Customer Profiles

Like any company with mobile assets, MP Nexlevel faces typical fleet management challenges: needing to know where every vehicle is located or where it’s headed, what condition it’s in and, for road vehicles, how safely and economically it’s being driven. But in MP Nexlevel’s case, on- and off-road assets are scattered across a vast swath of the continent. “We studied many options and many vendors over a long period of time,” says Michael Raiche, the company’s global information systems (GIS) manager. “Ultimately there was one clear choice: Teletrac.”

Why Teletrac? “We needed an integrated GPS provider that offers services on the ground wherever we do business, and that covers a lot of territory,” Raiche says. “We need the potential to track vehicles when they are out in the middle of nowhere, out of cell phone range. We insisted on getting the same high levels of performance, reliability and support we give our own customers. We wanted to see a long track record backing up those claims. And finally, we talked to managers of Teletrac-equipped fleets to assess the quality of their experience and level of satisfaction. On all counts, Teletrac met or exceeded our requirements.”

In 1Q10, Teletrac completed installation on 820 MP Nexlevel cars, trucks and off-road motorized equipment. “From what we’ve experienced during our pilot project, we’re anticipating substantial benefits to the company, our customers and employees,” Raiche says. He offers these examples:

• Locating assets. Until now MP Nexlevel personnel spent hours manually pinning down locations of the company’s crews, vehicles and equipment. That’s history. Teletrac’s Fleet Director automatically displays all locations 24/7 throughout all the regions in which MP Nexlevel chooses to operate. Within the first 6 months MP Nexlevel recovered both a 2008 one ton pickup and a large towable air compressor that had been stolen.
• Reducing capital expenditures and equipment rental costs. “If we can’t deliver equipment to a job site quickly enough to meet the project schedule, we rent it. On the other hand, if we’re not using it, we need to sell it,” Raiche says. Teletrac data has helped MP Nexlevel fleet, equipment and project managers know exactly what assets they have available within a given travel time and what equipment they really need and don’t need ─ enabling them to tighten capital and operating budgets. Numerous utilization reports have been created, allowing the team to make decisions based on facts instead of perceptions and estimates.
• Analyzing on-site performance. Teletrac geo-locating is so precise, MP Nexlevel can now track the movements of each equipment piece across a job site. Location tracking overlaid on the site’s aerial photographic imaging gives MP Nexlevel managers a direct, real-time understanding of a project’s progress to supplement reports received from the field. “We expect to use this unique capability to help with project closure,” says Raiche. “And because Teletrac archives all location data, we can recap the job — essentially replay it like a movie — which will help us make more accurate startup projections for the next job.”
• Reducing vehicle insurance costs. MP Nexlevel expects to recapture significant costs for insuring its hundreds of road vehicles. “Insurers know their risks steeply decline once we are monitoring each driver’s speed, acceleration and braking behavior in real time, and getting real-time alerts of any infraction. They pass those savings along to us — one of several ways we expect a sizable payback on our Teletrac system investment.”
• Remote on-site labor and job tracking. MP Nexlevel backoffice operations must process huge amounts of paperwork, incurring substantial labor costs. Integrated Teletrac data reporting can help MP Nexlevel streamline and automate many processes and reduce errors and rework, freeing office workers to perform tasks that add more value to the company’s bottom line.
• Improving fuel economy to reduce fuel cost. With hundreds of road vehicles operating across 32 states, MP Nexlevel feels the pinch when pump prices soar. Monitoring driver behavior will help ease fuel consumption by reducing gas-guzzling behaviors like speeding, hard acceleration and excessive idling. Further, drivers can now take the most fuel efficient routes and avoid getting lost, even on back roads with few landmarks — or no roads at all.
• Improving vehicle performance and maintenance. Teletrac remotely monitors engine diagnostic codes, giving MP Nexlevel fleet managers vital clues to fine-tune each vehicle’s maintenance. Expected result: vehicles will run more cost-effectively. The company can also generate savings on preventive maintenance by replacing certain parts only when diagnostics predict impending failure.
• Vehicle and equipment recovery. In late April 2010, MP Nexlevel worked with police to obtain a search warrant to recover a compressor trailer that vanished from a Minneapolis site. When the company noticed its trailer had gone missing, it took just seconds to pinpoint the equipment’s current location — in the garage of a private home. Because no one was home, police said, they needed a warrant to search. But MP Nexlevel knew precisely what they would find — and where!

“As we fully integrate Teletrac GPS and related data into our operations,” Raiche concludes, “we’ll be able to further reduce costs, improve customer satisfaction through stronger commitments and increase customer satisfaction with improved process flows and equipment availability” — all of which will help this large utility service provider build an even stronger bottom line for years to come.

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