Volvo FS: iLabX
iLabX by Volvo Financial Services launched in October 2018
Read moreBelron: Sustainnovation
Sustainnovation is the programme from Belron, world leader in vehicle glass repair and replacement
Together with L Marks, Belron launched and ran the first programme in their Sustainnovation by Belron series, created to find new and innovative solutions that drive Belron’s Responsible Business performance at pace. Using the L Marks’ Fusion process, this event tackled the challenge of how Belron can significantly improve their road safety record and at the same time reduce their overall vehicle emissions, by focusing on driver behaviour, experience, environment and technology.
Fusion is a dynamic process designed to address significant challenges or opportunities for Belron, and rapidly develop solutions through a collaborative programme, where internal teams work alongside startups, innovative companies, partners and suppliers.
To help them meet this challenge, L Marks identified over 70 relevant technology providers through a global scouting process, of which five were invited to join the three-day event. The invited teams offered a variety of solutions designed to improve the safety and sustainability of the Belron fleet, from hardware-free driver coaching software, incentive-based reward schemes and advanced AI telematic and camera systems:
- Dublin-based CameraMatics is a provider of AI & cloud-driven video-based fleet tracking software for fleet vehicles. Its features include real-time vehicle tracking, vehicle data history, access to data, a mobile application, live video footage, accident reporting, and driver behaviour statistics and vehicle location.
- GreenRoad is a software company whose core offering is a mobile app for drivers and a web-based fleet management software. This offers fleet telematics and management solutions and enables commercial fleets to measure, improve and sustain safe and fuel-efficient driving behaviour.
- Advanced telematics provider Lightfoot combines revolutionary in-cab driver coaching technology with a driver rewards app and a full telematics suite. The Lightfoot system delivers results by empowering drivers to be safer, steadier, and more sustainable whilst out on the road.
- Nauto is a Californian company offering an AI-enabled hardware device with a camera that is placed in the vehicle to monitor, analyse, and predict driver behaviour and provide predictive collision alerts to drivers.
Samsara is a large US-based company that provides an AI, IoT & cloud-driven fleet management system including vehicle telematics, driver safety, mobile workflow & compliance, asset tracking and more. - Samsara is a large US-based company that provides an AI, IoT & cloud-driven fleet management system including vehicle telematics, driver safety, mobile workflow & compliance, asset tracking and more.
Each solution addressed different aspects of the challenge statement. The Sustainnovation Fusion event allowed the teams to work together directly with multifunctional teams formed from their own organisations and Belron employees from the US, UK and Europe. These teams worked together to determine exactly how their solution answered the challenge statement, tailor their solutions to the specific demands of Belron and build out a plan to quickly implement their solutions across the business.
Over 60 people attended the three-day event at Belron’s Milton Park in Egham. The teams “ lived and breathed Belron for three days” as the fast nature of the three-day event did not hold the teams back. They all maintained the pace all whilst competing against one another to prove the value of their solutions to Belron, pitching, being scored and being given feedback daily by a judging panel of senior Belron representatives.
On the final day, each of the five technological providers presented solutions to the judging panel, as well as the event coordinators and country managers, who were left struggling to find a winner due to the quality of the solutions. Ultimately Belron elected to go ahead with three of the solutions that answered different aspects of the challenge statement and for different regions.
results
CameraMatics were selected as the overall winners due to the comprehensive nature of their solution, with Lightfoot and Nauto chosen as runners up.
Through a combination of route optimisation, predictive maintenance and driver coaching, Cameramatics estimated a 12% Reduction in CO2, totalling 11,400 Tonnes saved across the Belron fleet. Cameramatics estimated that through fuel efficiency and claims reduction from collisions alone, Belron would see a 177% ROI on the cost of the solution.
Lightfoot’s camera-free solution was seen as great in particular for geographies where privacy laws and workers groups would not sanction the use of in-vehicle video. Lightfoot demonstrated strong alignment with Belron’s values, strong engagement with their driver rewards and significant potential sustainability and safety improvement. Lightfoot used Belron fleet data and their own historical data to demonstrate how their advanced telematics solution could reduce CO2 emissions via driving by 14,250 (15%) per annum and sustain these savings. They also estimated that they could reduce idling by 30% and used their time at Sustainnovation to begin to develop a bespoke Belron idling configuration. In addition to the sustainability benefits, this would together mean a cost saving of up to 1.49M gallons of fuel per annum, equivalent to €6.7M at the time of writing.
The Judges were also very impressed with Nauto’s technology, especially the ability of their predictive risk camera to warn technicians of incidents and prevent accidents. Nauto demonstrated that their solution provides sustained driver behaviour change which is required for continued reduction of CO2 and fuel spend, estimated at 10-15% or 26.5 Million lbs per year and a cost saving of over $500,000. They also estimate that their driver coaching and predictive real-time accident alerts would reduce collision costs by up to 84% which they narrowed down the impact further to individual reduction factors including, aggressive driving, acceleration (90%), cornering (90%), braking (56%) & speeding (57%). Nauto were also keen to emphasise that through driver coaching the technician would take their behaviour change out of work and carry their improved driving behaviour home to extend the environmental and safety benefits beyond Belron to their own home and family.
After the event, all three of the winning teams were invited to pilot their solutions at scale with Belron. Cameramatics and Nauto are currently trialling their solutions with the UK and US fleets, while Lightfoot’s solution is being trialled with the French and German fleets.
This was only the first step on the journey and we look forward to seeing what future Sustainnovation by Belron events will produce.