Today I was at Scania Malaysia for the launch of the Scania Assistance Service and Scania Fleet Management System. These are ownership solutions for better profitability for Scania bus and truck operators here in Malaysia. Of course, I get to view some nice machines too. In the heavy duty sort of scale that is. I was busy taking admiring the huge Garrett turbo fitted to the Scania bus chassis to the left of the photo above folks.
Anyway, before I get sidetracked, the new Scania Assistance service is an operator based call centre that operates round the clock and allows Scania's customers to always be in contact with Scania when the need arises. This service is now based on Scania's global standards and this latest call centre system allows Scania to track and follow up on the status of a customer's case from start to finish. It will keep the customer informed on what is going on with, say a stranded vehicle and what are the folks at Scania doing about it.
The Scania Assistance is supported by a team of customer service personnel, a fleet of standby service vans with trained technicians who can connect with Scania's network of workshops which can assist any Scania customer in need even in difficult to reach areas.
The Scania Assistance number is 1800-08-8500 (or +603 5590 9077 for international calls – for those travelling to Thailand or Singapore probably) and every new Scania truck, bus or coach chassis now comes with two years of free Scania Assistance.
Aside from the Scania Assistance, Scania also provides the Scania Fleet Management System. This is a set of services that connects the Scania vehicles with the customer's office as well as Scania via a communicator device (shown above - the little box in the middle of the photo is essentially a GPS packet data device, connected to Scania's servers in Sweden and therefore allows global tracking even though most of the local customers would travel within Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand). Scania customers will be able to retreive vehicle data, fleet position and also review the driver's performance (fuel consumption, CO2 levels, idle time, brake, average speed etc). By being able to peruse through the data, the customers can make decisions to improve the productivity of their fleet.
During the briefing, we were shown what Scania Fleet Management can do. It basically can allow Scania vehicle operators to take control of their vehicles and actually see what their drivers are doing to their vehicles. You can tell if a driver is driving uneconomically or idling the vehicle longer than usual or even braking harder than supposed to. With supporting data it allows the fleet manager to actually coach the drivers on better driving habits which will in turn save fuel consumption as well as wear and tear on the vehicles. The demonstration included a Scania prime mover which was driven around the area surrounding the Scania Headquarters and we could see it being tracked by the system doing so. There was also a mock driver and driver trainer discussion informing on where the driver had driven badly or otherwise.
"Hello kawan...you have 2,000Nm torque in the Scania truck of yours. Why aren't you lighting up the tyres at the traffic lights here, here and here?" Questioned the driver trainer. That would be the dialog in a motorhead's dream of course.
These two systems provide with a pretty good solution for those operating commercial vehicles. According to the Managing Director of Scania Southeast Asia, Mr James Armstrong (below), “Our customers' operations are at the center of the entire value chain. Scanias wide range or quality products and services are constantly improving and optimised for our customer's needs.”
“This is Scania's total solutions approach to help our customers achieve the best profitability.” He added.
Of course, these systems are not without a price but the increased productivity may actually over ride any extra costs. The Scania Fleet Management pricing is reasonable where all new vehicles ordered from the 1st of December 2014 will come with the Scania Communicator built into the vehicles and will get a 10 year subscription of the monitoring package. Current vehicles can also be retrofitted for a sum of RM3,100. One can also upgrade to the Control Package at a cost of RM136 per vehicle per month.
The difference between the two is that the reporting in the Control Package is more detailed (of course) in that it provides more detailed reports. It even includes traffic lights report, fleet position and even geo fencing (which allows customers to have an alarm when a vehicle enters or leaves a predetermined zone). There are tons more functions and stuff about the Scania Fleet Management system. I am just skimming the surface of it actually. For more detailed information, just head on over to the Scania Malaysia website.
From what I can see the Scania Fleet Management system works quite well. And coupled with the Scania Assistance service a customer should be able to maximise their fleet of vehicles in any circumstances and plan for any contingencies. From a layman's point of view, it is this sort of value added services that make the Swedish trucking industry stay way ahead of their competitors.
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