Goldstar Transport was formed in 1998 and now has an annual turnover in excess of £50 million. The company regularly handles over 700 container movements per day for a varied customer base. In 2005, the company reviewed it's fleet management requirements.

"We decided that we should invest in a new fleet management system, to take advantage of the technology that was out there" says Derek Cawston, General Manager at Goldstar’s Felixstowe headquarters. "The system we had at the time was inadequate and antiquated".

After investigating a number of other systems, Goldstar settled on Truckcom as the best solution for their business.

"Truckcom was the best fit for us – it did so much more than the other systems" says Derek.

Truckcom is now an integral part of the way Goldstar operates, with all office users at the company’s six operating bases and the entire company fleet relying on the system.

"Looking at how we operate now, the key thing is that we have good information from Truckcom, easily to hand". Says Derek. "Our customers love the job tracking website – and automatic importing of jobs into Truckcom has saved us on administration costs".

Now the system is well established, it has business development benefits too: "when showing one new customer the customer website, he actually said that Truckcom would make him more likely to give us the business!".

Also, the drivers are full of praise for the system. Gary Withers, who drives for Goldstar in the midlands, says "it's the best thing I've ever had. I'd recommend this to anybody".

Derek sums up the effect of Truckcom: "We’ve made significant savings and it makes the job easier"

OOCL is one of the world's largest integrated international container transportation, logistics and terminal companies, with a network covering Asia, Europe, North America and Australasia.

The company is well respected in the industry with a reputation for providing customer-focused solutions, a quality-through-excellence approach and continual innovation.

OOCL UK's road haulage capabilities allow them to offer a high quality collection and delivery service to all towns and cities across the country, using a fleet of over 100 contract vehicles. Particular management attention is paid to ensuring timely arrival to meet customer needs.

OOCL UK have fitted all their contract vehicles with Truckcom Mobile running on standard smartphone devices. The smartphones receive job information from their traffic office, capture signatures electronically and dispatch proof of deliveries online. Downloadable PODs are available to customers moments after the delivery or collection has been signed for. Traffic office staff can monitor each vehicle’s location minute by minute and keep delivery sites fully informed of job progress. If a vehicle is delayed, late running alerts including ETA and reasons for the delay can be sent immediately to customers.

Truckcom Office, running in OOCL UK regional operations office, interfaces directly with existing IT systems. The flow of job information from the central system, to the driver and back again is completely streamlined saving a huge amount of administration time. Eliminating the need for any double entering of information also reduces the likelihood of costly errors.

The installation of Truckcom has led to a greatly improved customer service level whilst planning, controlling and managing all the vehicles more efficiently. Marc Jenkins, OOCL's Assistant General Manager, UK Operations, explains, "Truckcom has enabled us to achieve a far higher level of transparency, and improved communication to and from our contract vehicles, which in turn supports our quality of service objective to our customers. The administration benefits of Truckcom permit our transport controllers to focus on planning, execution and managing our fleet of vehicles effectively.

Draper Distribution Ltd has nearly 50 years of history in the transport industry. They offer a comprehensive range of distribution services from their headquarters in Merseyside, covering all parts of the UK.

"Basic tracking for our fleet has now been replaced by the Smartphones. This gives us the flexibility to use it on any vehicle we choose without the additional costs of removing and refitting Tracking Boxes" says Peter Draper, MD.

Draper Distribution initially chose the “Pay As You Go” contract so that they could try out the system before committing to a longer contract. Subsequently they signed a 3 year contract to benefit from the reduction in licence cost for contract customers.

"We were not entirely sure that Truckcom was for us, so we bought a few Smartphones on a Pay As You Go basis. This enabled us to get the software up and running and use it before committing to a 3 year deal. This was an easy thing to do because Truckcom asks for no money up front" says Peter Draper, MD.

Draper Distribution has more than doubled in size in the past 18 months, in spite of the current recession. With the flexible contracts that are offered by Truckcom it was only a matter of a phone call to increase the licence count to cope with the new demand.

