Increasing appeals to accept social responsibility towards climate change is driving organizations to adopt energy conservation measures. This trend is further catalyzed by statutory actions that governments are taking individually and collectively globally. Amid this environment, organizations need to make choices on which technology to adopt given the vast array of solutions available today, the cost of such a change, and the impact of these decisions on their employees.

In such a scenario, a phased approach to energy conservation is recommended. The following grid indicates a roadmap one can adopt:

Each phase presents steps that can be taken to pursue environmental conservation.

Phase 0: Initiation to energy conservation
The “immediate” steps that organizations take or plan to take in the direction of energy conservation include posters around the office area encouraging employees to switch off lamps/fans when leaving the area, fixed schedules for security staff to do the rounds to check unused lighting, manually scheduled HVAC usage, and removal of lamps. While some of these methods are effective in reducing the electricity bill, they fail to provide a comprehensive view of the impact they can have on the productivity of the organization. For example, posters around the office area by themselves are not effective change agents given that we are dealing with human behavior.

Phase I: Getting into the technology domain
In this phase, companies can explore low-cost high-technology initiatives that address some of the large areas of energy spend. This phase covers the first fours steps that you can adopt to conserve energy

• Step 1: Solutions that leverage occupancy, daylight and ambient temperature sensors to deliver smart lighting, HVAC and computer monitor controls are gaining traction. These solutions aptly and in a non-interfering way, map the need and consumption. What’s more, cutting-edge technology solutions today leverage wireless communication networks (both local and wide-range) to reduce implementation costs and hassles, especially in retrofit situations. In addition, next-generation solutions offer Energy Management Software bundled within the solution to provide analytics on the performance.
• Step 2: Adopt systems that manage large energy consuming assets such as HVAC, offered by OEMs and third-party vendors. Additionally, adhering to the maintenance schedules of the equipment helps ensure optimal functioning of equipment, as per design.
• Step 3: ‘Green’ the IT network by addressing smart hardware and software solution/architectures.
• Step 4: Schedule load demands to low tariff zones from high tariff zones of Time of Day.

Phase II: Pushing the envelope
Organizations can maximize the energy conservation potential by adopting next generation technologies in fixtures and equipments. Some other methods include:

• Step 5: Adopt power factor management which involves implementation of technology at the source level to improve the quality of energy, and thereby the consumption.
• Step 6: Get LED lighting, a next-generation technology to save energy.
• Step 7: Adopt Building Management Systems. These integrate the various sub-systems within a facility and help organizations to maximize the potential to conserve. A typical Building Management System links the HVAC, elevators, utilities, and fire and security systems within a building and provides a platform to build effective applications for monitoring, control, and reporting of the energy ecosystem within the premises.

Phase III: Starting Early!
The potential of phases 0 to II is reliant on the decisions taken during the original architecting of the facilities. It is at this stage where the overall possibilities get defined. Organizations realize the importance of starting early, but mostly understand this fact during or upon their implementation of the several approaches mentioned above.

The cost of change is the least when there is no change required. And this can be achieved if decisions taken at the time of constructing new facilities are mindful of the long term impact of the following on the energy intensity of the building:

• Step 8: Adopt green building initiatives at the time of facility planning – building material selection, and selecting the right architecture should take into account maximizing daylight harvesting are few areas that can be addressed with timely planning.
• Step 9: Select energy efficient machinery and control systems (especially lighting, UPS, HVAC, DG Sets) for instance VFDs and Energy Star products.
• Step 10: Implement Intelligent Building concepts to integrate all energy systems and link them smartly with the real-time need.

When to start?
Organizations will do well to be ahead of the curve on the energy conservation initiatives and partner with companies who can help them get there. ConnectM’s Energy Management solution employs a combination of cutting edge technology, state-of-art Analytics, and self learning decision making based algorithms to manage the energy consumption of lights, HVAC, and attached electrical devices. The solution enables demonstration of significant energy savings, sustained energy savings, achievement of green building status, earning of carbon credits, and rapid return on investment.

