OREANDA-NEWS. December 22, 2010. SITRONICS Information Technologies, one of the major system integrators and leading suppliers of products, solutions and services in the sphere of information technology in the CIS countries and Eastern Europe, jointly with OJSC Mobile TeleSystems, the leading telecommunications operator in Russia and CIS countries, announce implementation of the NIKA vehicle complex monitoring and maintenance project, reported the press-centre of  SITRONICS IT.

PalletTrade is the leading supplier of pallets throughout the territory of Russia with the annual sales of more than 7 million wooden and plastic pallets. As pallet supply partners, PalletTrade cooperates with the major international and domestic companies, among which are MARS, Procter&Gamble, Coca-Cola, Pepsi-Cola, Unilever, Stora Enso, SCA Packaging, Tikkurila, Baltika Brewery, Heineken, Ehrmann, Wrigley and many others. Being a major holding with a branched regional sales pattern in 16 Russian and Ukrainian cities, the company owns two modern industrial complexes and its own vehicle park, amounting to several tens of auto trucks, from GAZelle vehicles to euro trucks.

With a view to optimize expenses for corporate vehicle servicing and reduce costs for amortization in the PalletTrade Company, a decision to use the NIKA navigation and information service, designed as part of cooperation between MTS and SITRONICS Information Technologies, was made.

During the project, a complex of works for mounting a vehicle test group of the PalletTrade Company with satellite equipment, connecting to the NIKA navigation and information service, and also training of technical personnel and dispatcher service employees, has been performed. The Company’s vehicles have been equipped with the GPS/GSM subscriber navigation terminals, transmitting vehicle route, vehicle condition, mileage, and fuel consumption data for the reporting period, to the NIKA server.

According to PalletTrade, as a result of the monitoring system trial performance, the vehicle park maintenance cost saving has amounted to some 40%. A possibility to analyze data concerning the corporate vehicle use contributed to the non-productive mileage reduction and practically all of the POL (Petroleum, Oil, & Lubricants) theft cases, as well as the use of vehicles for personal gain, have been eliminated. Consequently, a decision to expand the NIKA service use and equip all of the vehicles of the PalletTrade Company’s corporate vehicle park was made.

“The use of the NIKA navigation service has resulted in a substantial economy for our enterprise,” Valeriy Konovalov, Head of the PalletTrade Company’s IT Department, comments. “It was previously a complicated task to estimate the necessary number of motor vehicles to handle transportation, which used to make us rent an additional number of vehicles in order to fill the gaps in the logistics. Moreover, the POL cost estimating was averaged and was difficult to be monitored. We have made a decision to use the satellite navigation service and quite soon experienced the result. Apart from cost saving that has amounted to some 40%, the very logistics planning has become simpler, while not requiring a large number of employees. The apparent accountability has made it possible to create a single route database and increase operational response to vehicle route changes.”