Smith Construction Group wanted to introduce vehicle tracking, security and cut vehicle idling…Masternaut provided a solution that saved an estimated 15% off its yearly fuel bill.

Smith Construction Group, which includes the skip hire arm Smith Recycling, is a civil engineering and groundwork provider, offering a variety of services to the construction sector, including a state of the art treatment centre for recycling skip waste. Serving Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire Smith Construction Group’s clients include Milton Keynes Borough Council, Parks Trust, Buckingham Group and Kier Marriott.

The challenge

Smith Construction Group has a 60-strong commercial vehicle fleet, made up entirely of heavy duty vehicles including tippers and skip lorries.

In the construction industry, it’s especially important to keep a tight control over project schedules, so being able to accurately predict arrival times for skip and tipper hire can make a real difference to operational efficiencies. Smith Construction Group decided that it wanted to offer improvements in communicating arrival times to clients and understand how its vehicles were being utilised.

Smith Construction Group had also identified a number of cases in which a customer claimed a vehicle never arrived, but had no proof to say otherwise. In addition, the company wanted to reduce instances of vehicle idling, in order to reduce fuel expenditure.

Smith Construction Group recognised that in order to do this, it needed a telematics solution that could offer them a sophisticated way of tracking its fleet of vehicles, whilst also offering added benefits of fuel cost savings.

The solution

Masternaut provided Smith Construction Group with its innovative telematics solution for vehicle tracking, driver behaviour monitoring and accurate MPG and fuel readings.

The technology helped Smith Construction Group attain a detailed understanding of its fleet of vehicles and drivers, and they can now identify areas where driver behaviour can improve that ultimately helps reduce the amount of fuel used.

By having 100% accurate readings via patented CAN bus technology rather than GPS-based readings, Smith Construction Group now has reliable and accurate figures on the mileage done by vehicles and the precise amount of fuel used.

At Smith Recycling, the recycling arm within Smith Construction Group, the system is used for communicating with customer’s to provide information on when a job can be done using Masternaut data to see which driver can get to a job first. This has allowed Smith Recycling to ensure it meets customer timescales and helps guarantee fast delivery and pick up.

The outcome

Smith Construction Group has been using Masternaut’s technology for four years and in that time has seen a dramatic decrease in instances of vehicle idling, speeding and fuel costs.

The technology has provided Smith Construction Group with detailed reports on every job done by a vehicle, detailing MPG readings, carbon emissions and idling. This information provided by Masternaut has helped to reduce vehicle idling by 87%, whilst overall the technology has saved Smith Construction Group an estimated 15% off of its yearly fuel bill. Reducing carbon emissions and fuel by creating more direct routes is helping Smith Construction Group reduce its impact on the environment, in line with its sustainability ethos.

The technology has also been used on a number of occasions in insurance claims from third parties, to prove that the vehicle in question was nowhere near the area for the alleged incidents.

The tracking technology has also been beneficial in keeping customers up to date about when a vehicle will arrive, as well as providing Smith Construction Group with proof if a customer claims a driver hasn’t arrived. The technology has helped to improve vehicle utilisation by cutting down on wasted journeys (e.g. customers not on site to take delivery), through introducing a wasted journey charge backed up by telematics data.

The quote

It’s important for us to have complete control over project schedules, so having the Masternaut system available has enabled us to give customer accurate details on arrival times for skip jobs, which has made a real difference. Not only can we give customers much more information on when a job can be done, but we’ve also got the added security if there’s ever a dispute. The system has also helped us to make savings on our annual fuel costs, which means that the system pays for itself through the savings we’re making. We’re working with Masternaut to see what else we can do with the technology and hope to implement the data into HR systems in the future.

Paul Usher, Smith Construction Group

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