04 February 2012

Work smarter

Published:: 01 February 2008
Channel:: Distribution
Byline:: Roger Marks

There is increasing pressure on companies to reduce their carbon footprint, whether motivated by environmental concerns, efficiency, or reducing costs. Many are prepared to spend money doing this by investing in hybrid vehicles, solar power or energy-efficient heating systems for warehouses. All these measures should eventually save energy and in turn money, but return on investment may take years.

But cutting carbon emissions without heavy investment is not rocket science. What many fleet operators have not realised is that there is a far easier, less expensive way to significantly cut emissions in the supply chain with an ROI of months, not years.

Any logistics company''s carbon footprint would normally grow in line with the business - the more work it has, the more carbon it will emit. The key is to reduce carbon per unit of productive work. The fastest way to do this in a fleet is by reducing the miles travelled per job and controlling the way these miles are driven.

We need to remember the old adage, ''If you can't measure it, you can't manage it''. The first step towards reducing fuel use and carbon emissions is to measure driver behaviour and hone drivers'' schedules to optimise the use of vehicles.

Traditional telematics systems will produce reports on some or all of these factors but usually require the employment of a person to drill down into the reports to create a meaningful picture of workflow and locate and understand problem areas.

What is needed is a solution that can analyse vehicle and driver behaviour data against a planned activity showing, for example, average miles per delivery, carbon emissions per delivery or fuel consumption trends of vehicle or driver.

This analysis is now deliverable through an intuitive graphical user interface.

If you consider the figures, an effective measuring solution can do more than significantly reduce your carbon footprint. We have done the sums and reckon that, across a fleet of 25 small vans, a company could achieve an annual saving of €16,000 and an annual fall in carbon emissions of 28,800kg.

So work smarter and you won''t just cut carbon, you''ll also boost your bottom line.

Roger Marks is MD of Aeromark

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