Home Healthcare Supplier Reduces Fleet Costs, Increases Driver Productivity with Netistix FleetPulse

As a leading supplier of home medical equipment, oxygen and related respiratory products in Canada, Medigas, a division of Praxair Canada Inc., relies heavily on its fleet of distribution and service vehicles to deliver critical respiratory products and services to its clients’ doorsteps. When rising fuel prices and an internal consolidation prompted Bill Beckett, national operations manager, to look for ways to increase his fleet’s efficiency, he knew that cutting vehicles or drivers was not an option.

Company type: Supplier of home oxygen and respiratory products and services. Location: Canada-wide Fleet size: 150 distribution vehicles, 100 sales vehicles Results after FleetPulse deployment*: Reduced fuel consumption by 800 litres in one month Lowered idle time of one truck by 530% Reduced total long idle time by 282% *Based on a 21 vehicle pilot

Beckett remembers, “Over the past five years we’d optimized our fleet size and there was really no room to reduce the number of vehicles we had on the road. I knew that I had to look outside the fleet itself, so I decided to see whether we could optimize our route planning or fleet monitoring systems to realize the savings we needed.”

The Bumpy Road to Savings

Medigas first explored implementing logistical routing technology as a method of reducing costs, but after evaluating a routing software solution, Beckett found that the initial deployment costs far outweighed any route planning benefits Medigas would receive. A challenging user interface also made Beckett conscious of how important it would be for Medigas to find a reporting tool that would display data in a useful format to managers.

Frustrated by the search for a routing product, Medigas next turned its attention to GPS-based fleet monitoring products that could provide real-time vehicle location information back to headquarters. The idea was that the location data would be another way to get the information required to optimize routes. Beckett, however, was leery of the live GPS approach, fearing that the high costs of cellular-based calls would once again outweigh any gains.

“Initially there was a lot of talk about going to a real-time GPS solution,” recalls Beckett, “but we looked at the high cellular air-time costs and asked ourselves, ‘are we really going to use that data?’ We decided in the end that the live data just wasn’t important enough to justify the high monthly costs.”

An Ideal Solution from all Perspectives

When Beckett heard from a colleague about a fleet monitoring product that collected vehicle data without the costs associated with cellular air-time charges, he knew he had to take a look. This led him to consider Netistix. Medigas began evaluating the Netistix FleetPulse wireless fleet monitoring system – a “passive GPS” monitoring solution that transmits vehicle data over 802.11b/g, or Wi-Fi networks, rather than costly cellular networks.

“Once we saw that we could collect the data we wanted and relay it to headquarters at no additional cost, we knew that we’d see the cost/benefit ratio we were looking for,” explains Beckett. “We could also see that the reporting was comprehensive and we knew we’d be able to analyze it and react to it on a daily basis.”

Clear Results

Having now implemented FleetPulse version 2.2 across a portion of its sales and service fleet, Medigas has already seen a number of exceptional savings. By tracking fuel usage and idling data for 21 of its vehicles, Medigas was able to implement measures that saved 800 litres of fuel over a one-month period. In addition, idling time has dropped substantially across the fleet.“One truck dropped its idling time by 530%,” notes Beckett. “At these rates of saving, the solution will pay itself off in six months.”

Beckett examines the FleetPulse fuel safety report on a daily basis to look for instances of excessive speeding or braking. He also uses the solution to track driver overtime and look for any unauthorized usage and billing.

By helping his drivers become more productive – and holding them accountable for their driving habits – Beckett has been able to realize hard cost savings along with some unanticipated side benefits.

“We’re helping drivers get home sooner and drive more safely, and they appreciate that,” explains Beckett. “At first, some of the drivers were skeptical of a tracking system, but they’ve since found it to be a win-win situation.”

Beckett is especially pleased with the way FleetPulse has allowed Medigas to demonstrate benefits on more than one front. “Not only are we getting the cost savings we were initially looking for,” says Beckett, “we’re seeing better route planning and increased driver optimization as well.”

Moving Forward

Medigas is working with Netistix to create additional customized reports to further enhance the solution and reduce manual log book record keeping.

“People today are used to having information at their fingertips, and FleetPulse has let us do that with our vehicle data. I hardly ever see a driver out of line anymore when it comes to mileage driven and I expect that will continue as we expand tracking across our entire fleet.” Beckett concludes.”