A success-oriented logistics company is always looking for ways to improve. How they want to see this improvement may vary in the form of differing goals, but the core desire is the same – to be the best at what you do and to continue getting better in order to remain competitive. This continuous improvement mindset is the only way to get ahead and stay ahead in an ever changing, ever growing market.
Increase Your ROI by Investing in AirFinder Everywhere
- Loss Prevention. Reduce the amount of loss that occurs during the supply chain process
- Location Coverage. AirFinder Everywhere uses a combination of GPS, Cellular, and WiFi to determine location everywhere
- Security Alerts. Know when a delay in shipment has occurred so the problem
can be addressed immediately.
That being said, identifying your goals and company priorities is only half the battle. The second, often much harder task, is finding the right strategy to meet those goals and make your vision a reality. There are so many potential solutions out there, it can be hard to know where to begin. That’s why it’s important to know how these solutions have helped similar companies with similar goals in the past, so that you can gain an understanding of how they might help you. One potential solution is GPS asset tracking technology, which can be used to address many of the most common improvement goals of trucking and logistics operations. Through the visibility this technology provides, you can take your business to the next level and address multiple goals at the same time. Let’s take a look at the most common goals that GPS technology can help your company achieve.
Goal #1: Improve Process Efficiencies
A common goal held by many logistics companies looking to improve their operations is the goal of improving process efficiencies. By improving the efficiency of a process rather than maintaining a “good enough” status quo, companies can see returns in terms of revenue, customer satisfaction, and employee satisfaction. Processes should be constantly analyzed to ensure that they are making tasks easy, quicker, and more effective than their previous iterations. In order to do so, companies require visibility of the moving parts involved in their daily processes and access to historical data so that they can observe long term effects.
How GPS Tags Can Help
One of the core facets of GPS asset tracking is its real-time monitoring capabilities. This technology empowers businesses to track the location and status of their assets with unparalleled accuracy, providing full visibility of daily processes and allowing operators to make data-driven decisions about what is and isn’t working. Whether it's a fleet of delivery vehicles, a construction site's heavy machinery, or valuable cargo in transit, knowing the exact location and condition of these assets is indispensable to improving process efficiencies. You can keep track of what is and isn’t in use to improve utilization, and you can also ensure that your workers can find what they need faster instead of spending too much time searching for the right asset.
The ability to access historical data through these systems can also help operators make informed decisions about process improvements. When you have access to more data, you’re able to see a fuller picture of what is and isn’t working for your business. This lets you identify specific areas of improvement and make data-based plans for achieving that improvement. This data can also help indicate when a process’s lost efficiency might not be due to the process itself, but due to extenuating circumstances, preventing you from spending time trying to fix what isn’t broken.
Goal #2: Increase Revenue
At the end of the day, most company goals boil down to one singular, shared goal: to increase a company’s revenue. The higher a company’s revenue, the higher their operational budget, the more assets they can afford, the more customers they can serve, and the more their employees make. The effects are far-reaching. In order to increase revenue, however, companies must be able to increase their capacity; after all, you can only profit from the business that you are able to reasonably take on. Improving process efficiencies also helps, but at the end of the day, capacity is key.
How GPS Tags Can Help
The key to increasing both capacity and revenue with GPS tags is monitoring the utilization of assets. Knowing what you have and how it’s being used is the first step to figuring out how you can begin using those assets to their fullest potential and what supplemental assets you might need to obtain. By utilizing GPS tracking tags, you have a complete record of what assets are being used in what ways and at what intervals. This allows you to identify if any assets are being underutilized. Armed with this information, you can make adjustments to better utilize your assets so that you can increase your capacity and, in turn, your overall revenue.
GPS tags can also keep you apprised of the decisions that your employees are making that might be affecting their ability to operate at greater capacities. They might be taking less efficient routes that make deliveries take longer and reduce the amount of runs they’re able to complete. They might be making unnecessary stops or skipping necessary ones. By using GPS tags, you are made aware of these daily decisions, and you can help your employees make changes that allow them to be more productive.
Goal #3: Reduce Costs
Another goal that many companies choose to pursue is reducing their operational costs. After all, the less money you have to spend, the more money you have. Essentially, reducing costs goes hand in hand with increasing revenue. Costs are accrued in countless ways, but there are three kinds that can be easily reduced or altogether avoided: over-purchasing assets, maintenance costs, and noncompliance and legal fees. Each of these are their own independent issues, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be solved with a single, strategically-implemented solution.
