Joshua Saunders

GPS Technology continues to grow, from tracking your pets to asset tracking and monitoring employees, the possibilities are endless.  But since this is a business blog, I thought I would discuss how GPS technology could provide asset tracking and monitoring functions to ensure your business is being run efficiently.

I have worked on a few safety consulting projects related to GPS asset tracking products and services.  The products vary in a number of different ways, such as the information provided to you and who does the monitoring.  One product that’s a technical leader in the industry is the GPS Insight Vehicle Tracking System.  The system is a hardware and software solution.  The software is web-based, giving you access to your data anywhere with an internet connection.  Unlike many other solutions, their hardware plugs directly into the vehicle’s diagnostics port, making installation extremely quick and easy.  Better yet, it allows you to monitor more than just location.  Remotely monitor odometer readings, speed, vehicle fault codes, fuel consumption, idle time and more.  Basically a commercially available On-Star (their commercials advertise monthly emails about your cars diagnostics).

How does it work?  Well as you know, GPS or Global Positioning Systems use satellites that send a signal to a receiver and track its movement.  Using mapping software, you can plot exactly where a vehicle traveled.  GPS Insight provides highly customizable maps with a lot of options to suit your needs.  Their maps are updated every two minutes, allowing you to constantly keep track of what’s going on and find out where your trucks are.  Many other GPS asset tracking solutions are not provided power by the vehicle and are instead run off batteries, allowing run times of a few years.  But the disadvantage to this is that in order to conserve power, they aren’t “pinged” as often, which means you won’t have near real-time results.

Using GPS technology isn’t practical or useful for everyone.  But if you run a business with a lot of mobile assets (trucks, equipment, etc…) or even employees out on deliveries, then this is absolutely necessary.  Make sure your employees are actually working when they’re away from the office.  Make sure your drivers aren’t driving places they shouldn’t be and make sure they take the quickest route.  Make sure your drivers aren’t speeding.  Find out remotely if there are any problems with the vehicle.  If you have drivers out making multiple deliveries, quickly find out where they are at so you can reroute them if necessary.  Read more at the Insight Blog for GPS Tracking.  What’s also unique is they have a support wiki to help customers setup their product.  Check out the GPS Insight support wiki for customers here.