Fleet management software is used by mainly couriers, oil and gas delivery, hardware or other delivery industries, utilities, repair and service industry, truck and car deliveries, boating industry, businesses to ensure responsible vehicle use, confirm safety and enable real-time tracking. 

An efficient fleet management software is significant in fleet and logistics management. So, we will be discussing how to build a fleet management software like Uberfleet to manage your fleet business effectively and with great ease. The purpose of the fleet management app is to ensure proper fleet management and ease business. A fleet business has many aspects to its business, like marketing, operations, finance, human resource, resource management, database management, etc. For efficient management of all the aspects, you would need a team that has great expertise in each area. The fleet management app will help you minimize human errors and help in increasing the efficiency of all your resources.

Dependencies of Fleet Management:

The fleet management system is dependent on various factors like the customers and drivers. The ideal system where the system would work the best is when drivers are given a separate panel/ app; the customers are given a separate panel/ app.

• The driver app: The main purpose of this app is to track the real-time location of the driver so the fleet owner can know the location of the driver at any given time. Alternate to this app can be a GPS device attached to the vehicle of the driver through which the driver’s location can be tracked. This GPS device is normally very cheap but it will be limited to GPS tracking wherein the driver app can offer a lot of features.
• The customer app: Through this app, the customer can order services of the fleet. Full customization options will be available to the customer and this will help the system generate the order requirements in a particular format that the fleet management software can read.

User Personas for Fleet Management Software:

The following are the key user personas:

User Stories for Fleet Management Software

Fleet Admin:

As a regional director, I am very busy with my day to day task and it is very difficult for me to manage all the aspects of fleet management effectively. I have a major issue to track my drivers as it has been seen that the drivers may have been implying an incorrect location. I face trouble with supply-chain management. I want to see a complete list of drivers, orders and jobs that are nearby. We need a common platform where I can communicate with all the drivers easily.

Sample Wireframes for Fleet Management App

Features:

