Food Express reduces monthly costs by 85% while expanding coverage with Site Visibility

Key takeaways

Food Express is a transportation company primarily focused on bulk food products such as flour, starches, hops, and more. They transport these goods from mills to production sites for some of the largest brands in America. Jim Terry, Director of IT, manages a lean IT team which oversees networking and security for 12 locations, including warehouses and truck yards with more than 185 tractors and 320 trailers.

• 12 sites across the US 

• 140+ camera streams

• 500+ assets and vehicles tracked with Samsara Gateways 

• 85% monthly savings with Samsara

• Reviewed and investigated onsite incidents 83% faster

Food Express relies on Site Visibility to help them streamline their end-to-end operations by:

• ↓ <a href="#section-one">Improving their security and investigation,</a> Food Express can save countless hours sifting through and find the footage they need and more proactively address onsite safety and security concerns.

• ↓ <a href="#section-two">Connecting their data and operations into a single platform</a> that streamlines Food Express’s daily operations, helping them more efficiently keep track of their valuable equipment and allowing them to view their entire operations from a single dashboard.

• ↓Offering a <a href="#section-three">predictable, inclusive pricing structure,</a> reduces monthly costs and allows Food Express to instantly access the newest feature releases with over-the-air firmware upgrades.

“Site Visibility offers more than just a security camera. You get so much more out of this product, with the AI features and cloud dashboard, it’s a system you can really rely on.”

JIM TERRY, DIRECTOR OF IT

Food Express previously had a legacy, on-prem system that was incredibly difficult to manage. This posed a number of security risks to the organization, from incident investigation to data security. Thefts were common at remote sites, and they needed a way to not only review the footage remotely, but ensure they had secure backups of the recorded footage. After one location had over $30K worth of assets and vehicles stolen with no video evidence to share with the authorities, Terry decided it was time to upgrade their camera system. With Site Visibility, he can monitor Food Express’s 12 sites from anywhere, leverage proactive alerts and AI-powered search features, and utilize Samsara’s connected platform across his sites and fleet.

<div id="section-one">Improved security and incident investigation</div>

As part of health and safety guidelines, Food Express employs workers to wash their large 30 ft tanks daily. These washers are required to wear a safety uniform and harness while on the catwalk above the tanks. In one instance, while Terry was sitting in his office using the Samsara dashboard, he identified a worker not wearing the proper safety gear. He immediately called the onsite supervisor to address the issue in real time. With just a few clicks, he then downloaded and shared the clip with the safety team to incorporate into their next safety training. 

Food Express also uses Site Visibility to improve security and investigation. Proactive alerts allow site supervisors to receive notifications if there is motion or people detected on site during off hours. When someone broke into their lot and stole a car, the team was immediately notified of the unusual activity, reported the theft to the police, and shared a clip as evidence for police and insurance purposes.

In the past, Terry used to spend hours sifting through footage to find the exact moment when an incident occurred. In addition, it was time consuming to download, convert files, and move them to hard drives in order to share content with leadership or authorities. Now by leveraging Site Visibility’s intelligent search functionalities, he spends 83% less time each month searching for and sharing footage. 

“Site Visibility is easy and straightforward to use. The technology is great. I can go back to any point in time and in just a few seconds, grab a clip. Everything is at my fingertips.”

<div id="section-two">Connecting data and operations into a single platform</div>

Food Express has been able to take full advantage of the Samsara Connected Operations platform to protect their valuable equipment. Every trailer and truck in their lot is equipped with Vehicle and Asset Gateways, which provide real-time GPS tracking, and Site Visibility gives them an additional layer of visibility into the assets in their yards. 

Through the dashboard, Terry is able to monitor his fleet and sites at the exact same time. He toggles back and forth to get real-time data and live alerts, such as if vehicles are in the wrong yard or have been idle for too long. Other team members, such as the VP of Operations, also review these dashboards, and collectively the two teams can paint a cohesive picture of their onsite operations. With this data, Food Express can strengthen safety precautions, improve operational efficiency, and save valuable time and energy.

“Every tractor and trailer has a Samsara gateway installed on it, and we complement this with Site Visibility to better monitor and protect our assets. We get complete visibility this way and can view everything from a single, Samsara dashboard.”

<div id="section-three">Predictable and all-inclusive pricing reduces monthly costs</div>

Beyond the operational improvements, Food Express is also excited about the cost and time savings associated with this system. They no longer have to worry about the recurring maintenance and unpredictability from their previous camera solution. Food Express relies on Samsara’s cloud infrastructure to not only backup footage to the cloud, but also notify them if there are any connectivity issues.

When it comes to managing IT infrastructures, nothing is more important than time. Food Express averages two to three events a month that require some sort of investigation. Each incident used to take Terry at least three hours to identify, locate, review, and export. With Site Visibility, Terry can now complete this entire process in less than a half an hour, giving him back almost an entire work day every month to focus on other high-priority projects. 

Prior to Samsara, Food Express only had a camera solution at three sites, because maintenance, licensing, and support fees were quite expensive. Site Visibility allowed them to quickly spin up 12 sites through a seamless onboarding and automatic camera discovery process, leveraging their existing camera hardware, pulling those streams into the Samsara dashboard, and overlaying powerful AI features onto those streams. Without all the added management fees, Food Express saves 85% every month and gains greater, more reliable coverage of their sites.

Samsara as a partner

For Terry, finding the best security camera solution is about getting the best quality for the best price. With Samsara, he not only gets a high-quality product, but also reliable and professional support. The Samsara team, from product to sales, has been a partner with Food Express throughout their entire journey, supporting additional deployments and helping unlock more capabilities.