Company: Trailiner Corp., Springfield, MO
Operation: Truckload carrier with 200 tractors, 300 trailers and 48-state operating authority hauling mostly produce, grocery and pharmaceutical goods
Problem:
Facility security is a concern for many fleets, particularly those that haul high-value goods such as pharmaceuticals and baby formula. Just as important is ensuring drivers are hooking up to the right trailer with the proper load.
That’s why Trailiner Corp. has long used RFID tag systems; however, those tags can be expensive. When the company’s 500 or so tags were coming up for replacement, the fleet was looking at a significant bill, Amber Edmondson, president, says.
“We were starting to have our active RFID system batteries die, and that was [going to cost] $15,000 to replace,” she says.
Under the old system, the RFID tags on each vehicle—tractors and trailers—were “active” tags, meaning they pinged the front gate system continuously. The fleet needed another solution while still maintaining its sense of security and accuracy of tractor-to-trailer pairing.
Solution:
It turns out that the answer to its problems came from QuikQ, which Trailiner was using for its fuel purchase system. “I just posed the question of whether [QuikQ] had anything that could help,” Edmondson says.
And it did.
QuikQ was able to deploy its Q-Gate system for Trailiner. Q-Gate works much like the previous system, but instead of $30 RFID active tags for vehicles, it utilizes “passive” tags. According to Edmondson, the passive tags only activate when the truck is pulling through the front gate. Unlike the previous system, Q-Gate’s monitoring system at the front gate pings the tractor and trailer tags and communicates with the back office system. If the system confirms the tractor and trailer are matched accordingly, it lifts the gate.
“Each tag is specifically assigned in our TMS system,” Edmondson says. “If it’s not the right trailer, the gate won’t open.”
Because the vehicle tags are simply stickers, the cost dropped considerably, Edmondson says. Instead of a $15,000 replacement cost for the active tag system, the QuikQ option offered tags for $1 for tractors and $5 for trailers—a significant price difference from the $30 tags.
The Q-Gate system also provided the level of security Trailiner was looking for, monitoring who is coming and going from the Springfield facility.
The decision to move to the Q-Gate system has already proven a cost-saver for Trailiner, and the fleet is looking for new ways to leverage the information it collects.
“We’re looking at implementing alerts,” Edmondson explains. “Our trucks sometimes come in and go out within hours, and we like to have our maintenance [department] check each vehicle when it comes in. An alert would go out to our maintenance department once a truck [enters the facility through the front gate], and if it needs to go back out in two hours, the alert would tell maintenance it needs to move that truck up in the [queue] so a driver is not sitting and waiting.”