Author: Ryan Parker

 

 

 

 

From the 1^stof October the chain of responsibility legislation has been broadened in scope in order to more effectively address unsafe practices related to Heavy Vehicles on Australian Roads.

The focus being to reduce pressure on drivers, and to expand the sphere of accountability to include the off-road parties which fall within the supply chain of the goods being carried.

This has been done to encouraging supply chain participants to adopt practices which support safer driving through the identification and removal of unsafebusiness practices which lead to driver pressure and subsequent risk.

Organisations are encouraged to be innovative and adopt intelligence platforms which will facilitate safe business practices and in turn greater productivity,

Parties in supply chain who utilise heavy vehicle transport to move their goods have a duty to ensure the safety of their transport activities.

These parties include but are not limited to:

• an employer or prime contractor of a driver
• the operator of the vehicle
• a scheduler for the vehicle
• a loading manager, loader or unloader of a vehicle or any goods in the vehicle
• a consignor or consignee of any goods for transport by the vehicle

With the expansion of the Chain of Responsibility legislation, its application has expanded beyond the driver’s direct responsibilities of fatigue, speed, mass and dimension management and loading requirements to encompass the following example scenarios –

• situations where schedulers place unrealistic timeframes on drivers
• loading mangers whose practices for loading and unloading impact on driver available driving time.
• Other situations which may put the driver under pressure to speed or exceed their fatigue requirements for work and rest.

Business executives are now expected to –

• understand how to operate transport business safely, understanding the inherent hazards and risks
• resource appropriately to reduce or remove risk, including the implementation of safety management systems.
• review contracts to ensure that they do not require drivers, or the supply chain team to break the law in order to fulfil requirements.

Where an incident becomes an issue for the court of law to resolve, each party in the chain must demonstrate that they took all reasonable steps to prevent the contravention of the legislation or show that they have done everything that is reasonably practicably and could not be expected to have prevented the contravention from occurring.

Safety management system are recommended for implementation in order to eliminate or minimise potential risk, Implementation demonstrates that an organisation doing all that is practicable to ensure safety as a party in the supply chain.

Systems must be coherent, workable, effective and scalable and must encompass the areas of –

• Safety Policy & Documentation
  • communicating to staff about safety and development of policy documents.
• Safety Risk Management
  • Hazard and Risk identification, Documentation and Reporting.
  • examples being, fatigue, rostering, equipment maintenance
• Safety Assurance
  • Process of investigation into hazards or risks, with a view of continuous improvement.
• Safety Promotion & Training
  • Regular communication and training on areas such as safe processes, mass management, impact of over speed and fatigue.

How can INTERDEV help? 

INTERDEV’s xmotion workforce platform can form the basis for a transport organisations Chain or Responsibility implementation assisting business owners, operational teams and drivers with access to the information they need to run an efficient and safe business.

For Operations

• Safe & Efficient Scheduling of jobs, trips, journeys.
• Driver Rostering
  • Drive Fitness for Duty
  • Driver Induction & Training Register
  • Leave Management Process
• Driver Timesheet
  • Breaks
  • Expenses
• Vehicle Maintenance Event Management
  • Vehicle Safety Checks.
• Incident Review Workflow
• Hazard Review Workflow

Drivers benefit from using one application to manage their entire day from start of shift to completion.

• Start and End of shift events, Breaks, Delays
• Fitness for Duty
• Vehicle Safety and Compliance
• Job Information include safe workflow management.
• Incident Reporting
• Hazard reporting
• • Breaks
  • Delays
• Journey Management Plans
• Site Access Documentation
• Policy Documents stored locally

* Note, we do not try to replace existing finance or payroll systems, our platform is designed to integrate into these systems together to bring a single view of the data you need to run your business.

 

For more information on Chain of responsibility & safety management systems visit – nhvr.gov.au/sms

 

To find out more, on INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

 

 

With the upgrade to the default mapping client on the drivers tablet in the field, INTERDEV can now specify routes for drivers to follow, which address issues relating to Mass, Dimension or Dangerous Goods requirements.

With the utilisation of Vehicle Types and setting of dimension and mass restrictions within workforce server for a vehicle, workers in the field can now benefit from accessing the safest routes, when the utilise the inbuilt navigation utilised by the workforce client.

This is done through the association of a vehicle ID with a vehicle type.  When a driver starts their shift, they login with their details and the vehicle identifier.  This then passes the vehicle route requirements through to our mapping provider to ensure that the latest, safest and most efficient route is provided to the driver to follow when the request a route between two locations in order to complete a job.

