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Happy New Year! Since today is the last day of the year before we all get ramped up towards a productive 2016 and after finishing out top 10 most read articles in each of our five main categories (Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Logistics, Transportation, & Freight) we wanted to give you all a treat and list the top 50 most read articles of all time from the Cerasis blog.
When I hit publish on today’s blog, we will have published 659 blog posts on the Cerasis blog, with our very first blog post coming nearly 3 years ago to the day.
If you are a regular reader (or heck even if you are not) what you will see from our blog is a focus on education. This is in part due to the fact that as a third party logistics company, focused on efficient and strategic transportation management solutions through technology and services, it is vital for us to educate our shipper customers and our team in order to continually improve and always provide value.
We have also featured on our blog over 90 guest bloggers featuring voices from experts in all of the five main categories who have talked about such subjects as the Skills Gap, Reshoring, Technology, Innovation, STEM, the Maker Movement, Lean Manufacturing and Supply Chain, the Internet of Things, and much much more. I encourage you to use the search bar to the right or the blog category picker to explore many topics in depth. If you yourself would love to contribute your thoughts to our blog, feel free to contact us with an idea.
We have also now published an e-book, put out several white papers, and held several webinars. By clicking on the respective links, you can access this information as well.
We will feature the 50 most read articles of all time from the Cerasis blog by covering the 50th most read counting down to the most read blog of all time. We will simply list the blog title with a hyperlink for easy access. These 50 articles truly cover the gamut of our categories, but what is clear is that people love Infographics and they love trends.
Without any more words or ado, here are the 50 most read articles from the Cerasis blog of all time!
We hope you enjoy and continue to enjoy our blog posts and articles! From everyone at Cerasis to our customers and the manufacturing, supply chain, logistics, transportation, and freight community, Happy New Year!
Global Positioning System (GPS) is a navigation system that depends on satellites to locate vehicles anywhere on Earth. It was originally developed by the United States Defense Department at an unknown cost. The first such satellites were launched in 1979. A few years later, the GPS system was made available for civilian use. As of November 2013, there were 31 GPS satellites in operation.
If you operate a fleet of vehicles, chances are you already take advantage of GPS technology to direct your drivers from one address to another or to avoid traffic. GPS devices certainly are useful for these purposes, but by extending the use of these devices and applying them to as many situations as possible, you can take an already helpful tool and make it even more useful.
GPS technology in the vehicles of your fleet can be useful in the following areas:
Fleet Tracking
If you operate a fleet of vehicles, it is a tremendous advantage to know where your vehicles are at all times. You can be certain that your drivers are doing exactly what you are paying them to do by monitoring the location and speed of your vehicles. This can be done unobtrusively, so your drivers do not feel like you are controlling or spying on them. Fleet tracking offers many other advantages, and GPS technology is quite cost effective.
Driver Training
When your business operates an entire fleet of vehicles, the efficiency of each vehicle is important. Less-efficient vehicles cost more to operate. The most important component of your vehicle isn’t the engine or transmission, per se — it’s your driver. Nothing else in your vehicle has as big an influence on efficiency as your driver. A driver who has a lead foot or is hard on the brakes costs you money in fuel and maintenance expenses.
It can be quite expensive to alter or replace vehicles to increase fuel efficiency. Altering driver behavior may prove to be much easier and cost effective, and it is not hard to do.
With modern technology, it is not difficult or expensive to monitor the efficiency of your drivers. By taking a few more simple steps, you can reward drivers who are driving efficiently, and give less-efficient drivers an incentive to improve. Post a prominent leaderboard in a common area where all of your drivers will see it every day. Offer daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly awards to your most efficient drivers. They quite likely will enjoy the competition, and will develop a good-natured rivalry that benefits you and your business in the end.
Stolen Vehicle Recovery
Vehicles are stolen from time to time. When and if this happens to a vehicle in your fleet, you will have a much better chance at recovering the vehicle if it has a GPS tracking device on board. Recovering the vehicle as quickly as possible minimizes the risk of damaged property.
Efficiency Tracking
When the information provided by your GPS tracking system is integrated with performance information from your vehicle’s engine computer, it opens a world of possibilities. The GPS device tracks what your vehicle is doing — whether it is climbing and descending hills, making a lot of stops and starts, or operating for extended periods of time at excessive speed. Your engine computer tracks things such as throttle, brake position and gear selection. Combine these two sources of information, and you will have a powerful tool at your disposal.
This tool can alert your maintenance personnel to possible problems before they occur. If your engine is struggling in a particular RPM range, it may indicate a problem with your ignition system or transmission. If your engine is running hot, this may alert you to problems with the cooling system. A computer database can integrate all of this information into a sophisticated performance management tracking system. By alerting personnel to small changes in the efficiency of your vehicles, many malfunctions can be fixed before they cause extensive damage and require costly repairs.
Improved Routing
Most GPS units offer the capability to arrange stops on the most efficient route possible. When you are planning routes for your drivers, use computer technology to ensure that the routes are as efficient as possible. One large freight company even plans its routes to avoid left turns, so their trucks spend less time stopped at traffic lights.
The author of this blog is Robert J. Hall. Mr. Hall is president of Track Your Truck, a leading provider of fleet tracking systems and software for small and midsized companies.
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