Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports Not Needed On Defect-Free Vehicles
Sounds good for those still running paper logs but i'm interested to see what such a small change will make to the starting process of our EOBR's since pre-trip inspections are required for drive to accessible. You would think it would be an easy change but that would be too easy. Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports Not Needed On Defect-Free Vehicles
Thursday, July 25, 2013
XRS Turnpike EOBR
We started installing the XRS Turnpike EOBR's in our trucks in May. We finally got the last one installed a few weeks ago.
I think that if we had the chance to go back and do the process all over again we definitely would have done it a lot differently. For starters we would have continued to run paper logs for at least 2 weeks. Our drivers had trouble remembering to enter their pre-trips after completing them and also were forgetting to put their tablets in on-duty position prior to beginning the inspection. Secondly we would have used one of the EOBR's in our owners truck just so that we could have showed the driver actual logging and completed logs in the tablet aside from what they saw in the training videos. The training videos were made on and Android phone and we have Android Lenovo tablets which the buttons are not the same. Thirdly I don't think that we(safety department) received near the training we needed for this system it has been a learn as you go experience and a little stressful.
We were told when we were signing up that the cell coverage would not affect the drivers logging in and out and that the only thing affected by cell phone network would be how often we receive updated info in the office. My drivers will call me with tablets saying "unable to log in try again later". Try again later in this industry means loss of pay to drivers who have to sit longer than expected, customers unhappy their deliveries don't make it on time and an overall poor reputation for the company.
Phone support has been an issue aside from the really long hold times only a couple of them seem to know what is going on. I Cannot for the life of me figure out yet how it calculates miles that are displayed on the drivers log. I had thought maybe an average of the GPS miles vs ECM miles but nope that wasn't it. When I asked the phone support they had no idea either. They ended up sending me a new route tracker saying my drivers odometer was not being read correctly because it was supposedly an odometer reading but nope that didn't fit either. This is an issue I am still currently working on. So needless to say i'm still running my drivers daily routes stop by stop to match mileage and correct the logs distance because it really just seems like it throws up some random number it pulled out of a hat. I will update more on this topic once I learn more.
I emailed our rep the other day about a system that is now available that I was told when going through the sales pitch "they would be partnering up" made me think it would be included in our monthly payment. The reply I got back from my sales rep was "you will need to contact them" and my question to him was "you had initially told me that you all would be partnering up so will the monthly service be included in the monthly pricing we pay you all?". I would have expected something more along the lines of well we weren't able to get anything setup just yet but the company does offer a free 60 day trial so try that out while we work out the kinks and i'll get back to you.
I think in the end i'm going to have enough trial and error issues that I will have figured out my own solutions on that the software is going to work for us but when my company was sold on this product we were told that we would get extensive training and we would see how easy this software is to use. That just isn't the case. The training went over running reports which I had no idea about because my trucks weren't even on the road yet. I think that this would be a great product if they trained the trainer aka "me" more and maybe made a lot more suggestions for my drivers for getting started.
Has this solution made my job easier? No on the contrary it has made it more stressful and more work than I was lead to believe it was going to be. I was lead to believe this was going to be so hands-off that I worried about whether or not I was risking my job by signing my company up. I'm not so worried anymore.
I think that if we had the chance to go back and do the process all over again we definitely would have done it a lot differently. For starters we would have continued to run paper logs for at least 2 weeks. Our drivers had trouble remembering to enter their pre-trips after completing them and also were forgetting to put their tablets in on-duty position prior to beginning the inspection. Secondly we would have used one of the EOBR's in our owners truck just so that we could have showed the driver actual logging and completed logs in the tablet aside from what they saw in the training videos. The training videos were made on and Android phone and we have Android Lenovo tablets which the buttons are not the same. Thirdly I don't think that we(safety department) received near the training we needed for this system it has been a learn as you go experience and a little stressful.
We were told when we were signing up that the cell coverage would not affect the drivers logging in and out and that the only thing affected by cell phone network would be how often we receive updated info in the office. My drivers will call me with tablets saying "unable to log in try again later". Try again later in this industry means loss of pay to drivers who have to sit longer than expected, customers unhappy their deliveries don't make it on time and an overall poor reputation for the company.
Phone support has been an issue aside from the really long hold times only a couple of them seem to know what is going on. I Cannot for the life of me figure out yet how it calculates miles that are displayed on the drivers log. I had thought maybe an average of the GPS miles vs ECM miles but nope that wasn't it. When I asked the phone support they had no idea either. They ended up sending me a new route tracker saying my drivers odometer was not being read correctly because it was supposedly an odometer reading but nope that didn't fit either. This is an issue I am still currently working on. So needless to say i'm still running my drivers daily routes stop by stop to match mileage and correct the logs distance because it really just seems like it throws up some random number it pulled out of a hat. I will update more on this topic once I learn more.
I emailed our rep the other day about a system that is now available that I was told when going through the sales pitch "they would be partnering up" made me think it would be included in our monthly payment. The reply I got back from my sales rep was "you will need to contact them" and my question to him was "you had initially told me that you all would be partnering up so will the monthly service be included in the monthly pricing we pay you all?". I would have expected something more along the lines of well we weren't able to get anything setup just yet but the company does offer a free 60 day trial so try that out while we work out the kinks and i'll get back to you.
I think in the end i'm going to have enough trial and error issues that I will have figured out my own solutions on that the software is going to work for us but when my company was sold on this product we were told that we would get extensive training and we would see how easy this software is to use. That just isn't the case. The training went over running reports which I had no idea about because my trucks weren't even on the road yet. I think that this would be a great product if they trained the trainer aka "me" more and maybe made a lot more suggestions for my drivers for getting started.
Has this solution made my job easier? No on the contrary it has made it more stressful and more work than I was lead to believe it was going to be. I was lead to believe this was going to be so hands-off that I worried about whether or not I was risking my job by signing my company up. I'm not so worried anymore.
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