Hazard Goods types can include:

[explosive | gas | flammable | combustible | organic | poison | radioActive | corrosive | poisonousInhalation | harmfulToWater]

To find out more, on INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

 

 

INTERDEV’s workforce platform is design to provide business owners, and operations teams real time updates on job progress.  Extending the real time view of job progress provided by the scheduler is the Management Dashboard interface which enables business to build a single pane view of business performance. Due to the flexible design of the workforce platform, any data that passes through the platform can be reported on, or incorporated into a dashboard widget.

If we can see a revenue generated figure per job, we can report a real time revenue view for the day, week, month, year.

Common dashboard widgets include

• product volume delivered
• revenue billed
• jobs completed, jobs to go
• on time job completion
• top suburbs or regions
• top products.

Data can be represented using, pie charts, bar charts, gauges and tables.

 

 

 

workforce client nows supports incident or hazard reporting as part of the available features within the workforce client for Android.

Drivers don’t need to leave their job application to capture details regarding a hazard identified, or incident which has occurred during their work day.

Hazards can be recorded as part of the job, with classifications for the hazard type being configurable through the workforce platform.  Hazards can be configured to trigger email alerts or SMS or MMS events, depending on your business requirements.

Operations side, a Hazard review module enables operations teams to review hazards raised from the field and notify the relevant parties to ensure they are rectified.

Likewise the Incident reporting interface can be customised to enable a user selectable list of incidents to be reported.

The devices camera can be used to capture photos of the incident or hazard to be escalated.

Review workflows can be created within the workforce platform to enable operational review, and closure.

To find out more about INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

 

 

 

Interdev’s workforce client has been updated to include customisable forms, this enables the operations teams to change questions in the forms, and have them dispatch to field workers for completion on their next login event.

Common deployments for forms include replacing rigid, pre-driver fitness for duty check lists and vehicle safety and compliance checks.  Often with existing solutions for vehicle safety checks, you have a one form fits all vehicles, which is not ideal for large fleets.

With workforce, a form can be triggered based on the vehicle type associated with the vehicle identifier used at login by the driver.  This enables vehicle specific safety and compliance checklists to be dispatched that match the vehicles specific requirements.

Form can also be embedded with the workflow of jobs, to ensure that within a job key safety activities are undertaken either at loading, delivery stages, or end of day.

The screen shot below shows an example of a dynamic form, data that can be entered is defined as the form is created within workforce.  Data types can be check lists, text, number entry, drop down boxes, distances, times and dates.

 

INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

 

 

 

 

workforce’s flexibility and modularity enables business to adopt some or all of it capability.  With the use of the integration hub, we can receive order or job data from your existing platforms, and make this available for scheduling and dispatch to workers in the field for completion.

For business who are expanding from paper based systems and an accounting platform such as MYOB Accounts Right or Xero, workforce can provide Order management capability which address

• Products
  • Product Codes, Descriptions, Unit Types, Pricing,  Unit Conversion rates
• Cartage Rate Management
  • distance based, unit or volume based
  • region based – suburb, town or configurable regions.
• Quote Creation
  • Simple Quotes
  • Customer specific price lists
• Customer Management
  • Contacts, Locations, Call Activity, Order History

Utilising the workforce quoting capability simplifies the conversion of quotes into orders, and the subsequent orders into jobs.

The system can support a multitude of industries,

• Sand and Soil Haulage
• Skips and waste Pickup
• Bulk product haulage.

 

 

 

 

workforce timesheets module has been designed to add to remove the headache of paper based timesheet from your business, and simplify the logging of events within a drivers day such as breaks, delays, truck washing and expenses.

With workforce timesheets, we are not trying to replace your existing payroll platform, what we are doing is reducing the manual data entry that occurs in the field and by your operations teams.

Integrating timesheets into the workforce field application makes sense, as it means that a worker in the field can complete their entire day in a single application,

• Shift Start
• Fitness for Duty
• Vehicle Safety and Compliance
• Job Details
• Job Process
• Incident Reporting
• Hazard Reporting
• Breaks, Delays and Shift Events
• Expenses
• Process Documentation
• Shift Completion.

Timesheet data is presented within the workforce platform for review and approval by managers.  With the triggering of approval, the data is pushed to your existing payroll system using SIgH, our integration platform which can package the data up to go through a pre-determined API, or export as a CSV file for import into the payroll platform.

