The logistics company Šmídl s.r.o. provides comprehensive logistics services, including warehousing. It recently decided to implement monitoring for its fleet of handling equipment. The supplier was GX Solutions, a company with many years of experience in monitoring systems and their implementation. The first experiences with the deployed monitoring system very quickly showed an increase in savings and efficiency when working with handling equipment.
Šmídl s.r.o. was founded in 2004, but its history is directly linked to Vladimír Šmídl – TRANSPORT Žamberk, which has been operating in the transport market since 1990. Today, Šmídl provides comprehensive logistics services – road, air, and sea transport, warehousing and related logistics services, intra-plant transport, transport of buses on their own wheels, ADR transport, customs services, and night deliveries. Šmídl s.r.o. is an ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 14001:2004 certified company.
The company’s own fleet consists of 278 Iveco, Scania, and Mercedes Benz vehicles. Šmídl provides transport to virtually all parts of the world, but its main destinations are Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Benelux, Spain, Scandinavia, and Great Britain.
Benefits of introducing a monitoring system
- Greater control over the condition and operation of handling equipment = significant financial and time savings,
- More efficient utilization of technology within individual shifts,
- Improved behavior of operators towards equipment = reduced costs for repairs of warehouse equipment and technology,
- Increased damage clarity – up to 70%,
- Easier training of new employees in operating standards = minimization of truck repair costs.
GX Solutions named best monitoring provider
“We had been keeping an eye on GX Solutions for a long time, meeting at professional conferences, and the issue of monitoring began to interest us more and more as part of the company’s expansion,” says Luděk Demel, facility manager at Šmídl. “We gradually began to evaluate what the system would bring us in practice and decided to organize a tender. In the tender, in which we approached several technology suppliers in addition to GX Solutions, the GX Solutions system was selected and evaluated as the most suitable solution. Its technical functionality and user-friendliness significantly surpassed the systems from other technology suppliers.” The main reason for choosing GX Solutions was the system’s versatility for all technology suppliers used by Šmídl. Another key indicator was the price of the system, i.e., the resulting price/quality ratio clearly favored the GX Solutions solution. The main required function of the system was to monitor equipment utilization, including operator utilization. Another feature that impressed the logistics company, given the cost of operating the equipment, is the monitoring of impacts at multiple levels of differentiation, which is a welcome addition to equipment position tracking. “In the event of an impact, we are able to locate the specific place where the warehouse equipment was damaged. Of course, the functionality includes operator login to the equipment, including blocking the handling equipment for unauthorized use,” explains Šmídl’s representative.
Monitoring VZV brings positive effects
In total, Šmídl s.r.o. has 15 pieces of equipment fitted with the GX Solutions monitoring system, including five stackers and ten front-loading forklifts. (The other four forklifts were not fitted – one because it was leased and three because they were used less frequently). The system was thus installed on most of the equipment, mainly on the most frequently used machines that operate on a daily basis. Monitoring of handling equipment is one of the modern tools that contributes to greater control over the condition and operation of the equipment. Thanks to this, Šmídl saves both money and time. “Of course, like any modernization, this improvement involved a financial investment,” says a representative of Šmídl. “We expected the main return on investment to be a reduction in the costs of damage caused by the operation of the equipment, whether damage to warehouse equipment or damage to the equipment itself. This expectation was fulfilled, and costs of this nature were significantly reduced. Since implementing the system, we have recorded only six damage incidents caused by equipment operators. The clarity of the damage caused has improved to approximately 70 percent, saving us a lot of money. At the same time, the system has saved us considerable financial and time costs in tracking damage on the camera system and providing evidence.”
A whole range of useful data
“As part of the work offered by the GX Solutions system, we primarily evaluate the area of impact and handling of operators. We also continuously evaluate the utilization of equipment during individual shifts, including monitoring peaks in our operations,” said Luděk Demel from Šmídl s.r.o. Given the constant expansion of the logistics company and its fleet, this step was a necessary part of modernizing operations. Šmídl considers the greatest benefit in practice to be in the area of training operators and improving their behavior toward equipment. This has had a financial impact on the costs of repairing warehouse equipment and technology. Since the introduction of the system and informing operators that the equipment is being monitored, the behavior of operators has improved in all areas of their work. “We have also managed to achieve a significant increase in the clarity of damage. Now our handlers deal with the damage caused immediately and do not try to conceal it. We regularly discuss their results with our employees on the basis of monthly statistics, which has resulted in an increase in our employees’ interest in this issue. They have started to compare themselves with each other, and as a result, they are striving to improve their behavior.”
People gained a greater sense of responsibility
The Šmídl logistics company’s system also helps train new employees in our operating standards. This has minimized the cost of repairing trucks caused by careless handling, usually by bumping into equipment. The work culture now reflects greater responsibility on the part of operators for the tools entrusted to them. Roughly half of the operators appreciated the benefits of the system, as the introduction of monitoring of handling equipment put an end to doubts about who was responsible for damage to warehouse equipment and technology, and the system contributes to a fair working environment. “Using the data collected on an ongoing basis, we want to focus even more in the future on increasing the efficiency of equipment and operators, i.e., further saving valuable financial resources,” concludes Šmídl s.r.o., emphasizing the additional benefits it expects from GX Solutions monitoring.
