Let’s start with a stereotype. I bet that when you think about lines people (you know, the people fixing the powerlines) you picture burly men with a no-nonsense attitude.
This was what I thought before I spent a few days with some Utility companies. As I learned, the stereotype reflected my bias rather than reality.
To get to know people and figure out what matters to them most and how we could make their lives better, I needed to put my bias aside. I needed to listen to them, really listen. I needed to observe them and try to see the world through their eyes. I needed to put ‘me’ aside.
So, I did just that and was invited into a world I didn’t know existed.
One of the main things missing from the stereotype is an understanding of their frame of reference. Trying to understand people without knowing their context is like learning to drive by reading a book.
What I learned is that these people are extremely hard-working, have a wealth of knowledge, and experience, and have immense respect for each other, and human life. Think about it; these people are working on power lines that are sometimes ‘live’, which means they are putting their own lives on the line.
They form a tight team, trusting each other with their lives. Bluntly put, one person’s mistake can be the other’s death. This trust is innate to the way that they work and operate. You can count on them. They are all in it together. There are not many roles around that have this innate and hard-earned implicit trust. It reminds me of war veterans. This picture reflects a lot about that innate trust and camaraderie.
These people are as much first responders as police and firefighters. They are the ones that bring power back after an outage so that everyone else can do their thing.
Having first-hand experience and understanding of our customers and their context, really allows us to better engage with end-users and their employers. We can see the world through their eyes, without judgement, taking it for what it is.
Knowing what we know now about Utilities, understanding the people out in the field as much as the people back in the office, helps us develop better products. These products are aligned with their needs, rather than our assumptions.
During the process of development, a continuous feedback loop is crucial. Stakeholders are updated on our progress and we also talk to the lines-people every couple of weeks. They are the end-users and if they are not happy, our software will never succeed.
Smartrak uses human-led design as a way to uncover needs, to gain insights, and to develop software that is real.
Adopting Electric Vehicles (EVs) into your fleet appears great on the surface: friendly to the environment, a potential reduction in fleet operating expenses and the positive association for your company’s public relations.
With all the benefits, there come potential compromises to consider. One of these is the limited range of EVs and limited charging infrastructure.
EV range is increasing as manufacturers improve their battery capacity, and charging infrastructure is continually being expanded as network operators respond to the forthcoming demand. However, expanded infrastructure won’t happen overnight and it is likely that demand for EV use will outpace the charging infrastructure.
To combat this, ‘journey management’ will become a key component of a well-functioning EV fleet.
Journey management looks at an entire required trip and considers if the EV has enough range to cover this distance and if there are enough charging points to allow the driver to complete the trip without becoming stranded with a dead EV.
As well as the total distance, elevation changes need to be considered. Driving an EV over a mountain obviously draws more battery capacity than driving on a flat plain.
As a fleet manager, consider the type of trips that your colleagues use vehicles for. Are they relatively short trips within an urban area that an EVs range would cover or are staff required to travel long distances into remote areas where charging stations aren’t in abundance and a ‘lone worker’ H&S risk exists?
Conversely, as a number of Smartrak customers (such as Meridian Energy) have already found for longer trips, stops to re-charge can also be beneficial as they integrate forced rest stops for drivers within the journeys.
Telematics is a powerful tool for assessing the viability of EVs but also allowing staff to manage their journeys. The future is combining the data fed from the EV, mapping data that accounts for distance and elevation, and charging infrastructure. This will make journey management as simple as a click of the mouse.
Organisations such as Meridian Energy are leading the charge towards EVs by analysing the viability of integrating EVs within their fleet.
A telematics solution is a great starting point to understand your fleet’s true use profile. By getting a snapshot of all the journeys and destinations of your fleet over an extended period, you can use hard data to analyse the viability of moving some or all of your fleet to EVs and how that might be managed.
To find out more about how Smartrak customers have started their journey towards adopting EVs in their fleet, send us a message below.
Leading Australian universities and road safety partnership programs (supported by state road transport authorities such as VicRoads) have conducted multiple studies of road crashes to understand the leading causes and severity of the crashes.
Throughout the studies, it has become clear that the severity of road crashes is higher when it involves a high-impact or rollover.