1. Registration / Sign up: This is the most initial module of the fleet management app. It should consist of mandatory information like the fleet company name, mobile number, email address and documents. Users should be able to set up passwords with OTP verification. This process will help the admin to verify the authenticity of the fleet owner and would serve as evidence in case of any frauds.
2. Driver Information: The most important feature of your app should be the drivers’ information. As the drivers are the main focus of this app, the mobile app should allow the fleet owner to create new drivers, edit them and delete them. Specific information that should be taken about the driver is: Full Name, Mobile Number, Vehicle registration number, Type of Vehicle, Load capacity of the vehicle (this will help the system to know which orders are apt for which truck/ driver) and Driver’s License. The mobile app should allow creating new drivers with a unique ID and password. The unique ID should be the mobile number rather than the email id as the drivers might not have an email id.
3. Live tracking: It is very important from the business point of view to track the live location of every individual driver. The fleet owner should know the location in real-time. Fleet tracking helps the fleet owner in assigning new orders to drivers as well as they can track if the driver has changed his route and will redirect them to the right direction. Live tracking will be dependent on the driver’s smartphone’s GPS or alternative to this can be a GPS device attached to the truck which costs very cheap.
4. Nearby Jobs: The fleet owner should be able to view the jobs that are near to its drivers. Here, a complication arises, when there is more than one driver then which driver’s nearby jobs should be shown. Don’t worry; we have a solution for that as well. There should be a filter before showing the nearby jobs in which the fleet owner will select the driver for whom he wishes to view the nearby jobs. He can then later change his selection of the driver. This feature will help the fleet owner to optimize jobs according to their driver’s current location. This will help in providing the best to the customer as well.
5. Orders: Fleet should be able to view each and every order and should be able to manage and cancel the order. Orders should be presented in a way that the different order types can be shown, like:
   • New orders: Orders which are sent to the fleet owner for confirmation. Under this all the details about the order should be mentioned like: pick-up location, drop-off location, goods details, passenger details.
   • On-going orders: Under this, details like order status, live tracking should be available to the fleet owner. Options, like chat with the driver and chat with customers, should also be available to the fleet owner so that fleet owners can chat with them and resolve any queries.  This chat will be saved for later future assistance.
   • Completed orders: These orders will be the orders which are completed by the drivers. This will help the fleet owner in maintaining the history of orders which have been completed. This should show the complete timeline of events that had taken place for the particular order like pickup date, drop date, etc.
   • Canceled orders: These orders show all the details with the inclusion of order cancellation reason and the order cancellation date.
6. Notifications: It is very important for the fleet owner to be informed in real-time the course of actions that are taking place in reference to orders and his drivers. Some of the important notification that should be sent to the fleet owner is:
   • New order notification: As soon as a new order is generated, a notification should be sent to the fleet owner’s mobile via the mobile fleet management app that he has received a new order. Then he can assign a driver to it and notify the customer about the date by which he will receive the delivery. There should also be a cancellation option available for the fleet owner if he has no driver available in that region or the order is not satisfactory in terms of money.
   • Order completion is near: This notification should be sent when an active order’s completion date is near. This will alarm the fleet owner that the order completion date is near and he will check the driver’s current location and verify that everything is on track.
   • Order completion notification: This notification will help the fleet owner to know that the order is completed and so he can assign a new job to the driver.
   • Driver vacancy notification: If a particular driver is vacant for more than 1 day (the time should be configurable) then there should be a notification sent to the fleet owner “Hey! The driver named John Smith is vacant from past 1 day, find nearby jobs for him now”
   • Payment notification: As soon as payment is credited into the fleet owner’s account, a notification should be sent saying “payment for order no: XXXXXX has been credited into your account. It may take up to 48 hours to reflect in your bank account. In case of any queries please feel free reach out to via our customer care chat option or info@engineerbabu.com”
7. Pricing for order: This is a major factor to consider from the business point of view about what should be the pricing structure for each order. If you’re looking to make uniform prices for all the drivers/ orders based on the km (For example 1$ per km), then this might not work in the case of long routes when the driver has to face bad roads, busy border times and high congestion areas. An alternate strategy that one can adopt for pricing strategy is that the fleet owners can bid for each job that has been posted by the customer and then the customer can select the bid that they find most apt for themselves. This bid should consist mainly of 2 things, i.e; pricing and the delivery time. Some drivers might cost higher, may deliver in lesser time, some might cost lower and deliver in a higher timer, there can be any kind of bid. This will get the customer to get the best deal from the list of all the drivers that are available on the platform. This will also help the driver to predict cost with their intelligence as they would know which route costs higher and which route costs lower.
8. Chat option: The chat option should support 3 types of chats:
   • Chat with driver: A list of drivers should be seen from which the fleet owner can select the driver with whom he wants to chat. The major advantage of the chat option is that the driver can reply to the fleet owner whenever he gets time. While driving, the driver will not be able to take calls so it’s better that the fleet owner sends him a message which he can revert back whenever he is comfortable.
   • Chat with the customer: Our target should be that the customer and the fleet owner should not exchange their contact details as it can result in finalizing the order outside of our app, which is of loss to us. However, in some cases, it would be necessary to share the contact details of the customer or the fleet owner.
   • Chat with app support: This will help in resolving the queries of the fleet with great speed efficiency and speed.
9. Payments: This should be a mandated feature of your app. The payment module should consist of all the transactions that have happened in terms of payments that might have been deducted or credited to the driver/ fleet owner’s account. In the payments section, the transaction is both debited and credited with the date and the order ID. After clicking on each transaction detail, the screen should open where it shows the transaction date, order details, bank account details (bank account details of the fleet owner/driver), payment reference ID, customer chat option, print invoice option. There should be monthly and yearly statements as well to show the fleet owner his monthly and yearly deductions and earnings as well.
10. Analytics: This module can be of high benefit to the fleet owner as the owner can track and analyze from the data which features of his business are working well and which features are not. Following metrics should be considered in analytics:
    • Estimated order time v/s actual time to complete order: Under this metric, the estimated order time should be compared to the actual order time. Under this, if the estimated time is more than the actual time than the driver’s efficiency is high and if the estimated time is less than actual time than the driver’s efficiency is low.
    • Driver’s vacant time: Under this metric, individual as well as collective driver’s vacant time should be shown. Through this, the fleet owner can predict that he needs to get more jobs in order to make full use of his drivers.

