Schneider’s dispatchers are in their Green Bay, Wisconsin headquarters,
while driver managers are located in regional terminals.
Driver managers found the existing system to be quite data rich, but
they were sometimes challenged to quickly pinpoint needed information.
To see specifics on a given driver, the manager had to sort
through multiple screens of files from different programs. Issues that
needed to be addressed or potential opportunities were being missed
because they were buried in the data.

Says Paul Janco, Director of Business Systems, Schneider
National Bulk Carriers, “Driver managers were regularly taking 2-3
hours per day sorting through non-critical data to find actionable needs.
Our driver relationships, service and productivity were suffering.”
In addition, the handoff between the day shift of regional driver
managers and the night support shift at corporate was cumbersome.
“We’re a 24/7 company, and communication between the two teams
wasn’t as smooth as we wanted,” comments Janco. |

Schneider wanted a way to sharpen their focus with a single,
total picture of a driver’s situation. They knew a more comprehensive
approach would save time, increase productivity, customer service
and improve driver relationships. Issues could be visible immediately
and handled quickly, opportunities would reveal themselves and compliance
tracking would be simpler.

Schneider turned to TMW to help them establish what they
called “situational awareness.” They needed a tool that would effectively
enable operations to quickly and consistently establish clear
visibility to critical facts. “We needed to move quickly to exception
management, not laboriously looking through data driver by driver,”
says Janco.

After spending time at virtually every Schneider Bulk field location
working with their driver managers, TMW developed Driver Zone™
as the “Situational Awareness Tool” Schneider needed. It eliminates
the unknowns, providing the real-time, instant visibility of all the
driver details in a simplified, color-coded calendar-based view. The
color-coding in DriverZone automatically flags problems to facilitate
Schneider’s exception management. That includes load status, HOS
updates, mobile communication message status, on-time delivery,
safety concerns and driver productivity information, among others.
DriverZone also features the ability to put notes right within a file to
make communications between the day and night shifts simpler.

Driver managers save 2-3 hours per day that used to be spent
sifting through data. More importantly, they can immediately see and
react to urgent needs or opportunities, which improve company
performance. DriverZone is especially helpful in facilitating smooth
Start-of-Day (SOD) and End-of-Day (EOD) hand-offs between shifts,
assuring that critical issues are seen and addressed, even though the
two staffs are in different cities.

“Providing this time back to the operations associates has given our
driver managers the opportunity to proactively provide safe service,
look for ways to lower our costs and truly manage driver performance
and relationships as never before,” says George Grosshardt, Vice
President & General Manager of Schneider National Bulk Carriers.
The improvements have reached into virtually every area.
Because the operations group can easily see when a driver is running
late, they can address the issue proactively. This resulted in a 36%
reduction of operations related service failures. Also, because driver
operations are easily monitored, SOD went from 2-3 hours to 30
minutes. Improved tracking also has Schneider experiencing accident
cost reductions of 51%.

DriverZone’s clearer information allows a driver manager to see a
driver situation developing, and its increased efficiency provides more
time to listen. “In the past, driver problems were often a surprise,” says
Grossardt. “and there was not really sufficient time to listen to our
drivers’ concerns effectively. DriverZone changes that.

Future Plans
Schneider sees DriverZone becoming a tool for more accurately
forecasting freight levels to optimize utilization and service. Says
Grossardt, “With DriverZone we can more quickly and precisely
account for all drivers, loads and status. Because bulk loads are usually
booked 2-3 days in advance, we can use this tool to drive our business.”
The system also offers driver retention benefits because it makes
it easy to track Hours of Service, match drivers with loads and maximize
load opportunities. “We see DriverZone as making a significant
impact on driver satisfaction and retention,” concludes Grosshardt.
“And that’s important to Schneider’s bottom line.”

“Providing this time back to the operations associates
has given our Driver Managers the opportunity to
proactively provide safe service, look for ways to lower our
costs and truly manage driver performance and
relationships as never before.”

- George Grosshardt
Vice President & General Manager
Schneider National Bulk Carriers