Fleet Management & Forklift Safety Blog

Inefficient use of your employees’ time may be increasing labor costs. One of the largest expenses in your warehouse is probably labor costs, which account for as much as 50% of a facility’s total operating expenses. The ability to merge labor data with your facility’s warehouse management system can help you identify and reduce labor expenses by up to 30 percent.

Here’s why.

Today, telematic platforms make it is easy for Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and labor management data to merge seamlessly together and clearly identify where labor is well-utilized - and where it is not - throughout the facility.

Telematic data combines workers’ schedules and clocked-in time with detailed, accurate, and real-time views of tasks in the warehouse so you can quickly identify anything that may be slowing down productivity in your warehouse efficiency metrics.

For example, a telematic system identifies how much time a driver is active with a load, how long each driver sits idle, and the areas in the warehouse that are more prone to accidents or impacts. Telematics can give your WMS improved “big-picture” visibility, helping you identify what needs to be done to improve performance and reduce inefficiencies.

By merging this data, telematics provides:

• Analysis of productivity of all operators compared by shift, site, and region.
• The ability to pinpoint driver inefficiencies and the need for driver training. Forklift drivers account for 70 to 80 percent of the hourly cost of operating a lift truck, so targeting improvements or additional driver training saves time and money.
• Insight into areas where workflow or personnel changes would improve productivity.
• Integration with Enterprise and Resource Planning (ERP) systems that sends information to an employee’s personnel file, creating written proof vital to enforcing safety regulations.
• Improved inventory accuracy. Monitoring and measuring the movement of assets — including inventory — in real time.
• Insight into traffic movements, which identify the most effective locations for fast-moving pallets.

Telematic system integration (SI) with back-office systems

Today, telematic data easily integrates with back-office or ERP systems to improve workflows and operational analysis in departments including accounting, customer service, operations, and human resources. A telematics platform can facilitate automated records of each driver’s productivity and work patterns and relate this data to your fleet’s overall performance each day.

An optional job-tracking feature allows operators to record the time they started and completed a job to help identify operational efficiency and trends.

In conclusion, your telematics platform should seamlessly merge data from all three elements that make up your warehouse operation — inventory, people, and hard assets. This comprehensive, detailed insight gives you the big picture on what’s happening in your facility and why, which allows you to make your warehouse more efficient.