The screen shot below is the job summary screen, it enables a drive to see at any time, how their time has been spent for the day. On completion of each day the driver sign’s off the time sheet, acknowledging the information submitted is true and correct.

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERDEV’s workforce 1.0 latest scheduling interface enables business to take control of the their delivery scheduling to increase the efficiency of fleet use.

In a single view, operations team are able to see –

• Available Vehicles, Drivers and Shift Hours.
• New jobs to be scheduled.
• Jobs already scheduled.
• Job details, which are shown in the left panel.
  • Customer Details
  • Items to be Delivered
  • Job Activities
    • Allocated Pickup Time
    • Travel Time to Delivery Location
    • Time to Deliver
    • Travel time to Next Delivery / Pickup Location
  • Job Events
    • Log of all activities recorded against the job since creation.

As jobs progress schedulers can see the jobs status change by colour flagging jobs in progress, jobs that are at risk of running behind and jobs that are complete.

If your challenge is schedulers allocating too many jobs to your delivery teams, because they do not understand the time it takes to travel between your depot and delivery locations, then workforce’s schedule view will assist your business to improve customer satisfaction and ensure efficient use of your fleet.

With the new Chain of Responsibility legislation that comes in to place in October 2018, responsibility for un-achievable schedules will now implicate the behaviour of the schedulers and the rest of the business.

INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

INTERDEV’s workforce platforms enables greater customer communication through the use of event triggered SMS notifications to customers.  Great communication with customers ensure high levels of first time delivery, greater delivery efficiency and  great customer satisfaction.

In the implementation example, the first message was triggered when the jobs are allocated to a day for delivery.  The text of the message within the workforce administration console.  Message is sent via the workforce Messaging Hub.

These messages are generated on the day of the delivery.  The first message is generated when the delivery job is dispatched to the drivers devices.   A delivery window is allocated based on jobs order in the delivery run and the estimated time of arrival.  The period of the delivery window can be configured through the administration consol

 

The final notification message is triggered then the driver completes the preceding job, the time can be pre-configured or calculated based on estimated travel time from the current location to the next location.

 

Contact the INTERDEV team to find out how we can assist with improved delivery communications with your clients.

email [email protected] if you would like to learn more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERDEV’s workforce platform is designed to integrate with your existing business applications enabling seamless movement of delivery, driver and vehicle information between operations teams and the field.

Being a modular platform, adopters can utilise some of all of the available modules.

Often we find that ERP platforms often do an excellent job of manging the product or service delivery workflow while the activity is inside the business is efficient, getting the delivery information to the workers can be cumbersome, and often exclude the ability to mange the actual driver and vehicle resources.

Workforce has been designed to be modular and customisable, enabling business who see the delivery process as a key part of their competitive advantage.

Our driver application, is underpinned by our workflow engine which provides us with the ability to manage a drivers workflow in the way that you require from the moment he commences his shift through to completion.

As shown in the diagram below the workforce driver application is able to manage the everything a driver needs to do from capturing…

• Start of Shift
• Fitness for Duty
• Vehicle Safety and Compliance Checks
• Delivery Job Information
• Driver Messaging
• Incidents
• Shift Breaks
• Shift completion

This information is available for review within the Workforce platform where it can be reviewed before pushing to your existing ERP, Accounting or Payroll systems.

email [email protected] if you would like to learn more.

 

INTERDEV’s workforce 1.0 Scheduling interface enables business to take control of the their delivery scheduling to increase the efficiency of fleet use.

In a single view, operations team are able to see –

• Available Vehicles, Drivers and Shift Hours.
• New jobs to be scheduled.
• Jobs already scheduled.
• Job details, which are shown in the left panel.
  • Customer Details
  • Items to be Delivered
  • Job Activities
    • Allocated Pickup Time
    • Travel Time to Delivery Location
    • Time to Deliver
    • Travel time to Next Delivery / Pickup Location
  • Job Events
    • Log of all activities recorded against the job since creation.

If your challenge is schedulers allocating too many jobs to your delivery teams, because they do not understand the time it takes to travel between your depot and delivery locations, then workforce’s schedule view will assist your business to improve customer satisfaction and ensure efficient use of your fleet.

 

 

 

Last week, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 Mobile is dead, if you have had your rugged hand held devices for a few years, and they are running windows, then they are probably running, one of the following windows operating systems with the end of life dates coming soon…

• Windows Embedded CE 6.0 will be end of life – 10th  June 2018
• Windows Embedded 8.1 HandHeld will be end of life  9th June 2019
• Windows Embedded 6.5 Hand Held will be end of life 14th January 2020.

