Opinion: Enterprise-Grade Mobility

This Opinion piece appears in the Jan. 27 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

By Frank Adelman

CEO

Pegasus TransTech

Workforce equipment, technology, regulations and demographics continue to change, but truck driving has and will always be more than a job — it’s a lifestyle. Perhaps nothing illustrates this more today than watching drivers use smart phones and tablets.

During a scheduled break, drivers scroll through apps to find the next load, the cheapest fuel location on the route, or to capture and transmit images of delivery documents to get paid faster. They may also decide to connect with a family member or play a game to pass the time. Technology merges their personal and professional lives together over the road.

More than 70% of drivers today use “smart” devices with mobile subscriptions, putting them ahead of the national trend. With such widespread use, transportation providers see the opportunities to mobilize their own information systems with the technology drivers carry with them, inside and outside the vehicle.

This mobilization strategy, often called “bring your own device,” or BYOD, can help both asset and non-asset transportation companies gain the benefits of traditional onboard computing platforms — while sidestepping the costs.

BYOD has a wide range of possibilities for software deployment. The most successful projects will be those where the personal benefits for drivers are equally as compelling as the business benefits. Shipment tracking applications, for example, automate bothersome “check calls.”

The BYOD strategy can be a delicate balancing act, however. Transportation companies and drivers can choose from thousands of trucking apps on Google Play and at the App Store, but only a fraction are “enterprise grade,” which can be defined as a high-quality application or platform that’s robust, customizable and can be scaled to meet the needs of companies of any size. In addition, it can be integrated with existing systems and is tested, reliable and secure from outside threats.

Drivers may not notice the differences that make apps enterprise grade, but transportation providers must carefully evaluate the options to safeguard their information technology systems and data from a multitude of risks.

In general, trucking apps ready for enterprise-grade deployment will have these attributes:

• Security — Sensitive information pertaining to lanes and rates routinely passes from the office to mobile devices and vice versa. Enterprise-grade applications have a robust set of controls and safeguards for hosting and processing customers’ data.

Application providers should, at a minimum, have a certified Statement on Auditing Standards (SAS) No. 70 that addresses specific scenarios pertaining to trucking, such as what happens to a document image captured by a device after transmission to a motor carrier or freight broker. Alongside the extensive testing of an annual SSAE-16 audit to ensure data center controls are highly effective, companies periodically perform an ethical hack and conduct other forms of penetration testing methodologies and intrusion detection monitoring to ensure the integrity of data center security.

• Quality — Any app can capture data or images, but the quality of the data and image is what matters to an enterprise. If the office receives a nonreadable image, a fleet manager has to contact the driver to capture another image, thereby wasting time, the driver’s data and other IT resources.

Apps with built-in intelligence can ensure quality at the point of capture and immediately notify the driver to retake a picture of a delivery document prior to submission. Compression techniques also play a role by maintaining quality while reducing image size. Drivers will quickly reject apps that consume large amounts of their monthly data-usage plan.

• Reliability — When drivers use apps to get paid by submitting delivery documents, application providers at least should have redundant data centers to eliminate service interruptions. Redundancy also is important at the hardware level in case a driver breaks his or her phone. For document imaging, redundancy exists in the form of truck-stop scanning services.

• Integration — Many carriers use integrated transportation management software (TMS) and onboard communication systems to automate driver messaging and workflow. These systems usually have required drivers to be in the truck to receive and respond to information.

Increasingly, fleets and brokers want to be able to reach drivers outside the cab. This ability may be important if a driver has a limited time window to respond to a load offer, for example.

The integration that has emerged between TMS software and

enterprise-grade mobile apps has the same level of robustness as onboard units. Mobile apps now can combine document imaging with automated driver messaging and workflow triggered by location. Virtual perimeters, or geofences, can be established at customer locations to trigger workflow and document arrivals, departures and detentions.

• Safety — Drivers who use cellphones while driving are a constant worry, especially if their personal devices are being used for business. Fleets can be held liable for distraction caused by a business app.

Very few app developers restrict their software’s use on devices in motion. Enterprise-grade apps should not do anything that takes a driver’s eyes off the road. The apps should only permit the exchange of information with the driver when they detect that the device is not in motion.

Transportation companies have many affordable options to gain efficiency, and expand automation and visibility through BYOD strategies. Enterprise-grade apps can eliminate the business risks of BYOD while giving drivers more options to stay connected and enhance their lifestyles.

Pegasus TransTech Corp., based in Tampa, Fla., is a provider of

business solutions to streamline billing, collections, payroll, accounts payable, driver qualifications and other paper-intensive processes for the trucking industry.