Keeping track with xTrack

Mark Seemann is Mobile Business’ applications reviewer extraordinaire. He joined Genesis as director of product marketing though the acquisition of Servelogic, where he remains CEO. He has 11 years’ experience in the ISP and telecoms sectors, having been a board level director for 10 years. Mark’s expertise is product design and marketing to the UK SME market.

If you have any comments or suggestions for Mark, please email him through the editor: hmclean@mbmagazine.co.uk

Fleet management is nothing new, and tracking technology is now well established in this marketplace. But with fuel costs spiralling, fleet managers are now under pressure to provide not only a real time picture of the vehicles’ locations, but also a full evaluation of the fleet’s efficiency, driver productivity and cost consumption. The killer apps now will be those that can provide managers with not only a snapshot of a fleet, but the data behind this that can help make tangible improvements.

Big Brother goes legit

And now it’s not only vehicles that are on the move. With the number of mobile workers growing year on year, having the ability to know where your employees are is no longer in the realms of Big Brother, but rather a necessity to ensure the workforce is functioning as effectively as possible.

The xTrack product suite succeeds in giving managers much more than a location tracking service. The products fall into three main suites: xTrack Vehicle Tracking Professional; xTrack PDA Tracking Professional; and xTrack Express for Blackberry Tracking.

xTrack Vehicle Tracking Professional gives fleet managers a centralised view of all vehicles’ locations, actual carbon emissions and data on MPH, RPM and MPG. The system also provides league tables of the best performers or worst offenders through a web-based portal providing real time information on all vehicles, which can be shared across the fleet to highlight where changes need to be made, either in fleet routing, driver numbers on certain days or even bad driving habits such as over-revving that are leading to excessive fuel consumption.

Tracking chills

An interesting piece of functionality, I thought, is the ability to monitor the temperature of refrigerated cargo, to ensure that frozen and chilled foods are stored in a constant acceptable environment. Now who would have thought

they could do that?

xTrack PDA Tracking Professional is designed for businesses looking to improve the flow of information between mobile workers and office based employees. Organisations can track their PDA devices, which is good considering how often those things go missing. The technology has optional protection for lone workers, helping companies to conform to Duty of Care guidelines by providing an ‘always on’ tracking service.

xTrack Express for Blackberry Tracking enables managers to track their mobile workforce. As the service is web-based, there is no need for additional hardware investment in the back office. The technology tracks BlackBerry devices via a software installation, even devices without in-built GPS.

I found the suite simple to install, with a clear user interface. The mapping technology provides high quality detail, right down to street-level.

Follow the money

The need to be able to track and report back on the mobile workforce is becoming an essential business benchmark. Dealers can therefore capitalise on this requirement to expand the range of mobile technology solutions they’re offering to customers, delivering added value and increased efficiency.Nice.

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