What is a High-Impact and Rollover (HIR) event?
Understanding HIR causes
Studies such as those by the Centre for Automated Safety Research (page 9), have made it possible to pinpoint the leading causes of these accidents - with rollovers being far more common in serious traffic accidents and likely to cause serious injury or death. In single-vehicle rollovers, the most common recorded causes are (in order from most common, to least common):
Fleet managers and health & safety managers can now implement fleet safety measures reduce the risk of these crashes happening and be notified immediately in the event of a high-impact or rollover crash.
Why you need a HIR detection system and how it works
In an HIR crash, the driver and passengers are likely to be injured, rendered unconscious or immobilised. The best way to ensure that managers know about such crashes is to install a vehicle tracker such as Smartrak's Automatic Vehicle Locator (AVL), which is securely fitted in the vehicle.
The AVLs monitor for HIR events by monitoring the accelerometer in the AVL, checking for two forms of adverse events:
The feature is intended to detect and report on adverse events that involve vehicle collisions and rollover of such severity that the driver is unable to press an emergency dash switch or use a 2-way radio or mobile phone to call for help. It is not intended to detect all types of collisions, particularly low-speed impacts, e.g. 'fender-benders'.
What does the HIR feature do?
When a HIR event is registered through the AVL, an alert is sent directly from the AVL installed in the vehicle to the EyeQ Visual Intelligence Suite. Department managers, team leaders and third-party security monitoring centres have access via the EyeQ platform, where the HIR alert will appear. They can also receive SMS and Email HIR alerts.
The HIR event provides the date and time, vehicle details, vehicle GPS location and driver identification (if the vehicle has a driver ID system). This critical information helps the organisation deploy its emergency escalation process and/or helps emergency services get to the crash site to assist the driver or passengers.
Other ways to reduce the risk of HIR crashes
The high-impact and rollover feature is not an infallible tool and should be used in conjunction with other fleet safety methods to proactive protect workers.
How will this benefit the organisation?
Organisations and managers benefit from having the HIR feature and the other ways to reduce the risk of a HIR crash. It reduces the risk of serious injury or death of employees and supplements the current health & safety practices to help organisations comply with their duty of care obligations.
The HIR feature can be implemented with Smartrak's AVL hardware. Contact Smartrak today, to find out more about our HIR solution.
Software as a Service (SaaS) delivers software to users using a subscription model where the software is centrally hosted and is accessed over the internet, usually in a web browser.
Over the past decade, software has largely moved from the purchase and download model to the SaaS model. Several factors contribute to this, including changes in user organisations procedures and policies, changes in regulations, changes in technology, the availability of other software that requires integration and evolution of the product. These all require software packages to be continually updated to stay viable and relevant. The ‘buy-once’ model can’t effectively support this.
While new versions can be released that include new features, the fragmenting of versions and the required support to ensure ongoing compatibility and technical support can create significant costs for the technology provider, which are passed to their users.
This brings us to the benefits of SaaS:
Smartrak is a SaaS company providing GPS fleet tracking and analytics. For more information please contact Smartrak.
The term ‘VUCA’ – volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous – is being used more frequently to describe today’s business environment.
It may not be a new phenomenon, but globalisation and the fast-paced advancement of technology has intensified VUCA conditions. In practice, is that the timeframes for threats and opportunities to materialise are getting shorter. As a leader, you have to be aware of the changes going on around you and be able to respond accordingly.
Organisations can do a number of things to improve their chances of success. This article focuses on three: leadership, structure and information.
Leadership
Leadership starts with a vision – the clearer and more defined the better. Think about what mechanisms you have to communicate that vision and help people understand their part in driving the organisation into the future.
Smartrak uses a tool called ‘strategy on a page’. One half of this single page document covers your core values and beliefs, purpose, unique value proposition, target markets and BHAG (big, hairy, audacious goal). The other half is dedicated to the 3-year, 1-year, and 90-day measurable goals and actions that you believe will drive you toward this BHAG.
We consider this tool part art and part science. The art is in envisioning the future state and stating what you believe are criteria for success. The science is in the constant attention to, and tracking of, progress against the goals. This takes vigilance as well as total transparency across the organisation. Creating, implementing, measuring and refining your plan will help your organisation stay focused and resilient in changeable environments.