2020 sounds a long way off, however if you consider the age of your devices in the field, you probably need to be building out a plan today for the day when they will fail, and you will not be able to repair them or replace them with a device which supports Windows Mobile.

INTERDEV has solutions for ANDROID and IOS.

Both operating systems offer a  familiar smartphone experience, making the transition easier as it is familiar to almost any user.

Mobile device manufactures who have come from the rugged handheld space such as Honeywell and Zebra, have chosen Android, however Honeywell, also supports IOS by offering a range of solutions for enabling rugged barcode scanning capabilities to iPhones and iPads.

Samsung the leader in consumer Android products also has a product which is a cost effective rugged tablet.  INTERDEV is a Honeywell, Zebra and Samsung ISV partner,  we can assist you with selecting the right device for your business.

To find out more about the demise of Windows Mobile 10 check out the following article – Microsoft to stop developing Windows 10 Mobile to find out more about INTERDEV Driver and Delivery management solutions contact us now 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTERDEV’s update to its Android driver management application is now released – workforce 2.0 android.  The base workflow provides workforce users with access to the following functionality:

• Tracking of Driver and Vehicle through secure Login and vehicle and trailer recording.
• Job Workflow
  • Job List
  • Pickup & Delivery Location Details
  • Items Details, Quantities & UOM
  • Driver Notes
  • Turn by Turn Navigation
  • Location Notes
  • Dial from job details
  • Sign on Glass
  • Photo Proof of Completion
  • Unable to Pickup or Deliver
  • Time Stamping of Delivery events.
• Driver Messaging
  • Acknowledgement confirmation.

In addition to the core functionality, the application can be customised to include the following modules:

• Driver Fitness for Duty
• Vehicle Safety and Compliance Checks
• Barcode Scanning for item level tracking
• Payments Processing
• Driver Break Capture
• Timesheets
• Incident Reporting

workforce 2.0 Android can be customised for those organisations with complex workflows that go beyond your basic pickup or delivery process.

 

 

INTERDEV’s development team have completed integration with Xero accounting software.

Further expanding INTERDEV’s capability to support small to mid size business who have a transport or services component as part of their day to day operations.

INTERDEV’s System Integration Hub (SIgH) provides the link between the Xero API’s and xmotion workforce billing review screen, where operations and finance people can review job costs and update before sending off to be invoiced.  Depending on your business requirements, invoices can be generated and sent either from the workforce platform to the end customer or via Xero.

With the additional of the Xero integration the xmotion workforce platform can now assist business in removing paper completely, by handling their complete workflow –

• Quotes
• Orders
• Jobs
• Scheduling
• Dispatch
• Real Time Progress Tracking
• Job Completion
• Billing Review.
• Invoicing

With Job data flowing through the workforce platform, business managers can take advantage of the workforce real time management dashboards, which can customised to provide a real time snapshot of business performance.  Management teams are able to see in real time –

• jobs completed vs target
• revenue generated by delivery or service activity
• indicative costs
• top products or services – day/week/month
• top customers – day/week/month
• top regions – day/week/month

email [email protected] if you would like to learn more.

 

 

 

Have you stopped to consider what your field workers do when they have idle time?  Once they have checked their social media, on their personal device, they often turn their attention to the new ruggedised tablet which runs your delivery management application.

It runs on Android, their smartphone runs on Android.  They know how this should work.  The first thing they will probably do is try to fire up a web browser to surf the net on your data.  Then try the play store, why watch Netflix on their phone, when they could load it on your tablet, use your data, and watch it on an 8″ screen instead of a 4-5″.

Samsung Knox allows partners to lock down the tablets deployed in the field to ensure that users can only access the applications and information they need to complete their job efficiently.

The Knox platform consists of overlapping defense and security mechanisms that protect against intrusion, malware, and more malicious threats which can often be inadvertently introduced by workers using insecure devices.

Knox allows us to:

• Add your logo to the devices boot screen.
• Kiosk Mode – Boot the device into an application launcher which only allows your applications.
• Configure connectivity options and feature restrictions
• Black List or Whitelist Website URL’s

To find out more about how Samsung Knox can be deployed as part of your workforce management solution, contact the INTERDEV Team.

 

 

 

 

 

The INTERDEV team have been recognised as a SAMSUNG Enterprise Alliance Partner for their commitment to development of Android based delivery management solutions.

