Case study

Central Hudson Reduces Costs, Increases Efficiency and Improves Data Integrity

By Ellen Sowerby
10 February 2021

Our powerful software has helped the utility company control and maintain its 1,000–vehicle fleet in a highly cost-efficient way.

Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corporation (Central Hudson) was having trouble accessing the data they needed about the fleet and needed a solution that could help them find the information quickly, allowing better operational decisions to be made.

A regulated transmission and distribution utility, Central Hudson serves approximately 300,000 electric customers and 78,000 natural gas customers in New York State’s Mid-Hudson River Valley, delivering natural gas and electricity in a defined service territory extending from the suburbs of metropolitan New York City north to the Capital District at Albany.

The utility company manages a fleet of around 1,000 vehicles – from pick-up trucks to SUVs, bucket trucks and trailers, heavy duty trailers and earth-moving equipment.

Central Hudson had previously used an older mainframe-based system to manage its fleet but was now looking for a solution which was easier to use, worked more quickly, and helped facilitate more cost-efficient processes across the business.

The problem with the previous system was that each time we needed data from the mainframe, a programmer was required to write a script. We wanted to obtain usable information in a new format, and in a faster and more efficient way

The company identified the data and types of reports it required and explored a number of solutions. At the end of this process, it opted to implement our FleetWave system.

 

Reduced admin; increased integrity

Our first task was to transfer the data from the previous system over to FleetWave, which also gave us the opportunity to make the data clearer and more usable for Central Hudson.

“The data itself hasn’t changed much, but the integrity has,” explained Mike. “We now have a single source of information for our entire fleet within a single system.

We’ve also reduced paper administration: the company’s mechanics are now able to access our system on mobile tablets and have vastly cut down on paper administration.”

“We used to have walls of paper files,” Mike said.

Whereas the company used to rely on employees manually inputting their mileage data, it has now integrated vehicles’ odometer data (from its telematics provider) into the FleetWave system.

“We are using FleetWave for many purposes,” added Mike, “such as fleet information, maintenance records and safety.

“For example, we can assess repairs on different types of vehicles to make decisions on which type of vehicle we should be buying. We can look into maintenance details and assess maintenance costs.

We can even use FleetWave to analyze fleet utilization in order to deploy vehicles where they are needed and redeploy under-utilized vehicles. FleetWave is helping us make better business decisions for all stakeholders involved.”

 

 A cost-effective information management system

We’ve helped Central Hudson Gas & Electric achieve annualized savings of approximately $500,000 per year since we implemented FleetWave. It has also experienced an 8% increase in mechanic productivity (repair hours as a percentage of total hours worked).

“Though we have operational wants and needs, we always look out for the best interests of our customers,” explained Mike. “As our fleet grows, these savings are helping to offset increasing costs of repairs and maintenance on a larger fleet.

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