Driving improvement to profit

MorCo Fresh is a wholesale food distributor specialising in daily deliveries of fresh produce. The company required a technology solution that would help optimise its day-to-day operations and maximise productivity and efficiency, both on and off the road.

The key objectives were to increase the number of deliveries the trucks could make per day and to improve customer service by providing accurate ETAs. Additional priorities included increasing driver safety, lessening mechanical wear on vehicles by reducing fuel and mileage, and minimising the number of accidents and infringement notices.

There are a number of variables, such as weather, traffic congestion and delays from earlier drop-offs, that impact on daily deliveries. The result is a cascade effect that impacts all customers along the entire logistics line.

MorCo Fresh needed a solution that would provide greater visibility of daily driving operations and alert customers to any delivery time changes. The company also required a system that provided drivers with information about traffic delays, to ensure they could select the fastest route while safely and efficiently making their rostered drops. The solution needed to extend to MorCo Fresh’s backend operations to ensure effective fleet management.

Forum Group installed Tom Tom Telematics tracking solutions to provide increased visibility of driving operations to office staff and accurate driver ETAs to customers.

The TomTom Telematics system sends updates every 10 seconds, with vehicle locations and timings, to provide accurate delivery times to customers so they can track deliveries without having to call the driver directly.

Forum also installed ECO PLUS units that monitor fuel consumption and allow MorCo Fresh to access accurate fuel usage data. This allows the company to accurately pinpoint inefficiencies in its vehicle fuel systems.

Since TomTom Telematics was first implemented in July 2013, MorCo Fresh has seen an average increase in productivity of two additional deliveries per vehicle per day.

The office team now has full visibility of the drivers and their pending workloads. The drivers also benefit from TomTom’s intelligent navigation and live traffic information to keep them moving at all times.

By using a fleet management solution MorCo Fresh is able to report and manage its vehicle and driver health and safety requirements, as well as fuel and maintenance costs. Being able to proactively monitor speeding and driving conditions, fuel consumption and maintenance expenditure has significantly reduced costs across the entire fleet.

MorCo Fresh initially piloted the TomTom system with three delivery vehicles, but the program was so successful it was rolled out across the entire fleet of ten vehicles over a 6-month period.

Nicholas Moraitis, General Manager of MorCo Fresh NSW explains the benefits; “Having never used a fleet management or telematics solution before, the improvements we've achieved have been very significant, both in terms of how we manage our vehicle fleet and service our customer base” he says.

“Forum Group’s solutions have given our business a strong competitive edge now we have real-time and historic data to maximise our whole operations. The reports that we receive via email are customised to our requirements and provide our administration staff with accurate data to cross check and manage both driver behaviour and invoicing. My experience with Forum Group and TomTom Telematics hardware has been impressive and I look forward to working with them in the future on some of the exciting projects we have on the horizon.”