Organisational structure
It is worth reflecting on how your organisation is structured to carry out the vision and make decisions in uncertain times. As a starting point, it is useful to consider how you are positioned to answer the following questions:
Geographies, product markets, unique capabilities and an understanding of your growth options all play a part in how you answer these questions.
The answers should not be binary. In a VUCA world, you need to keep options open and think about your strategic moves as a multi-faceted portfolio, not just the individual bets. Think about creating value as a collection of decisions and experiments, not just project by project. Pull back and look at the wider implications. Then, think about integration and the incentives to get new ideas up and running with the right people and processes in place to make this successful.
Information
If leadership and organisational structure are the foundations of decision making in a VUCA world, information is the currency. We are in the era of the knowledge economy. The manufacturing and resource processing economy has evolved to an information processing economy.
Access to information and reliable data gives organisations a competitive advantage. The trick is to know how to collect and, more importantly, analyse the information. Customer engagement activities, facilitated by the use of technology can simplify the collection of information, but how do you derive actionable insights from this data? And, how might you apply the learning you get from these activities to decision making?
Smartrak is constantly working on new ways to synthesise data on behalf of our customers in order to present meaningful and actionable insights. Using data analytics, we help our customers identify trends, exceptions and unexpected behaviours, etc. By turning raw data into insights, we can provide another valuable tool to help the organisation survive and thrive in a VUCA world.
Join the conversation! Let us know how you manage decision making in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous world.
Utilities often lead the way when it comes to Health and Safety (H&S) because of the very nature of the industry. We have had the opportunity to spend some time with our customers in this area and tried to answer the question: ‘What does H&S mean in Utilities?’. We realised quickly this is the wrong question to ask. What we need to ask is: ‘What ISN’T H&S?’
H&S takes many different shapes and forms. Within the Utility sector, we distinguish four different aspects:
1. Environmental H&S
Dealing with the natural environment and elements on a day-to-day basis.
2. Outside of Physical Office H&S
Includes a range of factors: driving, dealing with other people on the road, off-road driving, lone workers, and working together on a task.
3. Organisation's H&SAnything from loose carpet tiles to organisational restructures.
4. Personal H&SMaking sure people are psychologically able to do their job well.
This shows how complex H&S is and how many aspects there are to it. On top of this, the Utility sector is a very hardcore industry, with people who are not generally known for their openness to talk and to share.
We are starting to see a few much-needed changes that will make sure that H&S is adhered to and made common practice.
Some of the changes that we have already witnessed:
When H&S started out there was a big focus on what we call ‘functional H&S’: what tools can I provide you with to make your job safer and less risky? This focused on the Safety part of H&S. We see this moving to both emotional health/wellbeing and physical health. You only have to look at the nationwide campaigns about bullying, depression and ‘dare to talk’ to see that mental health is starting to be taken seriously. People realise that you as an employee need to be healthy so that you can do your job better. The new era of connected devices and understanding physical health better also leads to paying more attention to physical health.
H&S is not something that just one person can do and enforce; it takes everyone to be H&S conscious. We have come across some examples where people were unhappy about newly implemented H&S rules but as soon as another person in their team did not comply with these rules, they were brought back into line by their peers. It is everyone’s responsibility.
We have also witnessed a big change in people management. It is no longer policing and punishment. To gain long-lasting benefits coaching is best practice. By rewarding good behaviour and actively teaching/coaching people how to change, you are implementing life-long changes.
H&S is no longer a tick-box system run out of the CEO’s office. It is everyone responsibility.
Having spent time on the ground, we can respond to what H&S really means in our customers’ context. Smartrak provides a holistic H&S solution that encompasses all levels of your organisation and provides tangible benefits to these needs.
Smartrak is actively looking for opportunities to come and spend some time with you to observe and immerse ourselves in your organisation.
No cellular network in Australia or New Zealand can provide or guarantee coverage everywhere. At times, it is necessary to call on the additional capability of satellite networks. The extent of this need is driven by several factors.