The analytics may include other basic features like no. of orders per day/ week/ month/ year, Income per day/ week/ month/ year, KMs traveled per day/week/ month/ year, etc.

Must have restrictions:

1. Driver restrictions: Mandatory restriction must be present for the drivers. For example, if a driver is on the way for a particular job, another job cannot be assigned to him at the same time. Although the same driver can be assigned a new job for a future date, assuming by then, his on-going order will be finished.
   In the driver panel, the driver should not be able to change his information on his own. The information about the driver’s profile should be changed only by the fleet owner. The reason behind this is the fleet owner should have full control over editing the driver’s information as the driver may input the wrong information.
2. Pre-job confirmation restrictions: Before both the customer and the fleet owner have confirmed the job, the contact details of both the customer and the fleet should not be shared with each other. Otherwise, a case might arise when the customer and the fleet owner finalize the order outside the app. So it is important the contact details of both should be shared only after the job is confirmed.
3. Pricing restrictions: According to your business, there should be pricing restrictions. If your business model is designed in such a way that you take a commission for each order, then there should be some percentage that should be taken out for each order.
4. Jobs should be opened for a limited time: The jobs that the customer posts should be opened for a limited time. The purpose behind this is that customers will not wait forever for the fleet owners to bid on their jobs. This will also create urgency in the fleet owner’s mind to bid as soon as possible.
5. Customers can choose only one driver: There will be scenarios where more than one fleet owner is applying for a particular job. In this case, the customer should be able to choose only one driver/ fleet owner with whom he will confirm the order.

Recommended Readings: How Fleet Management Software improves Supply Chain Efficiency?

Pre-requirements:

The pre-requirements of the fleet owner to register on the fleet management app should be:

• The fleet owner should be a registered company and should provide relevant documents according to their country/ government norms
• The fleet owner should take full responsibility for the driver’s information including the driver’s license, the vehicle’s information including the vehicle’s registration. The fleet owner would require submitting the above documents while registering a new driver.

Real-life challenges:

Fleet management software will help in solving many real-life challenges:

1. Live tracking: In real life, a fleet owner would normally call the driver and ask his location, under this there can be cases that the driver may be lying or the fleet owner might not believe the driver’s words. But with fleet management software, the location of the driver is generated through GPS which will help the owner knowing the accurate location of the driver and hence ensure effective fleet tracking.
2. Data Management: The fleet management app will help create a database of all the historical and on-going events that are occurring. This will include order details, payment details, and communication details. In real life it is very difficult to manage all the details at one place as communications can take place face to face, via email or via phone.
3. Source of business: Many of the fleet owners find it hard to procure orders from the market. This fleet management software will work as a source of business for the fleet owner. Through this, he can get various new orders and can use different filters to procure the orders that suit his business the best.
4. Payment: With the help of this app, the payment procedures are simplified as the customer will make a pre-payment to the app owner and the app owner will release the payment once the order is completed successfully.

Payment Gateway – Stripe

The Stripe Connect API will be used to transfer money between the fleet owner and admin. The way Stripe connect API can be seen below:

The API link for the Stripe Connect is https://stripe.com/docs/connect

If you are also looking to build your own fleet management software or something similar, please feel free to reach out to us. Our team will be more than happy to help you at EngineerBabu. We have been developing similar apps and our mobile app developers can help you build the same as our team has already tested and tried the errors that may come and we have good experience in this field. Do not hesitate for any queries. Feel free to reach out to us even if you are in the initial planning phase. To read more blogs, you can visit our website.