"Over the past 18 months our company has expanded against the tide of recession. I would definitely say that Truckcom has been an important part of this success" says Peter Draper, MD. "We expanded the business into the Container Haulage sector specialising in movements from Port of Liverpool, North West ports and freight terminals, which now represents 50% of our business. This was an easy thing to do as Truckcom is designed to manage every type of haulage, in our case pallets and containers".

Truckcom and Draper Distribution have developed a winning partnership ensuring success from the use of technology to save money and increase customer service and efficiency.

Peter Draper concluded "Truckcom do not just sell you the software and leave you to it. We have a very close and valuable business relationship that ensures we are always supported and always looking for new ways Truckcom can improve our business"

Established in 1982 by John Stevenson, Raven was set up to provide an efficient and reliable link between Cardiff International Airport and London Heathrow. As the industry has changed, Raven Express has also developed to ensure that the service too moves with the times.

Part of the solution to providing this high level of service was the introduction of Truckcom in the summer of 2009.

"We wanted a fleet management system that would give us the control and efficiency to provide our customers with the high level of service we promise” says Justin Stevenson MD.

"We needed a system that catered for our needs, Truckcom catered for 95% of them. We discussed weight tariffs as being the 5% we were missing. At no extra cost, Truckcom re-developed Truckcom Office to include weight tariffs. Now I have 100% of the fleet management solution I need"

Truckcom has become a major part of Ravens Express' infrastructure that has helped them provide a continued high level of service and efficiency to their customers.

"Reducing costs, increasing control and maintaining a very high level of efficient service, Truckcom is a no brainer" concluded Justin.

The Greatorex Group operates from its head office in Martin Moor in Lincolnshire. The family run haulage business has been using Truckcom within the day to day running of their business since early 2009.

MD Tim Greatorex initially purchased the system as a low cost solution for electronic vehicle checks, Satellite Navigation, and vehicle tracking. His drivers, covering a wide age range, all found the system very easy to use.

Now the company are in the process of implementing electronic Proof of Delivery into their software package, enabling them to reduce paperwork and speed up their invoicing procedures.

"Truckcom is a very flexible software system, so we have been able to add extra modules to our system without the hassle of any downtime to our business" says Tim Greatorex.

CWG Choices Ltd specialises in the manufacture of UPVC windows, doors, conservatories and garden studio/office specialists. They are based in Corby, Northants and Aldridge, West Midlands distributing all over the country.

CWG Choices operate an in-house order and warehousing software application, which is their primary IT infrastructure. The administration of loads, routes and allocation to vehicles is completed using the in-house system.

Using the Auto Import module Truckcom is now a fully integrated part of the CWG Choices IT system. All movements are automatically sent to the Smartphone’s in the vehicles based on the allocation and load data from their existing system. There is no need for manual job input into the Truckcom system. The fleet controller only needs to press one export button in the in house system and Truckcom creates and allocates all movements.

"We wanted a system that we could just bolt on to our existing system" says Phil Redfern, Site Manager at CWG Choices Aldridge. "The way it has turned out Truckcom is now part of our system and the transfer of movements from our ordering software to the PDAs is effortless and seamless".

Once the jobs are sent to the Smartphones the driver is then able to capture an electronic POD. If there are multiple deliveries for one address the jobs are consolidated so the customer only needs sign once.

"One of the main attractions of Truckcom for us was the opportunity to move to a virtually paperless system. Using the Smartphones in the trucks, we send down all the job details and get the signature back without having to spend time and effort producing, processing and filing multitudes of paper" says Helen Chambers, Transport Manager. "The system pays for itself in saved stationary and labour costs".

Phil Redfern summarised by saying, "Our core business is production and supply. Truckcom has enabled us to run our Transport Department with reduced cost and less effort which enables us to spend more money, time and effort on our core business".