Fraley & Schilling Saves $800K+ Annually with the Samsara Connected Operations Platform

Driver App digitizes business-critical workflows, saving time and money.

F&S utilizes the Samsara Driver App to digitize most of their paperwork, including bills of lading, trailer pickups and dropoffs, and client invoicing. As a result, F&S calculated they are saving nearly 3,000 driver hours per year, resulting in cost savings of around $73,000 in wages alone. 

In the past, it took F&S on average three days to process bills of lading from delivery to invoice. With Samsara, the F&S team receives paperwork within one hour of delivery, so they can invoice on the same day. Before F&S adopted new digital workflows, driver reimbursements were frequently lost or delayed by a few weeks. As a result of these digitized systems, drivers are now paid in the next payroll cycle.

These efficiency improvements reduced pressure on staff, unlocking time to focus on revenue generation. By digitizing documentation with the Driver App and custom API integrations, F&S achieved 67% revenue growth without needing to hire additional staff. F&S also reduced driver paperwork processing time by 99% as a result of partnering with Samsara. By automating the time-consuming task of scanning and indexing bills of lading, they significantly reduced the workload of their billing team, freeing their time to focus on other critical tasks. F&S also improved speed and accuracy in billing for customers through automation, resulting in greater customer satisfaction.

Customizable functions automate load offerings and reduce call times.

Before F&S began using Samsara’s Driver App, their staff would field over 125 phone calls per day to discuss load offerings with drivers. Now, F&S staff and drivers each save 3,800 hours per year by automating the load offering process through a self-help system developed with Samsara’s open API and the Driver App. Drivers can now select load offerings independently, freeing up the back-office to focus on other tasks. 

Looking to create a best-in-class driver experience, F&S built their own automated self-help system in the Samsara Driver App. Using messaging in the Driver App, drivers can access answers to commonly asked questions by simply typing “#help,” followed by one of a dozen different prompts ranging from “#pay” to check upcoming pay to “#phonelist” for F&S’s internal phone directory. This easy-to-use, customized experience drastically reduces the need for back-and-forth with drivers and increases their time on the road, ultimately getting them home faster. 

“The feedback has been very positive from our drivers,” said Nicky Cupp, Director of Continuous Improvement. “They get to self-manage a lot more using the Driver App, rather than having to rely on us and call every time they have a question.”

Fraley Score motivates drivers to take their safety experience into their own hands.

In order to motivate their drivers to take more ownership of their safety experience, F&S created a proprietary safety and operations scoring system called the Fraley Score. This holistic score combines safety and operations performance data from Samsara and other partners, and plots each driver’s score against their peers as a benchmarking tool. This score helps F&S identify their highest and lowest performing drivers, and informs driver coaching, bonuses, and compensation.

“Sharing and providing feedback to drivers through safety event videos and Driver Safety Scores within the Driver App allows us to be more transparent and engage with our drivers.”  said Cupp. “This also reduces the burden on our coaching staff.” 

In the Samsara Driver App, drivers can message “#DD” to view their Fraley Score at any time. This custom integration is putting the answers and information drivers need in their hands, so they can get what they need, when they need it, without needing to call into an office.

Holistic performance data and Virtual Coach empower drivers to own their safety journey with personalized feedback.

By streamlining the coaching process and giving drivers direct access to video-based AI insights, Virtual Coach enables F&S coaches to spend more time delivering personalized coaching to the riskiest drivers.

With Virtual Coach, F&S empowers their drivers to self-coach during critical moments with video-based AI insights. When an AI Dash Cam detects and uploads a safety event to the Samsara Dashboard, a safety workflow is triggered for managers to review the risky behaviors in the safety event and assign the proper coaching experience for the driver. After the coaching has been assigned, the driver is notified to complete a coaching session on their own in the Driver App or with a coach in a manager-led session. The coach can then review the same video-based AI insights that the drivers reviewed and tailor their follow-up session to coach the driver’s specific behaviors as needed. 

With their previous vendor, F&S often missed opportunities to review and coach drivers after crashes or harsh events. “It could take over 24 hours to view a near-crash and by that time, we had sometimes missed the coaching opportunity,” said Cupp. “With Samsara, we receive timely alerts for following distance, speeding, and crashes, enabling us to coach in near real time.”

As a result of their personalized coaching approach, F&S has significantly improved driver satisfaction and engagement.

API integrations streamline preventative maintenance, increasing efficiency and reducing costs.

Staying on top of preventative maintenance (PM) was vital for F&S, but outdated vehicle monitoring and inefficient driver communication proved major barriers to success.

With Samsara’s flexible open API, F&S was able to access and take action on real-time vehicle insights in key maintenance and business intelligence systems, enabling their team to efficiently schedule preventative maintenance on the road. Utilizing the Samsara Driver App, F&S can quickly and easily coordinate over-the-road maintenance with drivers, reducing the need for out-of-route pit stops.

“Now, when drivers are planning their day or their route, they can message us and let us know they’re going to have a 10-hour break. As a result, they can do their PM during that time instead of having to come back to one of our other terminals,” said Cupp. “This has resulted in significant savings for us.”

Real-time GPS tracking improves customer satisfaction and efficiency.

In addition to increased transparency and efficiency, Live Sharing has transformed F&S’s customer service.

By providing customers with a Live Sharing link, F&S increased visibility into their deliveries for customers, resulting in greater trust and transparency. Prior to Live Sharing, F&S would field hundreds of phone calls from customers asking for delivery updates. Now, F&S’s customer service phone calls about deliveries are nearly down to zero.

As a result of Live Sharing with customers, F&S estimates they are saving over 900 hours per year, resulting in an estimated $31,850 in annual savings.

A centralized trailer operations strategy improves tracking accuracy and decreases workload.

As global supply chain disruptions caused ripple effects in the industry, F&S saw an opportunity to evolve their trailer utilization strategy. “In the last few years, it has been difficult to get new equipment,” said Cupp. “Utilizing existing equipment efficiently became vital for us.”

F&S knew their historic method of monitoring trailers manually wasn’t sustainable. F&S estimates that the cost of lost, missing, or underutilized trailers added up to more than $220,000 per year before partnering with Samsara. Their pen and paper processes were inefficient and unreliable, but Samsara’s Smart Trailer solution offered a streamlined and digitized path forward, and will save F&S an estimated $150,000 per year.

“Samsara’s Smart Trailer solution is life-changing,” said Mike Bussberg, Vice President of Operations. “We used to track trailers via phone calls and Excel spreadsheets, and that method is almost never accurate because by the time you get your data compiled, it’s old data and not useful anymore.”

AI-powered detections increase accountability and reduce lost inventory.

AI-powered cameras help F&S streamline their lost inventory protocol. Before Samsara, F&S would need to manually search through thousands of hours of camera footage if an item in a warehouse went missing. 

Now, with Site Visibility, F&S receives proactive alerts on activity in key areas—like stock rooms—to speed up their inventory validation and tracking. They also leverage Stream Search to retroactively search for motion or people detected in a specific portion of a video frame, such as near an inventory rack, to find the video footage they need in minutes. As a result of these AI-powered detections, F&S is operating with greater efficiency and security across their sites.