FleetFOCUS is the latest addition to the Linde arsenal of Customer Service and Business tools. FleetFOCUS provides Linde’s clients with a management system that allows them to better monitor their site activities, and provide the necessary information to drive positive change in any fleet.

Rod Chapman, Linde Australia’s General Manager – Sales & Marketing, describes the development process; "When we decided to embark on the design and development of our own Driver and Fleet Management System, we started with a clear and detailed brief to the developers, which we had compiled over many months and many strategy meetings".

"Firstly, our Senior Departmental Management team got together and asked ourselves what Linde wanted from a fleet management system. What would allow us to offer relevant, more reliable and detailed information to our customers, in particular our fleet customers? What would we need to do in order to provide our clients with better servicing and fleet utilisation information?"

In order to effectively answer these questions, and provide a truly relevant and innovative management tool, Linde Australia needed the invaluable input of a third party; their clients.

"We went to our customers and asked what they would like to see, not only from a fleet management perspective, but also for their site specific needs, such as individual driver management and control. We then listed all the suggested items in a detailed questionnaire, which was answered both internally, and by our end users, and from this we were able to provide the specification framework in order or relevance and need".

Driver control – accessing the vehicle with a pin code or swipe card access

Clients can control who uses each individual unit in their fleet by limiting access to vehicles to those people with correct identification. From an OH&S perspective, this means you have the ability to ensure that only drivers who have been properly trained on a specific piece of equipment may operate it.

Electronic pre-operational checklists are displayed on the monitor and a summary is also emailed to the Operations Manager and Linde. If the checks are not completed in full, the vehicle will not allow the driver to continue, ensuring maximum safety and efficiency at all times.

Usable impact information

The FleetFOCUS system provides statistical vehicle impact information to the management team, to help ensure the reduction of onsite infrastructure and vehicle damage. An impact sensor is incorporated into the hardware and once installed, the data collected is reviewed in order to gauge "standard impacts" ie. Entering / exiting pallets, dock levellers, expansion joins etc. Once Linde has this understanding, they can set the system to report on all incidents over the agreed acceptable impact, with a level 1 being just over our accepted impact, and level 10 being a major impact. The system can be set to email or even SMS Management and Supervisors if required for any impacts higher than a level 5.  

Vehicle integration with Linde CanBus

Perhaps FleetFOCUS’s strongest asset is its CanBus integration. The activity reports that are recorded in each individual unit are sent to both the Client Operations Manager and Linde head office. Gathering correct data is Linde’s greatest asset to better manage their customers’ fleets.

FleetFOCUS provides Linde Head Office with real utilisation information once a month or quarter, which means that informed decisions and recommendations can be made. Rod elaborates; "It allows us to monitor our initial client fleet recommendation and say ‘OK, this customer has X number of vehicles, and here is how they are being used. How are we going to save him money over the term?’ That’s the unique approach we want to be known for. CanBus gives us actual information from the vehicle’s control box, so there is no longer any guess work or estimations. We’re able to work with the facts, and provide our customers with sophisticated recommendations on how we can help improve their business."

The accurate vehicle data from the CanBus system will give Linde and their customers access to information like:

Key Time – The total time a vehicle was turned on after an approved driver has swiped their card or entered their unique ID number

Traction Time – This allows a comparison to the Key Time to measure true vehicle activity

Hydraulic Activity – Measuring lift, side shift, clamping etc

Seat Time – Gain greater understanding of each application, how often drivers are on and off the seat, and whether the correct piece of equipment has been supplied

Steering activity – Allows the assessment of how active a vehicle is in terms of turning, whether the driver has enough room to do his job, and ultimately whether there are more suitable model types for a particular application

Speed Modification – Does our customer want the speed of the vehicle modified? Would it assist the management of the completion of start up checks or impacts over X if the speed was reduced after an event?

Fault Indication – An email is sent to the Linde Control Centre reporting any faults in the field, enabling immediate action to ensure the optimum fleet performance is achieved at all times.

All FleetFOCUS reports allow filtering of required information and received via email in multiple formats. The reports can be tailored for different Management levels to ensure the information is being used to benefit the customer. A Supervisor may want all details every week, where a Manager may only want exemption reports based on designated best practice.

Completely wireless 2 way communications to and from the vehicle

The wireless capabilities of this unique system allows greater convenience when accessing information for both Linde and their customers. Anyone can access the necessary information by logging on to the Linde Australia website and entering the unique Username and Password. Additionally, the Linde technicians have the ability to log in on site through Bluetooth of wireless connections, and acquire the most up-to-date service records on the fly.

All this, and no need for bulky onsite computers, as the system is controlled remotely.

In fact, there is no Wi-Fi infrastructure at the client premises at all, in consideration of the fact that there may be existing Wi-Fi infrastructure in place running far more important WMS software or bar code scanners.

An important feature of FleetFOCUS is that it can be fitted to mixed fleets. It may not have some of the specific CanBus features outlined above, but it can certainly provide the majority of features to allow management to asses mixed fleet capabilities and performance.

The team at Linde Australia are understandably excited about the system’s potential, as Rod explains; "We feel that our FleetFOCUS management system will deliver results to our customers like no other system that has come before it".

The planned release for FleetFOCUS is November 2008. If you would like to know more about this exciting addition to the Linde brand, please do not hesitate to contact your local Linde branch for more information.