If a vehicle or person is in a city or regional centre and does not travel outside the urban landscape, there will be almost no need for satellite support.
At the other end of the continuum, you may have lone workers in remote regions such as the Torres Strait Islands, Cape York, or the Kimberley, or are travelling long distances between sites, towns and your customer base. All market verticals have their own challenges. It is critically important to find a specific solution that is fit for your purpose.
Risk management legislation, such as Chain of Responsibility and Duty of Care, affect what you need to do, what you can do, and the need to balance costs and capability.
What exactly are you looking to achieve? For some it’s a case of “we need to provide a duress system for emergency situations, regardless of location”. For others, it’s a “need to have a visualisation of a vehicle or person and their activity and location at all times”. Your scenario may be anywhere on this spectrum.
Hardware costs are only a part of the equation. There are also contracts for connectivity and ongoing data costs. Understanding the exact role and process will influence these costs. Smartrak can structure a package to balance cost with value from features and functions. Smartrak also arranges and manages the entire solution, so you only have one contract.
Smartrak’s devices are fully configurable to cache all events, data and relevant information and synchronise on set, periodic cycles aligned to your business needs. Communication, especially over satellite data, can be expensive, so sometimes caching events and specific data can be beneficial in keeping overheads down without impacting functionality. The trick is to strike a balance that fits your business.
If the solution is around the individual, the ideal option may be tracking their vehicle over the cellular network, capturing all vehicle-related data, and allocate standalone satellite-based portable safety devices, such as those in the Smartrak Satellite range, for when staff are operating away from the vehicle. The combination of vehicle tracking, and a satellite personal safety device is my personal preference, based on my working experiences. The ability to raise an alarm when several hundred metres away from the vehicle doing an inspection, or in a cellular blackspot in cases of vehicle breakdowns, provided me more flexibility. Every role and deployment can be different, so one size doesn’t always fit all.
Trials – sometimes called a proof of concept, or an evaluation – are a common phase in technology projects. The term is often thrown around in early planning meetings, and despite seemingly a simple step in the journey to technology change, it can mean different things to everyone around the table. The following discussion lays out some thoughts on the topic.
From the solution-selling side, when a buyer mentions ‘trial’ as the next step, it’s easy to assume that the sale is almost done. From the buyer’s side, when the seller offers a complimentary trial, it may be natural to jump in and give it a go. Problems arise when we haven’t agreed what the trial means, what it is setting out to achieve and, most importantly, what happens after the trial is completed.
Buyers can do trials for many reasons:
Sellers can do trials for many reasons as well:
All too quickly everyone can jump in before asking: why do we need to do this, and what do we all need to get out of it?
It’s important to discuss early on what all parties will see as ‘success’. Some forms of success are obvious, such as the supplier securing a sale and the buyer making the right decision on what technology solution to deploy.
However, trials are often a ‘honeymoon period’ where two parties are each evaluating whether a longer-term relationship can prosper, or what needs to evolve for this to happen.
This is a great question to ask and will really draw out what the key milestones are. Trials can often speed a project up, but they can also slow them down.
Buyers might have requirements confirmed and are ready to deploy and wanting to decide on which solution or partner to go with.
Sometimes technology is new and needs to be proven and sometimes the technology is proven, and the trial is about proving that the solution will fit and deliver the desired results.
By setting trial objectives that are SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound) and can only be truly answered by a trial, the trial is given a purpose and a mission in the buyer’s journey of technology change. Trial objectives should be documented between the buyer and the seller and be signed off by both prior to commencement.
Next, it's important that all parties invest in the trial. This might mean funds, resources, or equipment. When all parties invest in a trial that has objectives that are not only agreed but SMART, we are setting the trial up for success for all parties.
A trial that is motivated by getting free stuff from a supplier is doomed to ultimately fail because, regardless of even short-term trial success, it is inevitable the follow-on deployment project will stall due to ill-preparedness, such as lack of funds, or an approved business case. The expectations of the supplier and the buyer are often worlds apart when contributions or investments in the trial are skewed in one direction.
