my vehicles in places that they should not be in? d. Is my staff being truant when they should be working? 3

4 Tracking a fleet with Starfish on the Web The web allows the owner of the fleet to see all its vehicles on a satellite picture. He can than identify which vehicle he is interested in tracking and selects the tracking button. This will bring the owner to maps and satellite picture of where the vehicle is located. The star markers identify the location of the fleet. These are clickable and will show details about the vehicle. 4

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6 A map help identify the location of the vehicle. A satellite picture is shown so that the location of the vehicle can be viewed. Also there is a table that describes the location of vehicle. So far the owner is able to view the location of the vehicle as it is now. The route in which the vehicle took is also known by selecting the view history link. The yellow dots are points when transmission took place and is clickable. It will show information about the vehicle at that point. Data Archiving There is a function to download data from the web into a comma delimited text file that can be imported into any Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Access for storage and further processing. The starfish system will keep two months of information for each vehicle. Once in a spreadsheet all sorts of reports can be generated, for example, speed limit reports. 6

7 Big Fleets To manage a big fleet would be difficult with features provided over the web. This is basically because of the large numbers of vehicles involved. We consider any system that exceeds twenty vehicles to be a big fleet. In order to handle big fleets, a starfish sub-server is recommended. The starfish subserver is a server located at the customer s premises. This would be like the diagram shown on page 2. It would be the platform that can achieve a full-blown Fleet Management System, if required. Where it is different from the simple fleet Management arrangement is that data from the various vehicles is streamed back to the sub-server in the customer s computer room. The data is than keep on a SQL database and can be archived for as long as the customer wishes. No download is required. This streaming process is completely automatic. Computer programs Another area where this arrangement is different is that computer programs can than be written to execute on the sub-server to perform the necessary processing to produce reports, alerts, etc. as required by the customer. There is no standard system here. It has to be customized and may differ from customer to customer. Maps Maps will be available via the same portal as in the simple fleet management arrangement. This would save cost and at the same time up-to-date maps would be always available. There is no need to buy updated maps on a regular basis. When the maps are updated, it is immediately available. Furthermore, the portal provides maps for 60 countries. Starfish for Big Fleets There are two methods in which GPS/GSM devices bring information back to the central servers. One method is SMS. This method is the most common and most systems in the market use this method. With this method, the location of a vehicle is only available on demand or on an event-triggered basis. Starfish uses GPRS/ICS and not SMS. This means that data is streamed back constantly. With this method a history of a vehicles movements can be built and kept. It also means that when central control wants to know the location of every vehicle, it is immediately available. It can also do intelligent searches to find vehicles in particular areas, like, in Selangor. Doing this with SMS is cumbersome because an SMS must be sent to all vehicles in the fleet, wait for their response, and then determine if any of them are in Selangor. 7

8 Therefore, Starfish s method of using GPRS/ICS is best suited for the management of big fleets. Here is a comparison between a SMS based system and a GPRS based system. GPRS/ICS Based System (Starfish) 1. Streams location data back periodically and when special events occur. 2. Cost only 10 cents for characters of data. Flat rate, unlimited data transfer pricing available. 3. A permanent virtual 48K bits per second link ensures immediate data transfer. 4. No limit on the amount of data that can be transferred. 5. Data streaming means data is already available in the control center s database when it is required. 6. When the vehicle is parked in the basement of a building and GPS and/or GSM signals are no longer available, the last point outside the building is available because of data streaming. The system will know that it is in a particular building. 7. A simple customer s interface can be built to allow customers of the company to locate their consignment in transit as the data already exist in the database. This is particularly useful for transporters. SMS Based System Location data is only sent back on demand. Special events may trigger a SMS message back to central. Cost 1 5 cents for a packet of 180 characters of data. No special pricing available. Latency of varying periods for a packet of data to be transmitted dependant on the GSM system load. Typically 15 seconds and may be as long as 2 hours in Malaysia. Limited to 180 characters per packet. Longer data messages must be broken into multiple SMS messages. A SMS must be sent to one or all vehicles and their response is required before their location is known. When the vehicle is parked in the basement of a building and GPS and/or GSM signals are no longer available, any SMS sent to request for location would get a negative response or no response at all. The vehicle is effectively lost. A similar system can be implemented. However, the customer will never see the location of the consignment at that point in time. This is because an SMS must be sent each time an enquiry for its location occurs. This may be too expensive an option to be made available. Point 6 is a significant reason why SMS based systems are not suitable for Fleet Management, particularly when the fleet is concentrated in major cities where vehicles are parked mainly in basement car parks. 8

9 Business Impact of a Starfish Based FMS Firstly, the most attractive proposition of using starfish is cost. No major infrastructure is required, even in a Big Fleet scenario. This is because most of the work of managing the devices in the vehicle is done by the Starfish Servers. The sub-servers are basically data storages and execute programs customized for the clients. The other reason for the attractive pricing is that maps are already available in the system, provided by the starfish servers. There is no need to purchase maps or a Geographical Information System in order to locate a vehicle. For businesses requiring only the simple fleet management system, all that is required is a Personal Computer with an Internet connection. Secondly, Starfish s principle of operations would minimize if not eliminate most of the tracking problems that plaque fleet management systems. It would be difficult to lose a vehicle with Starfish s GPRS/ICS data streaming strategy. This is a common problem with SMS based tracking devices. Thirdly, with a Fleet Management Systems in place, even with a simple fleet management system, vehicle owners can have better control over is vehicles deployment and usage. A great amount of accountability is introduced here. Without a system that can track the whereabouts of the vehicle and its traveling history, vehicle owners rely completely on the integrity of their staff. Better productivity from both vehicles and staff can be expected here. Fourthly, for transporters, an extension of the system that would provide real time status reporting of their consignment can be built. Typically, this is a web-based system that allows their clients to track the progress of their consignment in transit. Until now, this function is only available in full-blown fleet management systems. Improving customer relationship with simple features like this would mean opportunities for the business to grow. Fifthly, Starfish s ability to perform telemetry function would help greatly in the transportation of perishable goods, in particular, those that require refrigeration. By bringing back information like temperature that is paramount in making sure the consignment is not destroyed in transit, would assist in limiting losses incurred because of operator carelessness or equipment failure in the vehicle. Alarms can ring at the control center that will prompt and early intervention to save the consignment. Conclusion Starfish s principles of operations lend itself to be used as a device for Fleet Management. It handles probably the most difficult part of any Fleet Management System and that is to bring back data about a vehicle (or asset, including people) back to a central computer so that it can be effectively managed. Here, we present Starfish as the better device to use. 9