Trimble Instinct and Fleet Manager Reinforce Driver and Back Office Connections

When people talk about the “connected supply chain,” they’re typically referring to the relationships between shippers and carriers; the people who produce goods and the people who move them around the world to get them in customers’ hands. This complex, resource-intensive relationship facilitates all of our lives and makes it possible for us to find and purchase what we need when we need it.

But there’s an equally important relationship at the heart of the supply chain: the collaboration between a commercial driver on the road and their support staff in the back office.

Over the last several years, Trimble has been on a journey to connect the supply chain and streamline the way freight gets moved. As part of this effort, we’re strengthening the connection between drivers and the back office, so they can work together to realize new levels of efficiency, safety and performance.

Drivers are critical to carriers’ operations, but if they aren’t equipped with tools built to address and ease their challenges, they aren’t able to do their jobs. And for carriers’ back office staff, every day is defined by uncertainty. They need a solution that can serve as a single source of truth and seamlessly connect with drivers.

Connecting the Back Office to the Road

Back-office staff play a critical role in both maintaining driver satisfaction and tracking freight status and it’s vital they are equipped with tools that help accomplish both jobs efficiently. Trimble Fleet Manager, our cloud-based, real-time fleet management system, provides back office staff with up-to-the-minute visibility of fleet performance, asset locations, driver status and more. 

Fleet Manager enables the back office with up-to-the-minute asset visibility, eliminating excess phone calls to drivers and empowering staff to quickly resolve customer inquiries. Back office staff can sort driver availability by HOS data, access a database of millions of locations (with highly accurate geofences and gates) and access industry-first dwell times for locations.

Plus, users can search, review and visualize dispatch and route stop information; as well as access customizable, real-time reporting to help decision-making. All of these features combine to provide a complete view of operations with actionable data, numerous report options and on-demand insights.

We’ve also made it easier than ever for back office staff to streamline the driver experience. Through our configuration portal, staff can set a default view that drivers can go to after launching Trimble Instinct. Fleets know their drivers best – this feature enables them to view their desired screen automatically.

Back office staff can search dispatches by name, description or ID, or select a vehicle from a real-time map display

Enhancing the In-Cab Experience

Strengthening this relationship also depends on providing a favorable in-cab experience that helps support and retain drivers – a common challenge with an industry-wide shortage of 80,000+ drivers and sky-high turnover rates. Drivers dealing with frustrating technology and a fractured workflow may choose to move to another opportunity; making an intuitive, streamlined in-cab driver experience a top priority for carriers.

To that end, Trimble Instinct and Trimble Fleet Manager have been enhanced to work better together than ever before. Trimble Instinct, our in-cab, Android-based suite of driver tools, combines fleet management and telematics solutions in a single streamlined experience that lets drivers do what they do best: drive–without needing to be technology experts.

Instinct is easy-to-use, certified ELD compliant and goes beyond Hours of Service (HOS) logging with additional features like in-cab scanning, navigation and routing tools. And it now features improved device and and connection stability, reduced back office communications latency and more.

The Trimble Instinct user interface has been improved to provide more data for the driver.

Confidence Is Key to Success

We’ve been on a journey to modernize the telematics and fleet management industry. The combination of Trimble Instinct and Fleet Manager make it easy for both the driver on the road and the staff in the office to be confident in each other’s work and support. There is nothing more important than the driver experience to propel a carrier’s success and through seamless integration, carriers can start and end their days with certainty.

From dispatch to delivery, our connected solutions improve driver efficiency and safety while creating a better working relationship between drivers and staff, all while giving fleet managers the insight they need to make decisions as circumstances on the road change. Contact us to learn how we can help optimize your operation.