Satellite tracking improves effectiveness of donated clothes collection
Howard Lake | 2 October 2005 | News
Help the Aged has equipped 160 of its collection vehicles with a new in-cab wireless data and satellite tracking system from Masternaut, which is helping boost efficiency and productivity in the charity’s plastic bag donated item scheme.
Operating over the Web, the Masternaut service provides electronic communication with live tracking and provides a real-time log of the movements of each vehicle.
The service is being used by the charity’s fleet of vans which make collections of donated clothes from homes across the UK for sale in its network of 380 shops acorss the UK.
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Help the Aged has now equipped most of its fleet of vans with the service.
“Masternaut gives us real control over the fleet with vital management information that we simply did not have before. It is already clear that we can make big improvements in the way we use the fleet” said Jon Evans, Retail Administration Manager of Help the Aged.
The dashboard-mounted Masternaut Vehicle Data Terminal device has a LCD screen and provides live two-way communication. It will be used for assistance requests, safety reporting and the recording of operational information such as mileage and the number of bags dropped and collected.
Help the Aged is now implementing Masternaut’s route and schedule planning software that will allow routes to be optimised.
“This is where we can make real productivity improvements and reduce our ever increasing fuel bills.” said Jon Evans.
It is too early to put a figure on the financial benefits to Help the Aged, but it is already clear they will be more than enough to recoup the cost of Masternaut system” he added.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.