Masternaut tracks community workforce at Crestra

Crestra, the community based environmental regeneration specialists, has equipped its fleet of service vehicles with a satellite tracking and navigation system from Masternaut.

The system enables the exact location of every vehicle to be monitored in real time through the web and also provides an historical record of both vehicle and driver activities. Visitors to the company's offices in Derbyshire can even view the movement of vehicles on a large screen in the reception area.

Crestra was created in 2000 as the trading arm of Groundwork Creswell a charity which works with the local community to deliver practical projects to improve the environment, create jobs and boost the economic well being of the area. Crestra is primarily involved in the delivery of environmental home improvements such as the installation of cavity wall and loft insulation in domestic properties.

Masternaut uses GPS to locate each vehicle with GPRS communication to transmit positions for viewing on Microsoft MapPoint online street mapping. This real time positional information can be accessed via any web enabled PC and activity reports can be sent to the fleet manager by email. The vehicles also have a Masternaut Driver Identification tag that uses Employee ID Keys to associate a driver with a vehicle.

"Masternaut has delivered a number of benefits." Said Darren Pollard, Construction Manager for Crestra and Groundwork Creswell. "Our crews can be tasked with up to eight installations per day and like many other service providers we offer our customers either a morning or afternoon slot but we are unable to give precise timings. By using Masternaut we are able to monitor the exact location of each crew and therefore provide our clients with more detailed timings. In addition the system provides us with the added security of knowing that both our drivers and our vehicles are where they are meant to be at any given point in time."

Masternaut also provides a range of other features that may benefit the company in the future including route scheduling, real time navigation information and driver management services. The system can also create customised reports for payroll, human resources and performance monitoring.