Discussing issues facing fleet management and how present and future technologies can solve them were the main points behind a seminar conducted by BlackBerry and fleet services graphics provider Modagrafics on April 6. The event was held at the Loews Chicago O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, IL, not far from Modagrafics’ corporate headquarters.
Last December, the two companies announced a sales agent agreement that calls for Modagrafics to leverage the Blackberry Radar IoT Asset Tracking System and offer new value-added marketing services to fleet owners. BlackBerry Radar is an end-to-end asset tracking system for trucking companies and private fleet operators that monitors the location and other important money and time saving logistical issues.
“Our seminar,” said Derek Kuhn, senior vice president – BlackBerry IoT, “brought together fleet managers and logistic leaders within the greater Chicago area to discuss some of the big changes happening in asset management as smart connected technologies transform the space. Discussing the issues facing fleet management and how technologies - both now and looking forward to the near future - are going to be able to solve them was our main focus.”
“This was a very important event for our local fleet owners to attend,” remarked Modagrafics president and CEO Paul Pirkle. “They always are looking at us for ways to improve their fleets’ efficiency, in addition to helping manage their brand perspective and increase customer impressions. BlackBerry Radar lets them accomplish this with a technology driven sensor that easily connects cloud computing and wireless connectivity. It’s a new day for the trucking and logistics industry.”
Kuhn, Pirkle and BlackBerry officials conducted several presentations and a networking session followed. Issues discussed included connected transportation trends, the evolution of the smart trailer and how new technology works. A demonstration of the BlackBerry sensor touched upon how it monitors critical events such as door opening/closing, cargo load/no load, and the internal environmental conditions of trailers, such as temperature, humidity and barometric pressure.
Learning that installation takes 10 minutes per vehicle, fleet owners in attendance left with a better understanding of how the system can generate more revenue per trailer by optimizing trailer usage, improving delivery times and other logistics.
“BlackBerry Radar is really leading the change on smart connected trailers,” Kuhn concluded. “It offers more integrated sensors in one device, an intuitive user interface and easy installation, all hosted on a secure cloud based system offering more meaningful data, more often. More importantly, BlackBerry Radar was designed to address the business issues fleet logistics professionals face in an increasingly competitive landscape – trailer utilization, compliance, preventive maintenance and driver productivity. To us, solving these issue is of tremendous value to the industry.”
