The Kent-based company specialises in just-in-time delivery for the automotive and aviation sectors, including iconic luxury brands like Rolls Royce, Jaguar Land Rover and Aston Martin.
Alcaline’s team of HGV drivers transport urgent parts and stock from all over Europe to the UK, with the most urgent stock flown in by helicopter.
“Time really is money when you’re manufacturing cars,” explained Andrew Jerome, transport manager at Alcaline Transport.
“It can cost eye-watering amounts to stop an automotive production line even for very short periods of time, and major delays in vehicle delivery, so it’s imperative that we deliver on time every time. Knowing exactly where all your trucks and trailers are at any given moment has a key role to play.
“We have 200 trailers scattered across Europe but with Webfleet, we can now pinpoint exactly where they are, making us far more agile and quick to respond to clients’ constantly changing and often last-minute demands.”
The Webfleet solution includes truck and trailer tracking, tachograph management, vehicle safety checks and camera integration – and will shortly be amalgamated with Alcaline’s routing and scheduling software.
“We wanted a fully integrated fleet management solution where everyone could use the same single platform with one log in and one interface for all our fleet management needs,” said Jerome. “Webfleet met this demand and much more.”
“They were recommended to us by Fleet Trak, a local fleet technology specialist who have not only installed the platform seamlessly, but have proved invaluable with ongoing training and support.”
Alcaline is also benefitting from Webfleet’s multilingual capabilities.
“If a driver is pulled over for a spot check by the transport police in Italy,” explained Jerome, “and they are five minutes over their permitted driving hours, they can simply show them our infringement letter, automatically translated into Italian by Webfleet, explaining the reason to avoid a fine.
“We have drivers from right across Europe including Spain, Italy, Poland and Romania – so being able to communicate with them in the right language and at the touch of a button makes all our lives so much easier.”
Drivers use the Webfleet driver app to carry out walk round vehicle safety checks, with any alerts automatically appearing on the location map and sent straight to the workshop planning team to resolve.
The software has also been integrated with axel weighing functionality so the team can see if any trailers are overloaded, while EPBMS highlights any brake performance issues and keeps Alcaline compliant with last month’s new DVSA quarterly brake test requirement for trailers.
Weekly MI reports show fuel efficiency, highlighting higher than average fuel usage scores in red, so Jerome can easily spot and address outliers.
“Webfleet is like another team member running efficiently in the background with no human error and an amazing level of automation,” commented Jerome.
“It’s revolutionised the way we do things and helped us to deliver even higher standards of customer service.”
Jonny Wiggins of Webfleet premium partner Fleet Trak added: “This is an excellent example of how Webfleet’s continuing investment in new technology means it can meet multiple customer needs out of the box and with the convenience of a single platform.”
