JACK COOPER HOLDINGS
Hay points out that in this respect the industry has a head start on the internet of things ( IoT ) with its ability to pull data on engine performance , truck safety , fuel usage ( one of the company ’ s largest operational costs ), location through GPS and the like . “ I think the challenge in our industry is making the very large amount of data that is available to us more actionable . To present it to our team members in the field so they can use it to work smarter . Then beyond that to make it predictive . When you talk about business intelligence there are three aspects , what happened before , what is happening now and what is going to happen in the future .”
One example of applying business
intelligence is the ability to do preventive maintenance when it is needed , rather than when the book says it should be done . Another example is analysing production data , so that it ’ s known how many vehicles are coming off the line in a given period and where they are destined for right from the start of the assembly line . Hay says : “ The further ahead we can look the better job we can do in optimising the mix of freight that we put on a truck with as many cars going to the same place or the same city , and filling them on the return as well as the outward journey . It all helps us hold down our costs .” Apart from the environmental spin-off , optimising the trucks has the effect of increasing capacity .
214 September 2017