Patni's contribution in developing a well designed, web-based asset tracking system has tremendously helped improve customer service and cut costs for the customers of a large Vehicle Leasing Solution provider.
The Client
The client is an industry leader with one of the largest, most diverse fleets — more than 125,000 units - delivering customer focused services centered on renting, leasing, selling and remarketing trailers. The client operates an extensive network of more than 100 branches in Canada, the United States and Mexico.
The Challenge
The client conceived a trailer management system that would allow fleets to pinpoint trailer locations. This system would not only help the client to provide value added services to its customers, but also improve asset utilization and operational flexibility.
Not to limit its offering of asset tracking for units leased/rented, the client was looking at a solution, which would allow customers owning units to track their assets as well. They looked towards an offshore partner who could provide them with valuable expertise in this area.
Patni, with its vast experience in web-based applications, partnered the client on this challenge to design and develop a suitable solution with the following objectives:
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Allow the ever growing, client customers, to locate trailers anywhere in North America, including Mexico and Canada |
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Provide location information including street address, city, state, zip and country |
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Display roadmaps with zoom levels - ranging from street level to national level |
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Provide daily notifications of trailer location at factory pre-set time and a customer initiated location request |
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Export data for further analysis |
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Allow owners to locate carriers/private fleets that carried sensitive or high value loads. |
The Solution
The developed Asset Tracking System uses a dual satellite technology for sending and receiving information for trailer locations anywhere in North America. The system includes a transceiver and battery pack, which are mounted together on the nose of the trailer.
Patni designed and delivered the complete functionality of the Asset Tracking System in five modules, through the much-acclaimed onsite-offshore model of delivery. The five modules are:
Inventory Management - Enables the client Customer Support team to maintain inventory of devices. It has features of tracking the complete history of devices, which undergoes various phases of acceptance/inspection/rejection.
Device Setup - Web-based module wherein the Customer Support team sets up the device required before the end users can actually start tracking their trailers.
Application Website - This web-based interface includes the following features:
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Customers can send a request for information on the location of the trailer, including street address, city, state, zip and country |
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Customers can track the trailer movement for the last 30 days |
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Data can be exported for further analysis. Roadmaps can be displayed with zoom levels ranging from street level to national level. |
Customer Asset - A web-based interface, in which details of the customer-owned asset can be viewed, added and/or modified.
Billing - Consolidates the billing data from the application database and feeds it to the central Billing System. The Billing team can also terminate services or hold any particular service from billing in that particular billing cycle.
Patni is now handling the maintenance of the Asset Tracking System and also executing enhancements for providing additional features to the application.
The onsite-offshore model of design and delivery has been spot-on with the commitments of on-time delivery and first-time-right quality. Patni has thus helped the client meet their customer commitments.
The Technology
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J2EE on STRUTS framework using JSP, Servlets, HTML, JavaScript and XML |
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Oracle 8i |
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IE 5.5(Windows 2000), IE 6.0(Windows 2000) |
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Windows 2000, Linux |
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The Benefits
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Improved the client customer service throughout North America; better control of assets allows customers to better manage their operations |
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Tremendous reduction of costs through improved utilization and productivity of assets |
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Well-designed web interface positions the client above competition for similar functionality |
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Extended use of the Asset Tracking System across the client's other businesses. |
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