Xata Corp. announced today, Oct. 9, that C&S Wholesale Grocers, the second-largest food distributor, has chosen to equip more than 700 trucks with Xatanet. C&S’s fleet delivers to both local and regional routes with Class 7 and 8 trucks, and this implementation brings C&S’s Xata-enabled fleet to more than 1,000 vehicles.
Xatanet 4.0 is designed to improve fleet MPG, monitor mobile assets in real time and reduce time needed to track regulatory compliance. The solution allows users to receive real-time location and mapping of fleet assets and for the real-time exchange of driver, vehicle, route and delivery information via a two-way wireless communications network, Xata says. Many Xatanet customers have eliminated the time-consuming tasks associated with manually managing drivers’ logs and DOT audits, according to the company.
“Xatanet and Xata’s fleet operations experts will provide us with tools that will reduce our costs and better serve our customers,” says Michelle Livingstone, senior vice president of transportation for C&S Wholesale Grocers. “This implementation will also help us with the proverbial ‘Where’s the truck?’ question in real time. We plan to use Xata’s Implementation Services and advanced on-site training to ensure our drivers and fleet managers are proficient in using the tools.”
To help reduce fleet fuel consumption, Xatanet 4.0 measures fuel usage, along with vehicle idle times, speeding time, driver-shifting patterns and real-time communications. Fleet managers can easily create exception-based alerts to proactively address inefficient driving habits, reduce idle time and optimize operations for best fuel performance.
C&S provides food warehousing and distribution services from more than 60 facilities throughout the United States, serving some of the country’s largest supermarket chains.
“Including C&S Wholesale Grocers, Xata now serves 30 of the 100 largest privates fleets in the U.S.,” says David Gagne, executive vice president of sales and marketing for Minneapolis-based Xata. “Our professional Implementation Services will ensure that C&S realizes a quick and substantial return on investment and can better serve its customers.”
