Taking Action: Transportation Provider Embraces New Technology

Fleets are learning to engage with new tools and practices to tackle the ongoing supply chain challenges.

Action Environmental, a specialized transportation and environmental services provider, isn’t a stranger to these obstacles. However, with the help of IntelliShift, the company is proactively addressing these issues.

Action Enterprises consists of Action Resources, Action Dedicated, Action Enterprises Logistics, and Action Environmental.

Action Environmental’s services include specialty chemical, hazardous waste, industrial cleaning, and a range of environmental remediation services.

The company also provides environmental and industrial services throughout the southeast, Midwest, and south-central U.S. from Alabama, Florida, Texas, and Tennessee.

Adapting to the Environment

Action Environmental runs about 135 power units, broken out to around 51% light-medium duty units and 49% heavy-duty vehicles.Most of the company’s equipment is utilized to transport equipment to and from job sites and transport crew members.

Michael Schramm, director of maintenance at Action, highlighted Action Environmental’s utilization of Intellishift as an important piece in its operations.

“Primarily utilizing utility, our crew cab work trucks that have been outfitted with IntelliShift,” Schramm said. “This has given us the ability to send alerts when a unit operates outside the parameters we have set, which helps our operators be more safety-conscious while operating our equipment.”
IntelliShift offers mobile fleet and field operations solutions, and focuses on delivering fleets a return on investment (ROI) through technology utilization.

Like other fleets, Action Environmental faced COVID-19 supply chain issues.

“We are seeing challenges with new equipment,” Schramm said. “Lead times have been pushed out due to parts availability issues, and some features are unavailable, so we have had to adjust how our equipment is outfitted.”

Aside from parts availability, Schramm said the other two challenges Action Environmental faces are downtime and utilization.

“The parts availability issues have a negative impact on both downtime and utilization,” Schramm said. “We have had to be creative in combating this challenge. Sometimes it’s a matter of us sourcing parts and shipping them to a vendor or pulling parts from a down unit to get another one up. We also have great OEM and vendor relations, making coming up with solutions a collaborative effort.”

Enjoying the Change

Schramm has been with Action Enterprises for three years, serving as director of maintenance, and he said he enjoys how much the industry changes. The changes “keep things fresh and challenging,” which is shown in one change at Action Environmental.

The company has been able to save time and money using telematics solutions.

“This is helping identify issues and streamline processes based on our equipment,” Schramm said. “There are so many different telematics companies out there right now. I would advise anyone looking into adding a new system to look at everything offered. You don’t need to utilize everything a platform offers, but you want to ensure they offer everything you need.”

While using what is available has helped Action Environmental, the company is also using IntelliShift Platform. This offers key features, such as asset tracking, vehicle telematics, and digital inspections.

“Asset tracking is a must because, as our equipment makes its way out to various job sites, we want to ensure all our equipment makes it back and prevent theft,” Schramm said. “The vehicle telematics has been very useful for our technicians. It provides them with up-to-date equipment information out on sites and alerts us when we need to potentially send a vendor out to service equipment on site.”

The digital inspections provide Action Environmental drivers with a way to communicate issues effectively with equipment pre- or post- trip. This means the company can efficiently schedule maintenance.

Action Environmental’s current project has provided daily full-time onsite project management, labor, CDL regulated drivers, and equipment services.

“We have identified and sold older and underutilized equipment and replaced them with new value-adding equipment,” Schramm said.

Schramm has been around the transportation industry after serving in the Army in 1990. He started my career as a CDL driver/owner-operator and transitioned into maintenance in 2008 as a technician.

With all this experience comes advice for other fleets experiencing the same challenges Action Environmental faces.

“Be flexible and look for solutions from all your resources,” Schramm recommended. “You never know where the next great idea may come from.” 

Curious about other fleets? Check out the profile on Adventure Medics Spares No Expense Composing a Safe Fleet!