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Getting OnBoard
Page 24
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With a new, service-oriented approach, Scania OnBoard will work with any manufacturer and help any size of operator.
Words: Roanna Avison SCANINS ONBOARD business unit used to be known as Fleet Management Services, but changed its name to Scania OnBoard in the past 12 months because most of the products are designed to run in the trucks.
The company offers a range of services from just simple messaging through to driver logs.
Jim McGlynn, area sales manager at Scania OnBoard, says: "Whatever the client wants monitored, we will adapt the product to deliver just that.
"We offer a driver's electronic weekly time sheet withal! their activities broken down. This gives the hauliers support in the operational area."
Flow of information
The system links to the customer's back office system so they can feed out information to the drivers and the driver can feed information back, he adds.
If required, the system will also feed some information back automatically to the operator's own transport system, such as the vehicles' latitude and longitude, the odometer reading and fuel use.
Darrell Taylor, marketing manager, adds that the big change for Scania OnBoard has been the move to a service-oriented approach, rather than just delivering the hardware.
"Service means something to the operator. Even when we're talking about simple messaging, the haulier is able to control how the message is delivered.
"We can do driver activity reporting, which goes beyond the data available on the tacho. This means the haulier can track what the driver's doing in those activities. Some customers want to know the daily checks have been done and if anything has been found, or when and where the load was dropped off."
Al! the services Scania OnBoard offers are fully configurable. Taylor adds: "We're not going to tell the operator how he has to comply with our system. Instead, it's a case of finding out how our system can fit their operation."
Using this approach, Taylor says, Scania OnBoard tries to replicate a customers' operation, rather than forcing a new routine on the driver. "It's about fitting in with the established way the driver is doing his job already."
The unit can be fitted to any vehicle with standard fleet management infrastructure because it's based on XML, an open software architecture.
Even though it is owned by Scalia, the OnBoard business will work with any truck manufacturer. "We're multitruck, even though we're Scania," Taylor says. "We can't afford to be elitist."
A lot of fleets and larger operators have put tremendous investment into IT infrastructure and support, but Scania is also trying to help smaller owner-drivers keep their finger on the pulse of their operation with a fairly simple system, Taylor says.
Due to OnBoard being a Scania product, it is supported through the manufacturer's dealer network and offeredright across Europe. "The dealers will have highly specialised technicians who can fault-find in both the hardware and the software," Taylor says.
So no matter where you happen to be in Europe, you should always be able to obtain help with a Scania OnBoard system. •