400-Driver Fleet Centralizes Safety Documentation with Descartes Fleet Safety™
Key Results:
- Consolidated documentation for full fleet
- Eliminated the need for duplicate file storage
- Driver Manual made easily accessible
As the fleet of a Fortune 10 company and one of the largest retail chains in the United States with locations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, delivering essential goods on a daily basis can lead to an overwhelming amount of paperwork that falls on the shoulders of a fleet safety team.
In 2017, this large, private fleet with over 2,300 active assets and over 400 drivers delivering from 20 distribution centers to 9,600 locations recognized the need for a better way to store documents and records to ensure smooth operations and effective delivery.
The Problem
Across the fleet, the company had over 3.79 GB of documentation, containing over 5,900 documents that were stored in disparate systems. Finding documents quickly and efficiently was an enormous task for the team, including:
- DQ Files
- CSA Results
- Equipment Schedules
- Insurance Certificates
- Training Manuals and Policies
- Equipment Images
- Equipment Documents
- Certificate of Titles
- Registration
Additionally, old and unused asset documentation was not archived. In order to find information about a particular asset, managers had to sift through information on over 2,000 inactive assets to find the equipment they needed.
Further, copies of their Driver Manual existed in multiple different systems and individual PCs. When an update was made to the manual, managers painstakingly made edits on multiple platforms and occasionally a copy went unedited and slipped through the cracks. It was difficult for fleet managers to know with certainty that they were referencing the “official” copy of the Driver Manual.
The Solution
The fleet invested in Descartes Fleet Safety™, one of the most comprehensive driver safety platforms in the industry. Among the many tools for ensuring safe and efficient operations, Descartes Fleet Safety is equipped with an advanced Document Library, which modernized document management for this fleet.
The Document Library enables fleet managers, HR personnel, and safety team members to store relevant documents for the entire fleet in a single location. Every member of the fleet began easily accessing the documents they needed, exactly when they needed them.
The Results
Equipment and Crash Records
After switching to Descartes Fleet Safety, this fleet used the Document Library to efficiently separate and organize their records. Equipment images and accident records are now attached to specific vehicles in Descartes Fleet Safety’s Equipment Module, as well as each certificate of title.
Sensitive Documents and Security
Similarly, this fleet often handles secure documents, which previously necessitated storing them in a separate system that general employees could not access without permission. Now, with the Document Library, they upload every document to a single point of record and restrict access to secure documents. Every file is in a single system with secured access as necessary.
Efficient Document Labeling
The Document Library’s label feature enabled further organization of fleet information. DOT records can be downloaded en masse simply by filtering for the label “DOT Document.” Label assignments can also be implemented quickly. In mere minutes, 270 labels were added to documents and made accessible in Descartes Fleet Safety.
Universal Driver Manual
The Driver Manual now has a single, source-of-truth copy available for everyone. Updates to the Driver Manual now only need to be made once and are universally accessible.
Conclusion
In summary, fleet documents are now properly labeled, public policy information is available for all users to view, sensitive documents are labeled “confidential” and restricted from general users, and older certificates are archived and cleared from the default view. This 400-driver fleet is no longer consumed by time-consuming manual paperwork and can focus instead on what’s most important: the safety of their drivers.
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