Where a supplier and buyer invest equally in trials (i.e. the supplier contributes hardware/software and the buyer contributes resources and partial funding), the success rate of both of the trial and follow-on widespread deployment is far greater. This can be put down to the old saying of having ‘skin in the game’, a personal and a corporate motivation towards success both in short-term trial outcomes and long-term deployment.
As with any project, rigour in project management methodologies around trials stands to reason. The planning, execution, finite close and debrief afterwards are all worthy phases and an investment in ultimate success of the larger program of work.
Where a trial sits in the overall program of work and what happens if the trial is successful – or not – needs to be agreed early on. A simple flow diagram can be used to document these two alternatives, and it’s important to document both.
Achieving a successful trial is great but what happens from then reflects how well the process was planned when the trial was in its infancy.
Every trial is different. The great ones lead to something tangible and thorough. They stick in your memory as something to replicate again-and-again.
Wannon Water is Victoria's second largest regional urban water corporation by service area. The organisation supplies water and sewerage services to residential, commercial, industrial and rural customers.
Wannon Water has a fleet of over 100 vehicles that travel on and off road, that are eligible for the fuel tax credits.
Wannon Water had previously completed its fuel tax credit calculations manually and felt the need to underestimate claims. Tim McPherson, Management Accountant for Wannon Water explains that the claims being put through by Wannon Water were "very conservative in what was claimed"; claiming solely for the fuel used in plant and equipment including bobcats and generators due to the inability to provide evidence-based claims for other eligible uses.
Wannon Water was not getting the most comprehensive amount back for its claims and without the appropriate evidence base, claims were much lower every year. The complexity and time-consuming effort required to gather the evidence was not worth the estimated financial gain.
Engaging with Smartrak and Nuonic, Wannon Water was able to leverage the data from Smartrak's fleet management solution and apply Nuonic's advanced data analytics and proprietary datasets to establish a more comprehensive and accurate calculation of eligible fuel tax credits.
Through Smartrak's APIs, Nuonic was able to analyse Wannon Water's plant, equipment and vehicle data to identify activities eligible for fuel tax credits. The activities included travelling on off-road, idling and operating plant and equipment. Nuonic's standardised cleansing and advanced data sets provided the framework and evidence to accurately calculate the eligible fuel tax credits that Wannon Water was entitled to. Reassured by the evidence that is provided in these claims, Wannon Water now submits more comprehensive claims to the Australian Taxation Office.
Wannon Water was previously claiming roughly $500 a month in fuel tax credits.
Now, leveraging the fuel tax credit solution, Wannon Water is able to claim $3,000-4,000 a month across its fleet of 115 vehicles.
Additionally, using the new calculations enabled by Smartrak and Nuonic, Wannon Water was able to retrospectively review its fuel tax credit claims for the past four years and re-submit revised claims.
Wannon Water is extremely happy with the savings that are made every quarter and will work with Smartrak and Nuonic to continue delivering these ongoing results.
Across Australia and New Zealand the introduction of new OH&S legislation has mounted new obligations on organisations to ensure their staff are safe and appropriately supported.
In 2012 Australia introduced new Workplace Health and Safety Laws (WHS) to take over from the disparate OH&S laws that were previously governed and managed on a state-by-state basis. These new WHS Laws make laws and regulations more consistent across Australia and provided new outlines around the requirements of organisations.
New Zealand adopted similar obligations in the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA 2015) which came into effect in April 2016.
As a business, you have legal responsibilities to implement health and safety practices in your workplace. You need to ensure that your business takes all practicable steps to avoid creating health and safety problems for your employees, contractors, volunteers, visitors, customers or the public.
By knowing and understanding these WHS laws and how they apply to your business, you'll be able to implement systems and policies to help you avoid the unnecessary costs and damage to your business case by workplace injuries and illness.
Smartrak is here to assist with addressing specific elements of your WHS policies and systems, especially surrounding workers in remote, solo or high-risk roles, and those who are using the company fleet/driving.
Smartrak's Fleet management system provides your organisation with the tools and information to identify risky behaviour to provide an opportunity for these risks to be addressed.
Smartrak encompasses a range of tools and systems to provide up to date information on individual driver behaviour and provides Driver Score Cards for each driver. By sharing this information with your employees you can make them aware of their risky behaviour and allow them to address it.
