Crown Paints brushes-up on cost savings with Aeromark Optimatics

Aeromark, the developer of the Optimatics mobile workforce management solution, has helped Crown Paints Ltd. to reduce both its mobile phone and vehicle tracking costs.

With a fleet of 100 delivery vehicles, Crown Paints used to use mobile phones to ensure it could be in regular contact with its drivers, and its drivers, in turn, could easily get in contact with the stores and with key customers. Whilst this provided a method of communication, Crown Paints was aware that it had a responsibility to ensure its drivers were not making calls whilst driving, something that is incredibly difficult to police. Additionally, the company suspected that efficiency gains could be made through vehicle tracking which would provide Crown Paints with visibility of its fleet at all times.

Ian Kay, Crown Decorating Centres' operational support manager, comments: "Like many companies, we were looking to economise and improve safety. We identified vehicle tracking as a way to monitor and thereby improve driver behaviour, alerting us to issues such as out of hours use of our vehicles, incidences of speeding, excessive time spent parked in lay-bys and early returns home by drivers."

Following a review of the market, Crown Paints selected Aeromark's Optimatics mobile workforce management solution that included real-time vehicle tracking, in-vehicle Dialpads and a powerful reporting and analytics engine. In addition to providing vehicle tracking, the Optimatics Dialpads have replaced Crown Paints drivers' mobile phones. The drivers can still receive calls from the stores and make calls to pre-programmed numbers stored in the Dialpad but are no longer able to make personal calls or texts, saving the company money.

"As the Dialpads are hands-free, we can feel safe in the knowledge that there is no risk of our drivers breaking the law by making or taking calls whilst driving, risking their own safety and that of other road users," Kay stated.

The deployment of Optimatics resulted in some fairly rapid benefits. Kay explains: "Since deploying Optimatics we've noticed a positive behavioural change now that the drivers are aware that the business is able to monitor their actions. They have become 'self-policing' and issues such as speeding, idling in lay-bys and out of hours use of vehicles seem to have gone away. It is difficult to put a value on this as we haven't had this level of visibility before but it is clearly beneficial."

Kay also realised that Optimatics would enable Crown Paints to track its vehicles in the case of theft and this meant it no longer needed to have stolen vehicle recovery tracker units installed. At a cost of around £120 per vehicle, per year, eliminating this requirement has resulted in a pleasing saving that had never been anticipated.

Aeromark Optimatics includes service and asset management, mobile workforce scheduling, mobility apps,GPS tracking and a powerful analytics dashboard to provide better visibility and analysis of operational data in order to save UK businesses money.

Roger Marks, managing director of Aeromark commented: "In the current economy, businesses are looking for ways to lower wastage without having to commit to high capital expenditure. The right mobile workforce management and vehicle tracking systems can offer great value for relatively low investment, and start saving the customer money as soon as they are installed. The key is to find a solution that delivers accurate, reliable data and detailed, configurable reports in order to gain total visibility of your resources."