Airclic in The News
On the road
MRM software is also useful in monitoring workers. Companies that once could impose nothing more than an honor system to trust that their long-haul truck drivers were taking the most direct routes and only reasonable break times, can now track them with GPS systems to record how long it takes them to leave the lot in the morning, break for lunch, and even sleep at night.
“The simple problem was that managers just didn’t have the visibility into who was doing what in the field,” says Tim Bradley, CEO of AirClic, one of a growing number of companies offering automated mobile systems that provide a window into companies’ mobile work forces.
AirClic partners with Motorola Inc. to offer companies tracking software that is delivered through the Motorola AC25, a rugged device that enables bar-code scanning and can be attached to a regular cell phone to provide more constant contact with drivers and field workers. The company’s device-agnostic software can also be used on BlackBerries and a variety of phones.
AirClic has enjoyed a threefold increase in revenues over the past year. Its customers include Walt Disney Co., which is outfitting its theme park staffers with the technology, and the Mayo Clinic, which uses it for specimen tracking. Smaller companies, among them Silver Line Windows, says the software has addressed one of its most daunting challenges — measuring driver productivity, which is critical for a delivery staff consisting mostly of “over the road” drivers who head out on overnight trips to make multiple deliveries.
“In the past, we’d send drivers out and they’d come back three days later and we didn’t know where they had been,” says John Keller, vice president of logistics at Silver Line. “Some guys would spend two hours at the truck stop or drive 400 miles out of the way to get paid more.”
Keller estimates the AirClic technology saves $500,000 per year for the 220-employee company.
