“You call. We haul,” says Candace Self, safety director at H&H Concrete on Demand. With the help of FleetLocate by Spireon, H&H does it safely, efficiently, and accountably. Every day.
THE BUSINESS
H&H Concrete on Demand is in the business of volumetric concrete. Instead of a traditional premixed barrel truck operation, H&H employs a different type of truck that essentially serves as a batch plant where the water, sand, rock, and concrete are mixed and poured onsite. This solution eliminates the risk of the concrete setting up prematurely, ensuring a purer mix and better final product. It’s also more efficient since drivers don’t have to pour then head back to base camp to obtain more premix.
H&H Concrete on Demand has been in business since 1984, and Candace has managed fleet operations for decades (since 2016 for H&H). From H&H headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, Candace oversees 34 vehicles and 28 CDL and non-CDL drivers who route from base camp to satellite yards to customer sites throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. With 17 volumetric trucks, five haul trucks, and a dozen or so crew trucks, Candace’s job is to ensure everything runs smoothly.
IMPLEMENTATION
H&H tracks its entire fleet using FleetLocate. FleetLocate allows Candace to easily monitor the whereabouts of hauling trucks, volumetric concrete trucks, and even light-duty pickup trucks. Haul and volumetric trucks are set up to log hours of service (HOS) for mandated electronic logging device (ELD) compliance; work trucks are outfitted for non-ELD fleet management.
Custom alert parameters for driver behavior helps Candace coach her team. She set up FleetLocate to send an alert whenever a driver goes over a certain speed. Now she can call offending drivers out with specific information. Once they realize she knows they’re going 72 miles per hour when they claim 60, she observes them gradually decrease their speed. “It’s effective, and it works,” Candace states.
REAL-TIME TRACKING
Beyond safety alerts, it was 15-second tracking that sold H&H on FleetLocate. With real-time tracking, Candace can have her dispatcher get lost drivers back on track with minimal delay. “Before, we were a minute and a half, almost two minutes behind. In a minute and a half, that driver is 2 to 4 miles down the road,” Candace says. “Fifteen-second tracking? I can’t say enough about it. It’s awesome.
“With a barrel mixer, the concrete is always turning and heating up,” so time is of the essence, Candace continues. “But we are able to send one driver directly to another location without skipping a beat. We’re ready when the customer needs it.”
FleetLocate manages driver vehicle inspection reporting (DVIR) as well, allowing Candace to route vehicles to H&H’s onsite shop for repairs and maintenance. “I do pretty much anything related to safety—any tech support for the computer system and security system. I also manage the time clock for payroll,” Candace says. “The ELD logs—that’s all mine. Any kind of truck registrations, permits, all that stuff; I do it all.”
IMPROVED BEHAVIOR
Most businesses dread rolling out new solutions to their drivers. H&H was no exception. But the ease-of-use of FleetLocate and best-in-class Spireon service made the transition a breeze. To Candace’s surprise, drivers navigate the product with minimal hand-holding.
“Say the truck is moving, but the driver is not on duty,” Candace recalls. “When I check into it, I will see they’ve logged ‘going to shop.’ I didn’t think they knew how to do that, but they figured it out. Wow.”
The change in behavior is noticeable due in no small part to how transparent Candace is about what the system is tracking. She shows them the tracking data she has access to in FleetLocate—if they’ve turned a corner too fast or if they have their seatbelt on, for instance. Although some drivers initially viewed the system as intrusive, she assures them the purpose is to keep both the drivers and the company safe, as well as improve work performance.
EVERYDAY EFFICIENCIES
Beyond ELD compliance, H&H finds FleetLocate has helped Candace’s team operate more efficiently.
Idling is common in the concrete business since trucks are constantly loading, unloading, or actively pouring. Candace has seen an estimated drop of at least 10 percent in idle time since implementing FleetLocate. Instead of idling, drivers shut off the truck and find something productive to do while they wait.
Routing drivers based on activity and location are improved, as well. Using real-time traffic, Candace can proactively contact a customer when an accident or roadway construction causes driver delay. “If the dispatcher sees it ahead of time, he can reroute the driver to make sure that he gets an on-time delivery,” Candace says. “That has helped us greatly and has been one of the main improvements in our dispatch.”
ACCIDENT AVOIDANCE
Speaking of accidents, FleetLocate has also reduced the number that H&H experiences. Candace says, “I think that’s our greatest success—that the drivers are becoming safer.”
However, when the rare fender bender occurs, real-time tracking and “show trips” views are powerful. If a driver is involved in an accident, Candace can narrow the timeframe down second-by-second for greater insight into what happened.
The vehicles themselves are also becoming safer through better diagnostics monitoring and preventive maintenance. “Being able to go in and look at diagnostics and fault codes, we’ve been able to get ahead of maintenance and schedule service before a breakdown,” Candace says.
And, with FleetLocate, killing two birds with one stone is possible and probable. Along with pre-trip inspections, H&H has reduced repairs considerably. “When I put this program in place, I started looking at engine faults, measurements, and diagnostics, and was able tell a driver, ‘Hey, you might want to have this checked out, and it’s also due for premaintenance,’” Candace continues. “‘Maybe we can add this to premaintenance and get it all taken care of at once.’”
RESULTS
After implementing Spireon’s FleetLocate, Candace Self and H&H Concrete on Demand are able to easily monitor truck data, from whereabouts to speed to seat belt use. Real-time traffic updates keeps her fleet on schedule, and maintenance is a breeze after FleetLocate’s diagnostics monitoring and preventive maintenance alerts. With FleetLocate, H&H Concrete on Demand can truly deliver on demand.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
H&H Concrete on Demand is a family owned and operated concrete contractor and concrete supplier servicing residents and contractors throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area. H&H relies on Spireon technology for its fleet tracking solutions. Find out more, visit www.handhconcreteondemand.com or www.spireon.com/fleet-management.
MODERN WORKTRUCK SOLUTIONS: MAY 2018 ISSUE
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