Customer Success: Crookston Heavy Haulage

Background

Established 15 years ago, Crookston Heavy Haulage has recently celebrated the milestone of acquiring its 20th heavy haulage vehicle. Moving all heavy and wide loads—from plant machinery to helicopters—this business sought greater visibility of driver behaviour on the road.

Challenge

Justin Moore, General Manager of Crookston Heavy Haulage, cites an insight into driver behaviour as the driving force behind the decision to implement in-vehicle monitoring.

‘Operators are at the core of our business, and their behaviours are a reflection of our brand. We needed a system that would acknowledge their strengths, highlight and even rectify their weaknesses.’

Acknowledging that the New South Wales heavy vehicle road statistics are some of the worst in the country, Justin wanted a system that delivered constant, real-time updates on driver performance.

‘We aim to be the safest business in Australia, and we’re taking steps every day to get there. We take hiring new recruits very seriously, but wanted to extend this diligence throughout their time with us. We have cameras installed for security and monitoring, but we simply don’t have the resources to review hours of footage every day. Real-time tracking and monitoring was the answer.’

Solution

The Rollout

Crookston Heavy Haulage rolled out their in-vehicle monitoring in a three-phased process.

The first focused on real-time location tracking. This enabled management to know exactly where all drivers were on the road at any given time, which had knock-on efficiency safety benefits.

This streamlined tracking technology allowed allocations teams to know in real time exactly where assets were without distracting drivers with phone calls unnecessarily.

The second phase centred on real-time diagnostic monitoring.

“Upon receiving a report that something wasn’t right with a vehicle, maintenance personnel can simply log in and talk directly to the on-board computer to find the fault. They can then visit the vehicle armed with the context of the situation and the correct parts for a quicker repair.”

– Justin Moore

The third and most recent phase has been real-time operator behaviour monitoring by project and allocations management teams, giving management email alerts any time a driver speeds, or brakes, accelerates, or corners too harshly.

Training / Reporting

Justin has worked closely with Fleet Complete National Training Manager, Kelly Hunt, through ongoing remote training, creating a defined driver behaviour measurement system tailored specifically to each individual asset Crookston Heavy Haulage runs.

‘The after-sales support provided by Fleet Complete has been particularly impressive. Kelly’s extensive product knowledge of the program coupled with her very high intellect of the real-world environment that our fleet of oversize and overmass heavy haulage assets operate within has afforded us the opportunity to fine tune our most valuable asset—our staff,’ says Justin.

Justin notes that the flexible adjustment of features ensures that the system will grow with the expanding business.

‘The data is invaluable to our organisation, and thanks to thorough training, I’m confident that I’m able to best use the software to guide our business into the future.’

Results

Increased Driver Performance Scores

Crookston Heavy Haulage makes use of a daily reporting feature, sending a computer-generated summary to management including average driver scores. Following in depth assessment of driver behaviours and both in house and external manufactures training, Crookston Heavy Haulage now enjoys a ‘Daily Driver Score’ rating of an average 99.6.

‘That’s just one example of the huge increase that this technology is having in keeping drivers accountable and improving operator behaviour,’ he says.

These reports also detail a breakdown of performance by truck and by driver, with scores impacted by actions like speeding, or heavy braking, excessive accelerating and cornering.

‘It’s easy to see who is performing and who isn’t, and then it’s a matter of working out what we can do to improve on any weaknesses identified by the system. Unlike other software that relies on a benchmark, we’ve been able to acknowledge that every truck is different by tailoring parameters for each vehicle, giving us the most reliable data possible,’ says Justin.

“Both the benefits received from the package and the training received by the team at Fleet Complete surpassed our expectations. In short, they’ve helped us develop what we did not envisage achievable—completely accurate and real-time live asset and operator statistics measurable against all aspects of operation.”

– Justin Moore

Greater Understanding of Driver Behaviour

More than just documenting driver performance, Justin also notes that the data brought about further research into why drivers were acting the way they were.

Overall Cost Efficiencies

While driver performance was the primary concern, Crookston Heavy Haulage has also noticed an array of other positives arising since their initial decision to implement in-vehicle monitoring and tracking, including a reduction in fuel, service and maintenance costs.