Company: Oakley Trucking Inc.,
No. Little Rock, AR
Operation: Large dry-bulk truckload fleet with all owner-operator drivers
Problem:
Oakley Trucking provides irregular-route dry-bulk services throughout the contiguous 48 states and Canada with a fleet of 620 specialized pneumatic, end-dump and hopper-bottom trailers. All of its trailers are pulled by owner-operators whose tractors are modified to handle hydraulic systems.
Given its size and 100% owner-operator model, Oakley has a small, but steady stream of contractors entering and leaving the fleet. Orientation meetings last four days and include shop time to install hydraulics hardware on the contractors’ tractors. They are held weekly at the fleet’s No. Little Rock headquarters, according to Tommy Mitchell, operations and accounting manager.
Managing the paperwork and recordkeeping involved took a lot of back-office filing and keypunching, not to mention all the time spent by the owner-operators filling out that paperwork. The ongoing chores of calculating and disbursing settlements, as well as keeping the individual operators informed about those settlements, also consumed a great deal of clerical time.
Damage, liability and other insurance offered to contractors through a third-party agency was another major clerical chore, requiring audits at the end of each month to reconcile accounts.
Solution:
Internally, Oakley has long used a document scanning system provided by EBE Technologies to transform all that paperwork into digital records that it could integrate with its TMW Systems fleet management software. In 2007, it began talking to EBE about its web-based driver portal.
“At the time we saw a major increase in owner-operators moving to smartphones, so we thought why not take advantage of the technology that’s already out there,” says Mitchell. The portal was quickly launched and as both the fleet and contractors became more familiar with it, functionality was expanded.
The most important function is giving its contractors easy access to settlement information. Over 70% of settlements are now handled via electronic transfers, according to Mitchell. Contractors get email notifications, but the information is also available online through the portal.
“We’re not just using [the portal] for settlements,” says Mitchell. “We also use it to let the drivers update their profile information, which automatically updates our database, and to communicate with them about safety information, recruiting efforts, notifications, and all those things we used to handle with ‘check stuffers’ back when we mailed checks.”
Even contractors who’ve left Oakley can continue to have limited access to the system, using it as an electronic filing cabinet for records they might need later for filing taxes or other accounting purposes.
One thing the portal isn’t used for is dispatch. “We want to keep that human interaction, and we require everyone to call in so we can actually talk to them,” says Mitchell.
The most recent addition to the portal has been a paperless insurance enrollment system EBE calls OverDrive. TrueNorth, the fleet’s Cedar Rapids insurance agency, has created an online application form that comes pre-populated with the driver’s personal information. Once a driver selects the insurance products they want, it requests an electronic signature and then creates a digital certificate of insurance. That certificate is also sent electronically to the Oakley database.
The new insurance feature not only does away with faxing and mailing applications and forms, but it also virtually eliminates the need for lengthy audits at the end of every month to reconcile enrollments and coverages.
