Article content
The logistics industry is the backbone of national economy. The Australian Logistics Council estimates road freight alone totalled more than 230 billion tonne kilometres in 2020-21, with expected growth of 56% between 2018 and 2040.
As the industry grows, so do the expectations of Australian consumers and businesses. Ineffective or unreliable logistics partners can have a big impact on brand image. Whether it’s a large B2B equipment manufacturer or a family-run corner store, customers expect stock to be readily and consistently available. When it isn’t, they take their money elsewhere.
Logistics organisations are meeting this challenge by providing more data-driven insights to customers. Take Tasmanian-based SRT Logistics, which is a family-owned refrigerated transport and dry grocery provider servicing the wholesale and retail food industries.
Starting with just a few trucks and a small team, SRT Logistics has grown to become one of Tasmania’s leading providers, with over 150 trucks and 380+ employees servicing every town in the state, with additional operations in Melbourne and plans to expand into Sydney.
SRT has always strived to employ modern digital technologies to ensure worker safety, boost productivity and provide more value to customers.
A history of innovation
As a family-operated business, SRT Logistics has a simple but important vision, ensuring the delivery of right goods, in the right place, at the right time. That might sound straightforward, but successfully managing logistics operations takes a lot of effort and careful planning.
To support its rapid growth, SRT partnered with Telstra and subsidiary MTData to implement a robust telematics strategy for tracking its fleet and navigating compliance requirements. That included full high-resolution GPS vehicle tracking, Engine Control Management (ECM) modules for tracking engine data (such as oil pressure and fuel consumption) in real-time and the deployment of MTData’s in-vehicle driver tablet system, called Talon.
SRT worked with MTData and Telstra to develop a robust Mobile Digital Video Recording (MDVR) solution, which is effectively a CCTV system with four cameras, fitted into vehicles.
“Compliance was a big focus for our initial technology strategy,” says SRT Logistics Chief Operating Officer Brad Hilder. “The industry was starting to move to telematics solutions to track vehicles and capture data about trips. We saw telematics – and particularly MDVR – as a way of ensuring we’re staying on top of regulatory issues and keeping our people safe.”
Extending world-class telematics by connecting systems in real-time
While these capabilities provided a transformative new telematics experience, a lack of integration raised some key pain points. Staff often had to use multiple systems and screens on different platforms and some processes were still done by paper. This was time consuming and could even lead to valuable information being lost.
SRT Logistics took things a step further by integrating its MTData telematics platform with the Freight 2020 fleet management system, which used to build and manage full fleet manifests, including key driver, vehicle, and cargo information. This allowed the organisation to create a unified digital workflow, creating operational efficiencies and a simplified user experience across multiple core business processes.
Pallet tracking was a significant challenge. Like most logistics companies, SRT leases the pallets they use to move goods. Tracking the movement of these is vitally important, as costs for replacing lost pallets quickly add up. They were previously tracked manually, with paper records being brought back to depots and entered into spreadsheets, which quickly became difficult to update and manage.
MTData worked with SRT Logistics to develop a simple job template for the Talon in-vehicle tablet system. This allows drivers to enter the number of pallets dropped off and onboarded at verified customer locations right from their trucks, at the same time they’re reviewing jobs and taking delivery signatures. This was integrated into the Freight 2020 system, eliminating the ‘double handling’ of data.
The next priority was pre-departure checks, which are essential audits measuring vehicle condition, job information, stock recording, and driver ‘fit-for-duty’ safety checks. These activities were previously done on paper and later entered into the Freight 2020 system, creating similar challenges to pallet tracking.
MTData helped SRT Logistics to digitise this process by carrying out pre-departure checks on the Talon in-vehicle tablet application. This was then seamlessly integrated into Freight 2020, making rich information about vehicles, trailers, and drivers available in a centralised location.
Moving towards a paperless, integrated ecosystem
SRT Logistics’ latest ‘real-time connect’ integration project has taken its telematics capability to the next level, as the organisation moves towards becoming fully paperless. Drivers can now enter pallet information and do their full manifest directly on the MTData Talon solution, allowing them to give customers a real-time, comprehensive view of when stock will arrive.
The pre-start check integration has also facilitated faster maintenance capabilities.
“With all of the information automatically sent to Freight 2020, when the fleet manager creates a service report all of the faults that have been logged as non-urgent come up on the service report for action,” says SRT Logistics Manager of Information Technology Michael Brown. “It’s streamlined the whole fault management process whilst improving safety and compliance.”
It’s also helped them become a more agile organisation. If a driver calls in sick at the last minute, teams have all the information they need to quickly identify other suitable drivers and pull them into a new job in around 10 minutes.
An investment for the future
While the additional capabilities have delivered a range of incredible benefits now, it’s also helped SRT Logistics think about what’s possible going forward.
“We really think about this as an investment in our future,” Brad says. “There are a lot of possibilities. There is potential for us to capture additional telematics information like kilometres travelled and feed that into our service database to help us with scheduling, provide better forecasts, or improve servicing requirements.”
Regardless of what’s next, the organisation has confidence that the Telstra and MTData teams will support them every step of the way.
“Telstra and MTData are highly professional organisations,” Brad concludes. “They always act with integrity and they’re very customer centric. They’re always trying to find a solution to our issues. Sometimes we don’t fully understand what our issues are, but the team always articulates things in a succinct way.”