The post Build your own Fleet Management Software just like UberFleet appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

Fleet Management, roughly translated into layman’s language refers to vehicle management and tracking, field force and route optimisation for freight technology. It falls under a sub-category of logistics management software that automate data relating to the supply chain management.

75% of shoppers believe proactive communication is an important aspect of the delivery experience.

-(source)

Well, communication between business owners and their clients is now more convenient than ever. It has even grown to become a major revenue driving factor. With efficient fleet management, not only can businesses generate more revenue, but also drive innovation in the otherwise tedious task.

Let’s see how.

Fleet Management for Vehicles

One can easily run a fleet management business with a limited number of requirements like: a fleet of vehicles and monetary investment for an application to automate every process. Also, tracking the fleet of vehicles is important for various delivery purposes.

These applications can be integrated with multiple features ranging from Order Management, Driver Management and Vehicle Management with facilities like route optimisation, vehicle vendor listing, payment per deliveries/ orders completed, etc.

Assets Management with Fleet Management:

The fact that so many delivery businesses depend on the mobility aspect is a clear indicator that there’s a huge demand in the market for fleet management software. Take any online business that facilitates deliveries. From groceries, food, flowers or cakes… there are numerous things that are now accessible for delivery on an hourly basis.

An individual specifically assigned for the particular task will be required for every delivery being made. While it provides employment on a large scale, it even requires an investment on the assets like

• Commercial motor vehicles: such as cars, vans, trucks, specialist vehicles (mobile construction machinery), forklifts, and trailers
• Private vehicles used for work purposes
• Aviation machinery such as aircraft: planes and helicopters, Ships, Rail cars
• GPRS, Privacy of the consumer, etc.

The Market For Fleet Management:

With the credibility that firms like Amazon and FedEx are enjoying, it’s obvious that the competition is all set to grow in the coming years. From pickups to delivery, the lucrative industry caters to every domain, be it ecommerce, export-import or a simple parcel delivery.

Fleet Management Market size is expected to reach $34,629 million by 2022, from $7,755 million in 2015, growing at a CAGR of 24.5% from 2016 to 2022.

-(source)

To add to this, there’s statistics that state: 94% of the consumers will blame the retailer if the delivery goes wrong. In which case, if you’re about to start a fleet management supply chain of goods, you must maintain the quality and create a brand name for yourself. It’s essential to gain the trust of your retailers before you plan to expand.

The Different Aspects of Fleet Management:

Suppose one of your vehicles left the facility from your end but never made it to the destination. In this case, it would still be under your management to track and complete the delivery process. However, there could be numerous reasons behind the failed or delayed process. There’s fuel shortage, vehicle damage or repairing emergency, something related to the inability to track the routes taken by driver partners, etc.

Interestingly, with logistics management software, it’s possible to resolve all of the aforementioned as well as other issues. Be it vehicle damage or traffic stagnancy, you can simply provide your entire team with applications for inventory management, capacity planning, real-time visibility and analytics, dispatch and other detailed reports.

Check out this picture for instance.

Makes everything clear, right?

If you have an automated database for all your vendors’ bikes/ vehicles, the details from dispatch to payments, there’s a very less probability of something going out of hands, and you not being able to track it.

Quality Control

One important aspect of fleet vehicle maintenance is proper monitoring of the work completed on assets. Undoubtedly, the team’s service providers might be doing an excellent job at conducting thorough repairs and servicing. But, it’s never worth risking the chance and not verifying yourself.

Inspections are necessary to ensure the quality of the vehicle maintenance upto the standards. Such routine and scheduled quality checks shortly after the servicing is complete go a long way in the over-all performance.

Also read: Integrated Logistics Management Software: Uber For Supply Chain Management

Vendor Contracts Based on Performance:

To confirm the quality of your vendor’s work, you might want to negotiate the terms of service prior to agreeing to any maintenance. Just ensure that you have prepared with you a list of services needed. You can present them prior to any sort of negotiating. You can even integrate performance metrics to hold the service providers accountable for their work.

