TR Group LTD 

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Situation:

A leading heavy vehicle lease, rental, hire and sale company

TR Group is a New Zealand owned and operated company employing over 100 full time staff and contractors across 10 branches located throughout New Zealand.

With over 3,000 trucks, trailers and coaches, TR Group is New Zealand's largest supplier of heavy transport equipment with services including vehicle leasing, vehicle tracking, used vehicle sales, truck washing, and vehicle rental.

The company prides itself on offering sound advice, honest dealings and outstanding vehicle quality and selection.

Vehicle inspections inefficient with manual paper-based processes

TR Group inspects every vehicle at the end of a hire. They capture mileage readings and billing details as well as inspecting the level of wear and tear and checking for any damage. As part of this process they need to compare the current inspection against the vehicles’ last inspection, keying the results into their billing system.

TR Group’s IT Manager, David Palmer says their previous paper based inspection system was labour intensive and time consuming. It required a lot of hand written work and then the same information was rekeyed into their billing system. Furthermore the paper based system could give inconsistent results as each rental coordinator carried out inspections in their own way. “We wanted a system that eliminated the paperwork, saved time, and drove a consistent inspection process across the organisation” says David.

A key requirement of TR Group was being able to use photos as part of the inspection process. David says that integrating photos into the inspection process serves two purposes; it gives customers clear evidence of any damage and makes it easier for an inspector to identify any wear and tear that took place during a hire.

A time consuming aspect of the paper based system was locating the previous inspection sheet and comparing it to the current inspection sheet to see what had changed on a vehicle during the course of a hire. AutoCheck stores the previous inspection readings and comments in the PDA, available at the inspector’s finger tips as they are inspecting the vehicle. This functionality has removed a significant amount of work from the inspection process.

TR Group also recognised that with the paper based system, different staff members were conducting vehicle inspections in different ways. “By using AutoCheck’s inspection templates we were able to specify what parts of a vehicle were to be inspected and in what order they needed to be inspected in. This functionality is particularly useful for vehicle types that we don’t inspect often and for helping train new staff” says David.

Solution:

Inspection process transformed

TR Group decided to implement AutoCheck from Netresult to help improve the accuracy and efficiency of vehicle inspections. The company’s rental coordinators use AutoCheck on PDAs to carry out inspections, which David says has transformed the entire vehicle inspection process. “We like the fact the PDAs carry details of previous inspections. For example the person doing inspections can assess the level of wear and tear since the last inspection. A key use for this functionality is checking the tyre wear that has taken place over the course of a hire”. With their old paper based system, inspectors would have to record each measurement, then go back to the office, locate the last inspection sheet and compare the measurements. Now they have the tread depth information at their finger tips. “With our previous paper based system, equipment that was returned to a branch other than the issuing branch was a real problem as paperwork needed to be transferred between branches. Being a nationwide electronic system AutoCheck has eliminated this problem. We can now use AutoCheck’s inspection process to check gear that we are having ferried between locations by external providers” says David.

A flexible and efficient inspection solution

With eighty different types of vehicles to inspect, TR Group also wanted to trigger the inspection process from, and feed their results back to their core business solution. This required AutoCheck to be customised. “Netresult has been excellent to work with. They’ve made quite a few customisations to suit our business and also helped integrate AutoCheck with our company-wide business system. Nothing has ever been a problem and they come up with good suggestions and ways to solve problems”.

About Us

Netresult Mobility is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner which provides mobile computing solutions to help all parts of the vehicle supply chain, from wholesale financers right through to consumers, improve the speed and quality of their decisions about vehicles. Our mobile solutions are aimed at addressing inefficiencies and providing you with competitive advantage. We adopt a low risk approach to developing and providing solutions by only using proven technology and ‘best practice’ project management methodologies.

PROJECT DETAILS

Category: Case Studies

Client name: TR Group

Business Issues: Vehicle inspections inefficient with manual paper-based processes

Solution: Implementation of Netresult's AutoCheck vehicle inspection solution to improve accuracy and efficiency

Outcome: Increased efficiency of auditing process through improved communication, reduction in errors and greater flexibility

AutoCheck has a prescribed checklist so we get a consistent inspection across all vehicles. It has completely eliminated our paper processes.
— David Palmer | TR Group Ltd