Fleet Management Software might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of farming, but for Izusa Carriers, it has become the go-to tool for managing both fleet and farm. From scheduling tractor maintenance to tracking spare parts, Izusa has taken an innovative approach.
Izusa Carriers officially began operating in 2007, under the leadership of Mr Eben Basson. Prior to this, he farmed for his father while also overseeing a fleet of seven trucks. These trucks were used to transport produce for the Inyoni Boerdery farm, located in Komatipoort, Mpumalanga. After growing the fleet from 7 to 30 trucks, the farm decided not to continue with the fleet. So, in 2007, Mr Basson took the brave decision to purchase all 30 trucks, establishing Izusa Carriers. He went on to grow the fleet to a staggering 360 vehicles today!
“The transport industry is one of the hardest industries to be in, and managing a transport fleet is no small task,” says Raymond Duggan, Technical Manager for Izusa Carriers, adding, “It’s a twenty-four-seven industry.” He continued, “One of the challenges is keeping track of a vehicle’s complete history—which parts were used, what labour was carried out, and by whom—all the while dealing with a backlog of at least 300 to 400 unclosed paper-based job cards.” But, “Now, we don’t have that backlog of job cards,” says Head of Technical Administration, Charmaine Kruger.
“Switching from our old system to Freeway required significant time and effort to input all of the historical data,” says Charmaine Kruger.
One of their most difficult challenges has been the integration of tyres, as they previously didn’t use branding numbers for tracking “…With just over 360 vehicles, having 20 to 30 tyres each, we had around 10,500 tyres to input into the system.”
Charmaine’s response when asked if there was anything she would have done differently when implementing the new system: “If I had to do it again, I’d do the workshop first, then give it two months, and then do the tyres. We started together, and that was a lot.”
Another interesting challenge described by Raymond was the difficulty in tracking how efficient the workshop staff were in order to understand where to make improvements and determine the exact cause for delays in the workshop. He states this is no longer an issue, “Now I can see exactly what’s been done to the vehicle, how long they worked on it, what parts they used, and which mechanic worked on it.”
Thanks to the implementation of Freeway, digital job tracking has streamlined vehicle histories, parts usage, and labour details, leading to a productivity boost of at least “40%,” according to both Raymond and Charmaine.
“When we were confident, we added the farm, and it’s up and running perfectly,” says Charmaine. The farm has around 60 assets, including tractors and implement loaders for dairy, maize, and cattle farming. They use Freeway to track farm vehicles, schedule maintenance, and manage spare parts more efficiently.