INTERDEV has deployed solutions for the management of drivers undertaking the delivery of

• Petroleum products
• Container Delivery Management
• Bulk Product Delivery – Sand, Soil & Earth moving
• General Product  delivery.

utilising Samsungs Tab Activ ruggedised tablet solution. ds

INTERDEV’s approach to applications enables drivers, to not just mange the deliveries on the their Samsung device running

INTERDEV’s workforce client for Android, but their entire day.  This includes:

• Capturing Start of Shift Events for use by the time-sheet module.
• Fitness for duty
• Vehicle Safety and Compliance Checks
• Delivery Management
• Driver Messaging
• Time Sheets & Log Books
• Incident Reporting.

INTERDEV’s philosophy for Android development revolves around the idea of having a single application for management of a drivers day to avoid duplication of data entry across multiple platforms or even paper based forms.

Ultimately improving the accuracy of information delivered to and received from field base workers.  This is achieved through the deployment of INTERDEV’s cloud platform which provides an integration point to a businesses existing line of business platforms such as ERP, WMS, Payroll and Accounting.

 

 

 

INTERDEV’s development team have completed integration with MYOB Accounts Right accounting software.

Further expanding INTERDEV’s capability to support small to mid size business who have a transport or services component as part of their day to day operations.

INTERDEV’s System Integration Hub (SIgH) provides the link between the MYOB  API’s and xmotion workforce billing review screen, where operations and finance people can review job costs and update before sending off to be invoiced. Depending on your business requirements, invoices can be generated and sent either from the workforce platform to the end customer or via MYOB Accounts Right

With the additional of the MYOB Accounts Right integration the xmotion workforce platform can now assist business in removing paper completely, by handling their complete workflow –

• Quotes
• Orders
• Jobs
• Scheduling
• Dispatch
• Real Time Progress Tracking
• Job Completion
• Billing Review.
• Invoicing

With Job data flowing through the workforce platform, business managers can take advantage of the workforce real time management dashboards, which can customised to provide a real time snapshot of business performance.  Management teams are able to see in real time –

• jobs completed vs target
• revenue generated by delivery or service activity
• indicative costs
• top products or services – day/week/month
• top customers – day/week/month
• top regions – day/week/month

email [email protected] if you would like to learn more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a business owner or operations manager, simplifying the deployment and management of applications on company owned smartphones and tablets, becomes an operational headache as your fleet grows.

Users of the devices will inevitably download personal information or their own favourite applications, potentially impacting the reliability of the device or the security of your business data.

The adoption of mobile device management (MDM) solution brings significant efficiency to the process of deploying applications and managing the devices once they are in the field.

MDM offers the following benefits :

• Ability to limit user access to only approved applications.
• Control the ability for device users to load their own applications or change the device configuration.
• Deliver over-the-air updates to business sanctioned applications, such as INTERDEV’s workforce client application as new features are rolled out.
• Ensure that all devices have the same configuration, for settings such as mobile data, WIFI or bluetooth and location sharing.
• Expanded control to manage email, calendaring, and contacts applications.
• Compliance and security capability to help you safeguard devices and data.
• Device remote control to assist with user issues while in the field.
• Monitoring and reporting to track, diagnose and resolve device issues.
• Up to date Software and Hardware inventory.
• Available for IOS™ , Android™, smartphone and tablets.

Interdev offer the MDM platform as a service, in conjunction with our xmotion™ workforce platform. The Interdev team will work with you to build a profile for your devices, identifying business specific applications, websites and services, that should be enabled on users devices, and identifying those that shouldn’t. Once the profile is complete, your devices will be enrolled into the MDM platform ready for management.

Deploying MDM ensure that devices that you provide to your employees are used for business, and create the business efficiencies you expect from your investment.

 

 

 

 

You’ve probably tried scanning a barcode or QR code (3D barcode) with the camera on your smartphone, its a slow process.

Open the barcode reader application. Line the camera up with the barcode, let it focus. . Press the button. The barcode information is then displayed.

How do you scan barcodes quickly?

With a purpose built sled, which attaches to your iPhone or iPad, to add a dedicated warehouse quality barcode scanning capability, without losing the ease of use and power of your IOS™ device. These dedicated sled’s come with their own inbuilt battery in order to power the reader and provide top up power to your iPhone™ or iPad™.

In the case of iPhone™ the sled will make the iPhone™ more rugged, able to withstand dust, and drops and splashes, without making it too bulky for your field team to keep in their pocket.

Payment processing is also available on some models, through, swipe, tap and go or chip reader technology. Barcode scanning and payment process are modules which can be added to your xmotion™ workforce platform.