These can include (but not limited to) repair turnover rates, comeback rates and the results from your own quality control review. Measuring performance might seem mundane, but it surely can’t be overlooked. This will prevent your assets from being stuck in the shop for too long in addition to ensuring timely transactions with the vendors.

It not only prevents any sudden need for additional maintenance, but also gives a reassurance that right maintenance providers have been chosen for your fleet. Afterall, having peace of mind that your fleet vehicles are fully-functioned is a value that cannot be overlooked.

The Development of Fleet Management Software:

Undoubtedly, the potential of the industry is immense. Your software for fleet management will cater to all the pain points of the domain but you need to hire the right tech partner for getting the software developed in the first place. The pricing plans being offered to you are not as important as the quality.

Before hurriedly jumping in to any conclusions, make sure you’ve thoroughly conducted a market research for the persistent problems. It will give you an edge over your competitors.

A right development partner will be able to guide you with the appropriate frameworks, the coding standards followed by them that would also be implemented for your business niche. Before hiring, explore their portfolio and check if they’ve doe any similar work before. Now was it a successful project? Go through the reviews to cross-check.

A scalable, secure and robust fleet management software is not that difficult to develop if the team has enough domain experience. The UI and UX must be interactive and user friendly. Check out the app Delivr we made for one of our clients:

Summing Up…

Adopt innovative delivery management system to get an improved asset utilisation, better customer satisfaction with reduced fuel usage. Regardless of whether it’s for transport or logistics, automation via reliable fleet management software is the answer to this.

At EngineerBabu, we have previously developed applications in this domain. It includes Delivr and MaalGaadi, 2 of our best ones, yet. And yours could be next!  Just drop us an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com. Don’t want to wait?

Get in touch now!

Liked the article? Also Read:

1. How To Set Up An Offshore Development Center In India?
2. In 9 Years of Learning, I Saw 500+ Products Failing: Top Reasons Why Startups Fail
3. How Much Does Mobile App Development Cost?

The post A Fleet Management Software to Improve Supply Chain Efficiency appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

As a result, it can no longer be denied that delivery speed and quality impact the purchasing decisions of consumers significantly. Furthermore, 94% of customers blame the retailer whenever a delivery goes poorly. It is but obvious that a large percentage of these customers are continuously facing late or failed deliveries.

The automation of data relating to the supply chain management is the best definition of a logistics management software. There are freight technology software that cater to field force tracking, route optimisation and vehicle management. Likewise, this component meets customer demands via planning and implementation of the various information.

These range from effective movement and storage of goods and services from origin to destination. These software automate supply chain management for shipments, carriers and single map interface optimised in real-time. A modern logistics software like FarEye can significantly improve your customers’ delivery experience and consequently, help boost your business.

Want to know how? Read this curated article to know more.

How does a Logistics Management Software automate Supply Chain Management?

Intelligent task allocation and dispatching along with dynamic routing and real-time visibility can be facilitated easily with the latest freight technology methods. Logistics management forms an integral part of the supply chain management procedure to reduce expenses and provides an opportunity to enhance customer service.

From planning & managing their dispatch schedule, delivery routes and capacity in the most cost optimised way. As a result, integrated logistics management software have virtually revolutionised the old system.

Is there really a need for a Logistics Management Software?

Certainly, online orders have become pretty common in this age with the given technology. Logistics Management helps in ensuring that customers receive their orders in a timely fashion. It helps in optimising every single possibility with the delivery plans as well as route optimisation with the right people allocation. People trust Amazon and FedEx because these happen to be the experts in this industry.

