The Challenge:
Ease the Driver’s In-Cab Technological Experience
Savage, which operates approximately 900 dry and liquid bulk vehicles across the continental United States, needed to achieve compliance with the federal electronic logging device (ELD) mandate. They also wanted to improve fleet operations and maintenance with in-cab technology without adding new burdens for drivers or IT. The overall goal for Savage was to improve safety and reliability for its vehicles and drivers. “Our choices were about the future,” said Dallas Hartle, director of infrastructure solutions. “We were interested in not just supporting electronic logging but looking at what else we might want to do and making choices that would give us the capability to grow.”
Compliance? Yes. Data Overages? No!
Savage undertook the installation of ELDs for truckers across its fleet out of a need to comply with a federal mandate and to continue improving the performance and safety of its fleet. “Putting smart tablets in the cabs was something we had never really done,” said Hartle. “We didn’t have any expectations going into it.” Beyond the compliance necessity, one top priority was preventing a cost blowout on data usage by the drivers. “When you start putting internet-facing devices in vehicles, you worry about what it will mean,” he said. “Our biggest requirement was the ability to manage and control the device in a way that it could be used for business only, in compliance with our safety rules.”
Initially, Savage did not know what sort of costs would be involved with deploying, managing and using the tablet devices, but their team knew there were several important criteria to consider when implementing a new technology solution. “With ELD there was a mandate, and we had to put this in the majority of our vehicles,” said Tyler Snarr, mobile equipment manager. “But since we needed to do it, we wanted to get the most for our money.” That meant deploying and managing the tablets cost-effectively, managing mobile applications and supporting the drivers who need to log their hours and manage their work.