“This solution has more than helped cut costs and increase productivity and safety. The data and reports we receive provides our team with more knowledge than we ever knew possible.”
Tony Hoffman
Driver Advocate/Manager,
WP Rawl
Walter P. Rawl & Sons is a multi-generational business that started as a local crop farm in the 1920s that has grown into a larger farm selling greens and specialty vegetables. It continues to operate as a “family farm” with twelve members still working in the business along with an additional 650 employees.
They rely on their own transportation fleet to offer dependable, overnight delivery to the Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, Midwest, and Deep South. This means delivery within hours instead of days. In addition to their dedicated fleet they also own a state-of-the-art distribution facility that allows for cross-docking and load consolidation.
To see that the business continues to thrive for future generations, Walter P. Rawl & Sons puts innovation and sustainability at the forefront of business while also giving back to the industry and continuing to live by the company motto “Our Business is Growing”.
As W.P. Rawl’s transportation fleet continued to grow alongside the business, their management team was tasked with finding a reliable and dedicated technology company that would provide monitoring and analyzation features. They were interested in not only increasing efficiencies and productivity on the road, but to simplify manual processes that left room for errors. After much research, Powerfleet was selected based on their customer reviews, wide range of features, and price.
Situation
WP Rawl has been continuing to grow demand and began to offer overnight deliveries to their customers. They were losing valuable time and money by manually logging day-to-day routes. The management began looking for ways to move more loads, increase profits, and cut down on communication time and tracking errors.
WP Rawl needed to optimize their fleet and was looking for a minute-by-minute visibility solution that could help manage its overall truck and driver performance.
Task
The following areas of concern were presented to Powerfleet to solve:
1. Compliance with U.S. Department of Transportation’s Electronic Logging Device (ELD) and Hours-of-Service (HoS) mandates
2. A solution that supports the Agricultural Exemption for HoS
3. Increase visibility throughout the supply chain
4. Improve fleet utilization times
5. Improve on-time delivery services for overnight deliveries
6. Reduce the need for manual processes for route planning
7. Increase communication capabilities between drivers and distribution centers
For WP Rawl, communication with their drivers is an absolute necessity. Knowing where drivers are on their route at any given time allows WP Rawl to provide accurate estimated arrival times to their customers and allows for better route tracking and planning. Without improving their visibility, they would quickly become inundated with orders which couldn’t be fulfilled in a timely fashion.
Action
After listening to the customer’s needs, the Powerfleet team provided immediate support by equipping WP Rawl trucks with ELDs, which improved the monitoring capabilities of the WP Rawls logistics team, improving the overall productivity of both the office and the fleet itself. WP Rawl was also able to increase communication between drivers and its distribution centers.
The Powerfleet solution provided:
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) grants exceptions from the HoS rules for the transportation of certain agricultural commodities within a 150-mile radius. Powerfleet’s Ag Exempt feature in the ELD creates smooth reporting for drivers, allows them to receive status updates, and provide management with tracking for all Ag Exempt loads under FMCSA required guidelines.
Additionally, Powerfleet provided tablets that feature a simplified data input that allows drivers to communicate with the office while reducing the reliance on their cell phones.
“One of the reasons we partnered with Powerfleet is because of the opportunity to grow with their evolving systems. The tablet is a great example of that. In the near future, we plan to optimize the use of the tablet with our team of drivers. Currently, our drivers do not have a company email because not all have access through their phone. With the help of the Powerfleet tablet, it will give our drivers a direct line of communication with the team in the office or to their families back home” said Tony Hoffman, Driver Advocate/Manager, WP Rawl.
Results
With the help of Powerfleet, WP Rawl achieved the following results:
“This solution has more than helped cut costs and increase productivity and safety. The data and reports we receive provides our team with more knowledge than we ever knew possible. Idling time, engine run time, duration of high acceleration, fuel consumption, and the number of harsh braking events are just a few off that list. Each of those contributes to saving costs, increasing productivity, and keeping our drivers safe,” said Hoffman.
“Across the board, reporting is much simpler,” Hoffman continued. “It has reduced the amount of data input that was once the driver’s responsibility and allows them to focus on their load. Hours of Service reporting has given us the ability to strategically assign more loads, increase driving time, and receive delivery information in real-time. Communication with our customers has greatly improved as we are now able to give minute by minute reports on where our drivers are and what’s happening with the load.”
Conclusion
While the original concern was to maintain compliance with the ELD and HoS mandates, Powerfleet’s solution provided a better overall level of efficiency for WP Rawl and improved communication and visibility throughout the supply chain. Because the implementation of the new technology was easy to adapt to WP Rawl’s current systems, the customer was able to continue operations smoothly while enjoying the benefits of markedly improved and automated processes. In addition, WP Rawl partnered with Powerfleet to take advantage of its new innovative solutions and product developments as WP Rawl’s business needs grow and evolve.
Powerfleet transforms the way organizations manage mobile business assets — like forklifts, cargo trailers, and connected cars. Our technologies control, track, analyze, and optimize hundreds of thousands of these assets all over the world. We help organizations be safer, improve efficiency, and cut costs.
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