A business solution on wheels: international, IBM collaborate on a telematics solution that could change the way truck fleets do business

Diesel Progress North American Edition, Sept, 2004 by John Peter

"If a problem happens we can know about it immediately, send a cell phone message to the fleet manager such as, We've got truck 17 with a low oil pressure situation," Schumacher said. "Let's jump on this right away before this truck does another hundred miles and is sitting there with a blown engine and a $6000 repair bill."

And International's system goes beyond just chassis diagnostics to monitoring body systems like refrigeration units or pumping systems on fire tracks.

"Prognostics are rely going to help us with the vehicle health needs," said William R. Fleming, International's engineering program manager, Track Group Electronics. "We think it's going to be a great differentiator for our products vs. the competition."

Fleming feels that the OEMs have the best chance of getting the vehicle health needs right. International is hard at work on programs that will monitor brakes, tires and filters, which are scheduled to be available this year.

"One of the big downtime issues is plugged fuel and air filters," Fleming said. "We're going to really try to hit the real causes of downtime."

A tire monitoring system will not only keep track of tire pressure but tire temperature as well, allowing engineers to build profiles on how tires are being used.

"Eventually," Fleming said, "once we have the data and have had enough time to sift through it we'll be able to predict the life of the fires. And predict when they'll need to change them"

A brake monitoring feature will measure brake pad wear, check for adjustment and air leakage--a major concern with air brakes. Also on the drawing board are plans to capture data on fluids, like automatic transmission fluid, engine oil and engine coolant and try to model how long these fluids last by different applications.

Fleming sees great potential for improving product development. Engineers can now see how vehicles are used throughout their life" cycle from product planning all the way through liability and warranty issues.

"Our product development engineers have traditionally had a big gripe about the data we get back about failures," Fleming said. "Generally they'll get a lot of information about how the vehicle was configured and we get a lot of back end information. You don't really get any information about how the vehicle was being used, and what led it to the failure.

"Now we'll be able to look at the profile that led up to this failure and help us understand that maybe in this application, we need to spec a bigger part or something that's more robust It's going to be a very powerful tool for product development.

"Telematics is going to give us that edge of being able to gather databases full of information to be able to help our customers."

With this new system implemented and a wealth of data available, International now sees itself as more than just a hardware manufacturer. Rather, it sees itself becoming a business solution provider, changing the way that fleets do business.

For instance, Schumacher said that many customers have been asking them what telematics can do to help with fuel costs. The data can be used to monitor driver behavior instructing individual drivers on how they can change their driving style to improve fuel economy.