Optimize Your Fleet Management With M2M Technology

Optimize Your Fleet Management With M2M Technology

Even small missteps in fleet management cost you money. Any downtime means your costs go up, productivity goes down and profits erode. What’s more, customer complaints about your supply chain travel a lot faster and further than success in reliably getting shipments done on time. Now however, with Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technology managing your fleet, it’s easier than ever before to know exactly where every part of your fleet is and exactly what it’s doing.

An integral part of the Internet of Things, M2M technology refers to technologies that allow both wired and wireless systems to communicate with other devices of the same type. The industrial application of M2M generally refers to a device capturing an event (such as temperature, inventory level, etc.) relayed through a network to an application (software program) that translates the captured event into meaningful information (for example, items need to be restocked).

Using M2M technology for fleet management means you can be automatically notified before your fleet’s tires need changing. It means when a truck breaks down, your repair team knows where it is -- and what’s wrong with it. It means when a vendor calls demanding answers about their shipment, you know where it is in seconds. It means you can find out which vehicles in your fleet have the lowest fuel efficiency -- and why. You can even plan out the optimum route for your vehicles to ensure efficient delivery. There’s not much that can’t be controlled and monitored with M2M fleet management technology.

The overall startup cost to adopting M2M technology is low, and much of the technology is plug and play. M2M fleet management utilizes common and existing network technologies such as GPS location tracking, GSM cellular networks and RFID tracking and identification technology. Using M2M can add up to a significant reduction in your overall operational expenses, and an increase in your bottom line. 

Nicholas Pell is a freelance small business and personal finance writer based in Southern California. His work has appeared on MainStreet, Business Insider, WiseBread and Fox Business, amongst others.

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