The 'BlackBerry of fleet management'?
February 1st 2009

Crown says its new InfoLink fleet management system is as important as any truck launch – possibly more, as it marks a new chapter for the firm: Crown is now selling a real time software solution that fits any truck, simplifies fleet management, delivers operator accountability, and improves safety – saving time and money in the process. Brendan Coyne reports

Crown's InfoLink project manager, Dave Allison, reckons the system will do for forklift fleet management what the BlackBerry did for mobile email.

Quite a claim, but Crown sees InfoLink (nominated for this year's FLTA safety award) as a new phase in its history: the firm is now selling a software-based fleet management solution, when, for decades it has purely sold lift trucks and warehouse equipment. What's more, InfoLink allows it to target users of other manufacturers' trucks – regardless of whether those customers ever choose to switch suppliers.

"We believe the system is more comprehensive and more useful than its competitors because it's been designed by a forklift company," says Allison. "It covers all the essential elements of fleet management in real time, in one unit and delivers improved fleet management by linking proven lift truck application experience with customer's unique information." He says InfoLink, for now, covers five essential elements: risk management; impact management; fleet management; preventive maintenance and; time management.

Risk management "Fact: The most important safety measures start before the truck does," says Allison.

"But typically lift truck risk management systems are paper-based, if at all.

InfoLink takes care of everything: it automates inspection checklists, simplifies training and certification (with expiry reminders); identifies trucks with maintenance issues; prevents unauthorised access – and driver permission can be removed in real time, while driving, if operators abuse the trucks, or go beyond preset parameters." Impact management "Impacts effect bottom lines," says Allison. "InfoLink enables managers to quickly get to the who, when and where – identifying impacts in real time, their severity and who was driving. So those that need retraining, or disciplinary action, can be weeded out.

It's all about cost of ownership and InfoLink helps establish acceptable levels of operator behaviour, thereby helping to reduce damage to product, racking, equipment and people because of greater accountability." Demonstrating the system to journalists, Crown showed genuine customer reports of how impacts had been recorded by the systems' truck-mounted sensors, the messages that had been instantly delivered to managers, and their subsequent actions – e.g. a note saying 'driver told to slow down when unloading trailer'. In this way, the company has an instantly accessible record, should any accidents occur, to provide evidence to HSE inspectors that action was taken to address the issue, and protect itself from employee litigation claims.

Fleet management Effective and efficient truck utilisation can mean that less trucks are needed overall, helping drive down costs. "Fact," says Allison again, "throughput isn't about adding trucks, it's about optimising what you have and being able to respond rapidly to changing demands. InfoLink helps determine if trucks are being fully utilised and allows management to review inefficient processes, determining productivity by shift, truck-type and operator."

Preventative maintenance According to Allison, it's a fact that traditional maintenance can create unnecessary cost. With InfoLink delivering data on actual usage, however, maintenance is based on reality – hard figures as opposed to predictions. The flipside, he says, is that with standard preventive maintenance, harder-worked trucks may not receive enough attention.

"InfoLink simplifies scheduling of preventative maintenance, and can send, for examples, e-alerts notifying key personnel when individual trucks are approaching pre-set limits," says Allison. "It eliminates unsafe practices and costs due to overdue maintenance. You cannot do that without real-time capability."

Time management Tracking down trucks and operators in large DCs is "a complete waste of time", according to Allison. "InfoLink knows where the truck is and who's operating it." He says this means, if the truck needs to be returned for any reason, the operator can be paged via text message delivered to the on-truck display.

Simplicity "The biggest failure of existing systems is that the level of administration is too great," says Crown UK MD, Simon Emery.

"With InfoLink, settings for the entire fleet can be simply implemented – for example, a high impact or low impact threshold can be set across all trucks – in one go, and management can choose to be notified only if an exceptional incident occurs."

Low cost According to Emery, the system adds little to the cost of buying a truck, and can be retrofitted with a modest amount of work.

But for larger customers, the licence fee – one licence per organisation, rather than location-based licences – generates significant savings. The system can also be unbolted and fitted to new trucks should customers upgrade their fleet, providing further economy, and software upgrades, for customer's who sign up to the "minimal fee" InfoLink maintenance package, are free of charge.

The future Software upgrades are just part of what Crown has in store for the InfoLink. While customers must learn to walk before running, Allison believes the possibilities for InfoLink – such as extracting truck battery info, RFID and GPS tracking – are huge. "Its scope is limitless," he claims. "Fleet logistics can be controlled at the highest level from a single point. The only challenge now is to manage its potential."

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