Called Edocs, the company’s IT team has spent 10 months developing the program, which the company says has “transformed” accessibility of MOT, PMIs and other records.
Peter Snowden (pictured), the company’s engineering director, says: “When you are renting or leasing commercial vehicles, with all the ebb and flow of truck and trailer numbers that changing seasons and contracts can bring,keeping abreast of key compliance paperwork can be a challenge.
“We understand the needs of our customers and their ultimate reliance on Dawsonrentals truck and trailer to ensure protection of their O licence. So we prioritised this… and customers are noticing the changes already.”
Customers collecting vehicles from any Dawsonrentals branch now have instant transparency of documentation on any piece of kit in the rental fleet, and an Edocs ‘compliance pack’ is emailed at the time of collection direct to the operator’s office.
As well as helping customers to remain compliant, the company is also using Edocs to help manage its own supplier chain. Snowden explains: “With around 12,000 trucks and trailers constantly moving around the UK and Europe, we have a major network of authorised suppliers ready to carry out bothroutine and emergency work for our customers.
“That is a lot of people and mountains of paperwork to monitor, so having good robust control on the supplier network is essential to ensure our customers are compliant when running any of our vehicles.Edocs is delivering reports and other documentation so quickly now that there is no place for any underperforming supplier to hide.
“Whereas it may have taken us a couple of months before the arrival of the new system to spot a problem, now it is taking us seconds. And that means we can now help any supplier identify and eradicate a problem before it becomes a real issue.”
Edocs takes in all key documentation, such as tacho certificates, F-Gas Certificates, PG14’s, Brake Test Certificates, Weight Tests, Service Sheets and so on. These can be emailed by the supplier singly, or as multiple documents per email, with the system supporting all common attachment types.
Snowden says the Dawsonrentals Edocs programme is still growing in scope and sophistication. “We are successfully trialling a ‘compliance portal’ for self-interrogation of documentation by major rental and leasing users with us. Two major fleets are using the programme right now.”