Oct/Nov 2006

In a development that just missed the last issue of m.logistics, The Scotsman Publications (a leading newspaper group) has reported savings in the order £10,000 a year from satellite-tracking of its newspaper delivery vehicles. It is using the Masternaut system to monitor deliveries of around 100,000 newspapers a day, including the Evening News and the Scotsman.

"Before Masternaut," says Rob Kelly, the company's transport and distribution manager, "the first we knew of problems with daily deliveries was a call from the retail outlets. Now we can be proactive with our customer service. If a vehicle is unavoidably delayed we can use the schedule information and vehicle position to monitor the planned itinerary against the actual."

Masternaut has provided GPS positioning, high-speed mobile communications and online street mapping, giving the company Web-based access to vehicle movements throughout the day. Masternaut also provides an "out of hours" alert system that transmits notification of any vehicle movement during non-working hours by email and text message.