How GPS Tags Can Help
Using GPS tags to reduce over-purchasing and maintenance costs is effectively the same. When you outfit your assets with GPS trackers, you are able to automatically generate a record of when and how those assets are used. This helps prevent over-purchasing because you’ll know if you have any assets sitting around idle and unused. Instead of buying unnecessary replacements, you can use what you already have and ensure improved usage circulation in the future. Avoiding unexpected maintenance costs is also directly connected to your ability to access asset usage data. If you understand when and how often your assets are being used, you can better schedule inspections and preventative maintenance. With this strategy in place, you can address any problems before they escalate into a more devastating or costly repair.
The other issue that can lead to increased costs is legal fees and noncompliance. GPS tags can provide an effective solution for this, too. By choosing a tag with the proper sensors to detect compliance requirements, such as temperature monitoring sensors for your cold chain products, you can monitor critical conditions and maintain an automated record in case it’s ever requested. This prevents noncompliance from happening, and allows you to prove your compliance before legal fees are accrued if a product’s integrity is even questioned.
Goal #4: Reduce Loss and Theft
Loss and theft are dual challenges that plague countless logistics companies. When your operations revolve around the transportation of goods, it’s not always easy to secure your cargo and equipment in the way you’d like. After all, a locked warehouse door cannot account for what happens on the road and on all the stops along the way. There are plenty of locations where cargo and equipment can be misplaced or stolen during the transportation journey. By properly using GPS tags, however, loss and theft can be significantly reduced or even eliminated altogether.
How GPS Tags Can Help
Usually, when people think about GPS tracking, they think about tracking vehicles or larger assets like trailers. However, GPS tags can also be used to track smaller assets across large distances. Both strategies have merit, but the granular, asset-level tracking is ultimately better at ensuring security. Still, with an overall trailer tracking approach, you might still be able to avert loss and theft. In theory, you should have an idea of what assets are traveling with which trailer, and if the trailer diverts from its planned course, you can act quickly to ensure that it hasn’t been stolen. However, if cargo or equipment is removed from the trailer, you’ll have no way of knowing where it was lost and what happened to it. This is where asset-level tracking comes into play.
By affixing individual equipment, cargo, or pallets with GPS asset tracking tags, you gain granular visibility of where they are and where they’re going. These tags can be used before, after, and during the transportation stage to ensure that these critical assets are where they need to be. For instance, in a large warehouse campus or facility, you can find where they’re stored. Then, once it’s loaded onto the trailer, you’ll have a record of which trailer it’s traveling on. Finally, when it reaches its destination, you’ll have confirmation that it ended up in its intended location. This complete visibility reduces the potential of cargo and other assets being misplaced during the logistics process. As for theft, if an asset is removed from its intended location, it can be investigated and located.
Goal #5: Improve Customer Satisfaction
Improved customer satisfaction can lead to more returning customers, greater customer retention, and even current customers recommending your company’s services to new ones. All of this results in increased company reputation and financial returns. But maintaining customer satisfaction is a tricky business, especially with a saturated market full of competitors that can poach your customers after one wrong move. That’s why customer satisfaction is a priority. That satisfaction can be promoted through reliability and transparency, which a GPS asset tracking system can help you provide.
How GPS Tags Can Help
Through the visibility that GPS tags provide, you can better ensure the reliability that your customers expect. You can keep track of what’s been sent and what needs to be sent, as well as monitor the progress of goods as they’re being delivered. This helps you ensure that nothing is overlooked and that nothing is accidentally sent to the wrong destination. In doing so, you reduce delays and let your customers know that they can rely on you to get them what they need when they need it. It also helps you identify where in your process that disruptions are most likely to occur, allowing you to address them preemptively so they don’t have as much of an effect on your turnaround time.
You can also use GPS tags to promote transparency. Sometimes, there are disruptions that you can’t avoid no matter how hard you try to prepare and work around them. It might be tempting to not say anything and simply hope you recover quickly, but that’s often not the best strategy. Customers appreciate being informed ahead of time when these situations occur; if you don’t, they might perceive it as you hiding something from them or being dishonest. By using GPS tags, you can be apprised of unexpected disruptions as they happen so that you can inform your customers sooner. Depending on the system you choose to utilize, you may even be able to let customers view the location of their shipment as it progresses.
Achieve Your Company Goals with Link Labs
Link Labs provides a GPS asset tracking solution that can be used to help you achieve your company’s goals. With our AirFinder Everywhere solution for logistics, all you need to do is affix one of our patented SuperTags to the interior of your trailer and your choice of asset tracking tags to your pallets, cargo, equipment, or whatever else you want to track. The tags will report location through the combined effort of GPS, cellular identification, and WiFi sniffing technologies in order to promote improved visibility and power efficiency. These tags can also be configured to report on conditions such as temperature, humidity, shock, tampering, and more. To learn more about achieving your goals with a Link Labs asset tracking solution, book a demo with our experts today.
