Trailing indicators

Trailer-monitoring technology makes planning the next move easier

Judging by appearance alone, trailers operated by Brown Trucking are similar to most other dry vans parked at shipping and receiving facilities. But watch closely, and you’ll see that the company’s trailers don’t sit still for long.

The Lithonia, Ga.-based company’s dispatch and operations software, TruckMate by TMW Systems, stores the coordinates of each customer site where its trailers are located. The software builds an imaginary radius or “geofence” around each site to organize the data supplied by the company’s trailer-tracking systems into useful reports for its fleet managers and customers.

Brown Trucking uses the technology to manage trailer pools for customers and their consignees. Every morning, the company sends reports to customers that detail the inventory at each location and the number of days each trailer has been idle.

Kevin Slaughter, vice president of operations, says that based on his experiences with managing trailers before implementing trailer tracking, he never will put a trailer in service without the technology. “I love the integration,” Slaughter says. “We rely on it so much. We pass so much data on to customers.”

Brown Trucking has the information it needs to maximize trailer utilization. And with the economy showing signs of life, fleets like Brown Trucking can leverage the technology to help grow their business without adding capital.