Kevin Bott – Fleet Manager
Gary Wilkinson – Director of Mining
How do you use in vehicle monitoring systems within the GDF mine?
Kevin: We utilise the Intellifleet systems at GDF to track the vehicles, forklifts and cranes. We mainly do it to track speed and seatbelt usage. Any major incidents that we have, we can see where the vehicle’s been and where they’re going.
Gary: We use Intellifleet systems from an occupational health and safety viewpoint. My priority is to ensure that my duty of care is met, it ensures that the behaviour that’s exhibited by our people when they’re in control of these vehicles is done in a safe and efficient manner, and this is just another tool in our back pocket which allows us to meet our duty of care. But it also conversely assists the operator to meet his duty of care. It’s a tap on the shoulder, by the way that the system lets him know that he’s just a tad over, and he changes his behaviour as a result of that. And now after this period of time, it’s so custom and practiced that people aren’t even aware of it and it’s dropped off significantly, so it’s a win-win.
What are the results of the using Intellifleet's IVMS?
Kevin: When we first looked at putting the system in, we trialled three vehicles in the mine area, which were averaging over 1000 events per day. Since the system’s gone in, we’ve got it on over 50 vehicles and we’re down to under 100 events per day, which has been a significant change over three years with driver behaviour.
Gary: We’ve had around a 45% reduction in the cost of maintenance on our vehicles, and there’s been something in the order of 80-90% reduction in minor incidents. It was pretty much like throwing a rock off a cliff, the non-conformists disappeared. Every now and again there’s little blips, and when I see those little blips, I want to understand what’s the out-workings of those non-conformances and do they warrant any level of discipline and such.
Kevin: At GDF, the cost savings to the business have been massive over the three years, a 90% drop in accidents and minor incidents, and 45% drop in maintenance costs. A huge saving and a great accomplishment by all.
How do you find Intellifleet to work with?
Kevin: We’ve dealt with Intellifleet for the past three years. The backup service that we receive from Intellifleet is second to none. They guys in the office are always willing to help, always quick to answer emails and phone calls. They’re very knowledgeable, and very well trained with their systems.