How technology is paving the way for truckers to digitise operations, boost productivity and save cost.

At the moment, more than 65% of the nation's transportation is fulfilled by the trucking industry. Trucking administers much more cargo than trains, ships or airplanes and without trucks, goods could never travel from railways, ports and airports to their final destinations as last mile is always covered by road. Cost of transportation with the help of trucks is relatively cheaper than ships and airplanes. Due to these factors, trucking is heavily used in supply chain setups and the trucking industry thus becomes a factor of paramount importance to the country’s economic development.

Despite becoming a crucial factor, the industry faces multiple challenges which hamper the productivity and output of truckers in India.

Challenges faced by Trucking Industry

Trucking industry is booming as it is one of the best options in the transportation of cargo. But the trucking industry does not just limit the transportation of goods from one place to another. There are so many aspects to be considered in this industry as it includes a lot of functions like booking management, accounting, invoicing and reporting all functions related to your logistics business. The process of handling all the processes in the trucking industry is influential which will help in trucking industry’s success. But it's not so easy because you need to keep a check on all the micro details.

Immense Paperwork

There’s a lot of paperwork involved during the process of transportation. They need to keep a check on how many orders they have in a day and the orders need to be checked before sending for deliveries to avoid any further problems.

Theft & Local Mafia

Assigning the drivers and assigning the vehicle needs to be inspected properly. Surveying where your shipment is also a big task to avoid any theft or impairing the cargo and keeping the cargo safe and sound is one the main priorities of trucking companies to stay in this industry and gain client’s assurance.

Vehicle Maintenance

Maintenance of the fleet needs to be kept under surveillance because parts like truck’s tyres and spare parts life can decrease easily leading to vehicle breakdowns. Every trucks tyres needs to be changed after a specific number of kilometres as the tyres starts getting hard and blisters which can increase the chances of losing traction or a sudden blowout which can lead to mishaps.

Vehicle Breakdown

If the trucks are not maintained properly you may need to shell out more money because of the breakdowns or shutdowns and such practices starts decreasing truck’s lifespan.If fleet management is not implemented properly,it increases the risks accompanying with investment in vehicles,reducing efficiency of vehicles leading to increase in costs of overall cargo transportation and personal costs.

Route Selection & Fuel Management

During the consignment if the routes are not pre decided it can lead to using longer routes which increases fuel consumption.As we know that fuel prices as well as tyre prices are steadily rising , this leads to increase in overall costs required for cargo transportation.

Other Trivial Issues

Running a trucking company does not mean only transportation of cargo. But also other things like generating Lorry Receipts(LR) which includes tons of information and it includes consignees copy, driver copy, consignor copy and file copy..Also driver’s documents and vehicle’s documents are pivotal in case of accidents or loss of cargo for information or in case if asked by the police for verification. Sustaining vehicle P&L reports, bank statements till date, pending collection report and driver expenses needs to be updated on paper from time to time. This involves a lot of paperwork which needs to be handled very cautiously as a loss of a single document can create problems and disturb the accuracy of information for all the factors involved. As this paperwork comprehends all the statistics related to cargo and the consignee and the trucking company, all the documents need to be kept in good condition and intact to avoid loss of information which can incur losses to the trucking company.

Managing all the functions of the company should come at one place which can reduce the stress and should help in keeping all the information about the cargo, vehicle, accounts, workflow at one place.But how can one simplify this? How do we avoid all these hassles? Well there’s a solution for all these problems.

Introduction to CargoFL Trucker

CargoFL has launched a product which is a ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) and CRM(Customer Relationship Management) platform called “CargoFL Trucker''. So what exactly isthis Trucker platform? Trucker platform is an online, cloud based product which does not require you to carry the paperwork all the time physically. This platform is typically made for trucking agencies to reduce their workload and paperwork which further enhances the smooth flow of Supply Chain.

On this platform you can handle your bookings online. This includes creating new bookings, editing and viewing all the bookings. This makes it easy for the companies to manage all the bookings online in Trucker platform which reduces the load of creating different documents for handling bookings.

This platform also helps in assessing drivers and vehicles for the specific consignment. Assigning drivers and vehicles to any specific consignment can be done through our Trucker platform, this helps in keeping informed about the drivers and vehicles assigned to specific consignment to the trucking companies.

In our vehicle management system feature, we keep a check on all the factors related to truck’s maintenance like tyre management system which keeps a check on tyres life which help in changing tyres on time which will update after a number of kilometers after which you need to change then tyres. Also we provide route optimisation service which reduces unnecessary long routes which helps in cost of fuels and wear and tear of vehicle. Route optimisation is necessary in terms of delivering shipment on time, avoiding wrong routes which may lead to increase in time and increasing fuel consumptions.

LRs, one of the most important documents can also be generated online. Online LRs will make it easy for both the parties involved in this consignment. In this platform you can upload unlimited number of Proof of Delivery(POD), invoices and other related documents.

This helps to keep all the documents at one place in a Digital Vault which can be accessed anytime you want. All this information remains safe and no information is used for other purposes by us. Uploading, accessing the documents anytime and anywhere you want just at a touch surely reduces a lot of stress and workload off the companies. In case the driver is not able to find the documents of himself and the vehicle, Digital Vault can be accessed for these documents in case of verification and authenticity. When it comes tothe trucking company operations vehicle reports also need to be assessed from time to time. With this product you can create vehicle P&L reports, Bank Statements till the report date, pending collection reports and vehicle expenses report can all be generated in this product. Driver and vehicle reports are equally important while calculating expenses and logging them into accounts.

Keeping a check where your vehicle is going, taking the right directions to reach your destination can be monitored through the Vehicle Tracking system. This system will let you know the vehicle's location and its availability status. This is a GPS based tracking system which conveys correct information which helps in informing the driver if in case he chooses the wrong route.Truck’s location is updated in real time and this in turn gives you the live information about the truck and the driver.

Last but not the least, where all the core financial information is stored at the end of the day is managing accounts. Accounts includes all the expenses incurred to trucking company. Writing it down in an account book cannot be safe and needs proper attention to detail while inserting values which can be tricky. In thisplatform you can open your accounts and can input all the expenses of vehicle, driver expenses, loading charges,etc. In this you can bifurcate sales and purchases which increases clarity and transparency in your accounts. With the help of this software, it makes accounting easy and reliable where you can edit and update your financial records and financial statement from time to time.

CargoFL uses a customised analytics system that will help in analysis of data and statistics of the company. It helps in applying better data models which will help in improved decision making. CargoFL Analytics provides deeper insights into your supply chain and logistics functions therefore providing better control and visibility leading to significant productivity improvements and costsavings. In the Single Integrated dashboard you can add real time operational, Accounting, Invoicing & Tracking related metrics to the dashboard. This analytics is configurable and you can use real time metrics assessments for applying accurate predictions. Driver metrics help you in assessing driver performance and alerts for drivers can be configured according to your desire. There’s also a vehicle metric function in which you can track assets utilization, predict and prevent vehicle maintenance metrics and vehicle level P&L and related alerts and notifications on item expiry.

CargoFL analytics helps in improving supply chain visibility. With so many features on offer, we are working towards helping trucking companies reduce the stress of all the functions carried out and bringing all of them at one place. CargoFL’s main motive is to solve the problems of organised and unorganised trucking companies to thus help the nerve of Indian Logistics. Visit our website to know more about our product www.cargofl.com