Some quick notes about this solution are:

• Powered by Energy Gateway, Energy Saver, Enterprise Command Center & Energy Management Software
• Upto 20% savings in Lighting & HVAC energy spends
• Proves savings with complete data backup
• Can integrate distributed lighting & HVAC assets with BMS
• Solutions is wireless, with unique network id of all the assets on the network. Retro-fit is an easier task
• Assets can be remotely monitored & controlled at all times

Leading organizations are looking to improve their vehicle management practices to not only cut costs but also to improve service delivery and customer satisfaction. In the fleet management business, effective the management of vehicles has a tangible impact on profitability, thereby assuming significance. In such a scenario, an optimal fleet management solution that meets the organization’s current requirements, easily adapts to its unique business environment, and is flexible to evolve as the business requirements change is essential.

The primary objective of Fleet Management is to control the overall cost of operating and maintaining the fleet of vehicles and equipment. This includes maintaining vehicles and equipment in a manner that extends their useful life, control the growth in fleet size standardize the fleet composition, and accurately budget maintenance and replacement costs. A successful deployment of Fleet Management Solutions (FMS) can have a significant positive impact on the functioning of the business. Important benefits that can be achieved through a successful FMS deployment include:

• 28% improvement in operator compliance
• 13% improvement in vehicle utilization
• 11% reduction in maintenance costs
• 26% improvement in regulatory compliance
• 23% increase in warranty recovery
• 15% decrease in vehicle downtime
• 15% reduction in average travel time “windshield time” per job

FMS Features and Functionalities

FMS helps in:

• Tracking vehicle movements throughout the day
• Capturing stop times and duration, and re-estimating time of arrival at next location
• Alerting dispatchers to potentially late or missed deliveries
• Monitoring engine idling and performance of other major vehicle systems
• Identifying instances of harsh braking, speeding, and other unsafe driving practices

Types of Fleet Management Solutions - Passive, Real time and Hybrid solutions

Fleet management can be mainly categorised as 'real time' or 'passive'. Both these solutions provide the organisation with details pertaining to vehicle speed, direction, stops, routes, location, vehicle speed, direction, fuel consumption, etc. Real-time fleet management is the most popular form of GPS tracking as it updates the manager (organisation) about the status of their fleet at that given point of time or as it happens. Most real-time FMS solutions provide real-time updates through SMS, emails and so on.

Passive tracking provides the organisation with an update at the end of a working day. In this, a GPS recorder is fitted to all vehicles in the fleet. It records all the relevant data and is downloaded to a main terminal at the end of each working day. Though passive tracking does not provide real-time information, it helps an organisation collect and subsequently analyse the data, thereby helping in increasing the efficiency using data built up over time.

Hybrid solutions combine both active and passive systems for organizations that want the advanced information management available from passive solutions in addition to the ability to locate a vehicle instantly. These systems are definitely more cost-effective as there is the choice of polling location data at longer intervals, thus cutting the airtime costs and at the same time providing access to detailed location data when the data is uploaded, on return, in the base station.

Challenges with FMS

Some of the challenges with FMS include:

• Having an active GPS system
• Providing real-time updates
• Developing low power devices and user friendly interfaces
• Providing up-to-date map data at desired scale with desired accuracy
• Developing stand-by back-up during absence of communication network
• Developing ergonomic location of unit in fleet for effective use
• Providing pre-defined keys for sending messages from mobile unit
• Developing interfaces to support local language
• Packaging intelligence in units using historical data

Latest Technology Trends and Offerings in Fleet Management

Several trends are emerging in the fleet management segment and some of the key ones deal with socio economic issues such as environmental impact, and changing customer preferences, culminating in providing various value added services. The technology trends include telematics, automated data collection, and security and control, and many service providers are already including them in their offerings.

Conclusion

The savings, in terms of time and money, make fleet management a necessity for any company that wishes to run more effectively. Today, fleet managers need to operate at a strategic level, as well as be equipped to handle day to day functions. For this, they need to leverage available technology efficiently.

ConnectM’s Fleet Management Solution enables management of fleets of Passenger & Commercial Vehicles. Some of the benefits of this include:

• Efficiency enhancement
• Complete transparency of operations
  • Driver Behavior
  • Fuel Consumption Management
  • Reliable data linked to customer billing system
• Safety & security of fleet
• Real-time fleet tracking