Griffin Industries, Old Dominion Freight Line, Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, and Huron Services Group capture top honors 

BOCA RATON, Fla., Aug. 17, 2011 – PeopleNet, the leading provider of innovative and integrated onboard computing and mobile communications systems for effective fleet management, today announced the recipients of its Innovator of the Year Award, which the company gives to four organizations in four fleet categories that demonstrate leadership in using PeopleNet to create unique solutions that drive ROI. Presenting the awards at last evening’s customer appreciation banquet that was held at PeopleNet’s ninth annual user conference, Vice President of National Accounts Mark Kessler said, “These awards capture the true spirit of our user conference—shared experiences that help all of our customers get the most out of their technology investment. We are grateful to Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma, Griffin Industries, Old Dominion Freight Line and Huron Services Group for their creative contributions.”

With 15 trucks, Regional Food Bank of Oklahoma pioneered the use of mobile communications for a non-profit organization. In-Cab Navigation, routing, custom forms and PeopleNet Link have increased productivity. Information is fed into their back office applications for collecting and distributing donations most cost-efficiently. Their success opened the door for other food banks to take advantage of PeopleNet technology, including Harvesters—The Community Food Network (29 trucks) and Houston Food Bank (30 trucks). 

PeopleNet has made transportation a key competency for Griffin Industries in the reclaiming of animal and bakery by-product and restaurant grease and distribution of recycled products. More than 400 of the company’s PeopleNet-installed trucks use Speed Monitoring, Onboard Event Recording, eDriver LogsÒ, Automated Fuel Tax, In-Cab Navigation and Automated Workflow to ensure safety, regulatory compliance and customer service. Griffin worked with PeopleNet Tailored Solutions to develop a new application that provides timestamp, GPS location, speed, and RPM every two seconds to ensure that relevant safety information is captured in the absence of a sudden start, sudden stop or manual Onboard Event Recording event. Trip Record data files can be downloaded via a USB stick or sent wirelessly, graphed and saved in Excel format. In addition, Griffin takes advantage of PeopleNet Link to create virtually unlimited custom reports, such as including Speed Monitoring data in its driver scorecard.

Old Dominion Freight Lines’ PeopleNet-based programs are helping to optimize driver performance and control fuel costs. The extensive dashboard Old Dominion created closely monitors out-of-route miles and miles per gallon for all of its drivers, as well as other comprehensive productivity and safety metrics. The company is developing a custom integration in which a handheld computer captures pickup and delivery data and sends it to the PeopleNet BLU^® in-cab displays via WiFi for immediate download to the back office’s tracking system. Old Dominion also designed a comprehensive eDriver Logs training methodology, including a pre-training piece about the system and its benefits, to bring more than 5,500 drivers up to speed over 12 months.

Huron Services Group Limited, a single-source provider of logistics services, has been a long-time PeopleNet partner in innovation, having been among the first to robustly integrate with TMW, and test and use Vehicle Management, eDriver Logs, and Onboard Event Recording data. As a pioneer and reference account, the Ontario, Canada-based firm has opened the door for other trucking firms to be successful.  

Today is the final day of the ninth Annual PeopleNet User Conference being held in Boca Raton, Fla., at the Boca Raton Resort & Club. More than 36 sessions are helping fleets maximize ROI and MPG and reduce maintenance costs with the tools and information that PeopleNet provides them, including the unique needs of truckload, LTL, private, and service fleets.

About PeopleNet
PeopleNet is exclusively focused on providing innovative Internet-based and integrated onboard computing and mobile communications systems to improve North America’s trucking industry’s fleet management. Its products are used by nearly 1,500 truckload, LTL, private, and service fleets in the United States and Canada, including several Fortune 500 companies. Reputed for its customer-driven technological innovation, unparalleled flexibility, and proactive customer care, PeopleNet was the first major technology provider to offer Internet-based communications to the transportation industry 15 years ago. Since then, the company annually reinvests 100 percent of its profits into the business for aggressively developing new products that continue to improve fleet management. Industry recognition of the company’s leadership includes: Frost & Sullivan New Product Innovation Award, Inbound Logistics Top 100 Award; Food Logistics’ 100 Top Technology Solutions and Service Providers; Frost & Sullivan Market Engineering Award; and M2M Value Chain Award. For more information about PeopleNet and its products, call (888) 346-3486, or visit www.peoplenetonline.com.