Companies with Ford commercial vehicles (model year 2018 or later) that use Samsara’s telematics platform are now able to more easily unlock vital data needed to manage their fleets without the need for additional hardware, as that will be installed in the factory. Through this turnkey integration between Samsara and Ford Data Services, customers will be able to log in to Ford Commercial Solutions to access GPS location, vehicle health, seat belt status and fuel usage on Samsara’s unified platform to manage their F-150 trucks on the construction site or Transit vans performing last-mile deliveries.
The solution, tested by Samsara strategic customers, is still in beta and as of on June 1, was made more widely available. Samsara’s platform includes artificial intelligence (AI) dash cams, Vehicle Gateways and Asset Gateways, and along with fleet managers, other business-critical departments such as payroll and supply chain will also have access to the data. The real-time visibility should allow fleets to make actionable insights that correct driver behavior, improve asset utilization, decrease downtime, and improve fuel savings.
“We can connect a variety of data sources—from factory installed devices, to assets in the field, to dash cams in vehicles—and integrate them into a unified view,” said Chris Mozzocchi, director of OEM Integrations at Samsara. “This ultimately provides complete operational visibility with meaningful insights to improve your bottom line."
Samsara has about 15,000 customers, with Ford vehicles among the most common assets. Because the vehicle data, such as diagnostic codes, are coming directly from OEM-embedded telematics devices, Samsara said they will be richer and more accurate.
“Fleets are increasingly looking to use data collected directly from embedded telematics devices, but if this data isn’t seamlessly integrated into other existing systems it can become more of a headache than a benefit,” Mozzocchi said. “Now, Ford vehicle fleets can collect actionable data from their embedded devices and analyze it alongside the rest of their Samsara data. At the end of the day, this will help fleets run more efficiently, so they can save time and money.”
With Ford introducing a hybrid version of the F-150 soon (possibly for 2021) and an electric Transit coming for MY 2022, the need to manage that battery and electrical system data will become even more crucial to maintaining a competitive advantage.
Samsara plans on growing the OEM Telematics solution to include a wider range of OEM partners in the future.
