Monitoring the Best
October 1st 2006

With huge advantages in terms of reduced damage and increased safety and productivity, no serious lift truck user should be without a fleet management system. One company to benefit from Transmon's system is Naturally Best Packing in Lincolnshire

When Naturally Best Packing recently replaced the materials handling fleet at its Lincolnshire facility, the potato supplier opted for Still equipment supplied by DAC Handling Solutions. As part of the seven year deal, the 27 unit strong fleet – which encompasses powered pallet trucks, three-wheel electric and 3t LPG trucks – was fitted with the latest fleet management technology in the form of Transmon's TDS1 system.

Using the Transmon system not only allows Naturally Best to monitor, and therefore optimise the performance of its fleet, it also increases health and safety levels and helps to reduce damage to both the product and the materials handling equipment.

"We suggested the Transmon fleet management system for Naturally Best primarily to reduce damage at the site," says DAC's Vince Cooke. "It enables us to look at the fleet throughout the day and relay valuable information to our dedicated site engineer.

"Customers today want a complete materials handling package, and fleet management helps us to provide this," he adds.

PIN access Part of Transmon's Savure product range, the TDS1 uses a PIN access system. Each driver is issued with their own unique four digit number, which they need to input in order to use a truck. A different set of rules can be applied to each truck system – this means that the driver can only operate the particular type of truck they are qualified to drive, helping to reduce accidents arising from inappropriately trained drivers using the trucks.

One of the most important features of the Transmon system is the way in which it makes each driver accountable for the time they spend on the truck, and therefore any damage that occurs while they are operating it.

Naturally Best's shift leader, Dave Skinner, who oversees handling operations at the site has noticed a definite change in driver attitude since the fleet was changed.

"All the drivers know that if they have a knock in one of the trucks, it will be recorded by the Transmon system," says Skinner. "As a result they own up to it straight away. It also means that they are more careful in the first place and damage levels have dropped significantly."

Training aid All training at Naturally Best is carried out inhouse and the Transmon system also aids in this. When the driver is required to attend a two-day refresher course, his PIN will become invalid. Once they have completed the required training, Skinner re-issues the PIN, safe in the knowledge that all the drivers' skills are bang up to date.

Impact detection on the system is in two directions. The sensitivity can be adjusted to suit the application and once set, the system will ignore all impacts occurring below the specified level. It is also possible to set up the system so that it disables the truck when an incident occurs over over a certain impact level – the unit will then need to be restarted by an authorised supervisor.

An excess idle detector will also shut down the truck to conserve energy and help prevent unauthorised use.

The TDS1 has the capacity to store 2000 events on a 'roll-on, roll-off basis'. At Naturally Best, RF technology is used to download all information from the system to the Transmon server (which is set up on the local network) every 15 minutes, enabling 'real time' monitoring of the fleet. From this it is possible to produce a wide range of management reports on areas such as faults, driver use, crash detection, truck up/downtime, servicing or any desired combination of these. This means that the complete performance of the fleet can be easily monitored to ascertain how well the contract is working overall.

Optimal set-up On a practical level, the Transmon system also enables optimal set-up of the trucks, reducing costs associated with areas such as fuel consumption and tyre-wear. The provision of a daily maintenance reminder also helps to ensure that the whole fleet is well maintained and performing to the highest safety and performance levels.

All Transmon equipment comes with a five year product support package and is backed up by what is claimed to be the most up-todate software available for this type of application. Users are automatically upgraded at no extra cost as and when the software is developed.

Return on investment for the Transmon system depends on the individual site, but typically users can expect a payback period of one to two years. And with 2000+ sites in the UK now using Transmon Savure systems, Naturally Best joins a rapidly expanding group of companies to benefit from the resulting increases in efficiency and safety.