Consequently, irrespective of the size and scope of your business, if you opt for an integrated software for your company’s logistics management, you get facilitated with the following perks:

1. Capacity Planning
2. Resource Management
3. Real-Time Visibility
4. Detailed Reports
5. Real-Time Analytics
6. Real-time dispatch

Recommended Reading: 6 Tips To Effectively Increase Your eCommerce Sales

5 Key Features Of A Supply Chain Management Tool:

First of all, time has become a valuable resource. It is essential in a business to have a proper channelised system for supply chain management. A reliable route planning system can drastically cut down on the time taken for achieving proper deliveries and scheduling fleet movements. While getting an automated logistics management software developed, make sure that the interactive features listed below are included:

1. Driver and Vehicle Tracker:

Fleet owners now have the advantage of opting for various freight technology tools available. One can have peace of mind when they are able to access the details about their vehicles and drivers at a given point of time. Now, getting notified of every move of the vehicle and driver is possible, thanks to the GPRS in logistics management software.

2. Assigning Order to the Nearest Driver & Order Pick Up:

When there are numerous orders at once that have to be managed urgently, this feature of automatically ordering dispatch of the order via delivery & logistics management software helps business owners in automatically assigning the orders to their nearest drivers. Thus, avoiding any delay.

3. Real-Time Chat:

It has become necessary to be in constant touch with the drivers. That is to say, several clients and drivers having varied needs are expected to be dealt with by the fleet business owners. Consequently, in-app real-time chats help in enhancing the communication within the network of the fleet.

4. Regular Log Record of Drivers & Vehicle Inspection:

Sending the driver’s log automatically eases the pain of the driver while empowering business owners to efficiently handle tasks like checking the hours of performance, number of trips, client reviews and time taken for the deliveries made.

Similarly, with tools like vehicle inspection, business/ fleet owners can access information about their vehicles such as the mileage, distance covered or details in cases of rash driving, if any. The maintenance needs and repairing details get notified with the essential data like fuel indicators, pressure check, brakes etc.

5. Route Planning and Live Delivery Statistics:

This forms another integral part of freight technology. Features like route pre-planning in logistics management app ensure that business owners and managers are adequately aware about the route taken by their drivers. When the vehicle reaches the desired delivery location, an instant notification can be sent with the live delivery statistics.

Also Read: MaalGaadi – An Intra City Logistics and Fleet Management Solution

To improve the productivity of your delivery executives, automatically assign them highly efficient routes. Parcel distribution or deliveries form a vital part of CX summing up the customers’ perception of how they get treated by the company. If you invest in the right technology, you gain more transparency and can control the supply chain. With your delivery system being more efficient and accurate, you save time and money for everybody, while retaining the loyalty of your customers.

Choosing The Right Development Company For Logistics Management Software:

When it comes to the development of any web or mobile app product, you have to be careful. There are a lot of factors that go into the success of your desired product. Before introducing your product in the market, make sure you have thoroughly researched. It includes your competitors and their weak and strong points, both.

Hiring the right tech partner is one of those first few right decisions that you need to take. Furthermore, the pricing plans being offered to you are not as important as the quality. Also, they must be able to help you with suggestions, if any. The appropriate frameworks, the coding standards followed by them that would be implemented for your business niche are some other must-haves.

Explore their portfolio and check if they’ve doe any similar work before. Was it a successful project? Just go through the reviews to cross-check. The application must be scalable, secure and robust. The UI and UX must be interactive and user friendly. Check out the app Delivr we made for one of our clients:

To Sum Up…

By adopting the innovative delivery management system, business owners get an improved asset utilisation, better customer satisfaction with reduced fuel usage. Also, regardless of whether it’s for transport or logistics, wherever the goods are to be moved, it becomes important to keep tabs on your fleet consistently. Automation via reliable logistics management software is the answer to this.

EngineerBabu has previously developed applications in this domain. Delivr and MaalGaadi are the 2 of our best ones, yet. Yours could be next!  Just drop us an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com. Don’t like waiting?

Get in touch now!

Also Read:

1. In 9 Years of Learning, I Saw 500+ Products Failing: Top Reasons Why Startups Fail
2. How Much Does Mobile App Development Cost?
3. How To Set Up An Offshore Development Center In India?

The post Integrated Logistics Management Software: Uber For Supply Chain Management appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.