Omnitracs, LLC announced the company’s Data and Analytics team completed the build of an Amazon Alexa skill for customer P&S Transportation. The Ivi (Ivy) Fleet Manager private skill is now available to P&S Transportation.

Executives at P&S Transportation currently log into systems and manually look up reporting information on company performance. They are also limited by where and when they can view these reports. Their new voice-assisted analytics built by Omnitracs will allow for easier access to key business insights and a more natural way of interacting with data. They will be able to access these insights at work, at home, and on any Alexa-enabled device. To get started after an approved administrator enables the skill, all the user has to say is, “Alexa, open Ivy.”

“We are constantly looking for better ways to deliver information to our users,” said Mauricio Paredes, vice president of technology at P&S Transportation. “We are excited that the same Omnitracs analytics team that built our driver retention model helped us create a new delivery method for our management to review key performance metrics.”

Omnitracs offers its fleet customers analytics models to predict voluntary driver turnover and prevent accidents. P&S Transportation has been using Omnitracs’ driver retention model for three years, decreasing turnover by 10% — a significant reduction, as industry turnover trends are on the rise.

Alexa skills are to Alexa what third-party apps are to a smartphone. With the new Amazon Alexa skill, managers at P&S Transportation have the ability to ask Alexa, via an Alexa-enabled device or through the Alexa app on mobile, questions about the business such as how many total miles were billed or about accident costs each day without logging into multiple systems and combing through reports.

“Busy fleet managers should be able to get quick updates about their fleets — from their phones, offices, or homes — just like they would a weather update,” said Brad Taylor, vice president of data and IoT 2 solutions at Omnitracs. “Omnitracs is proud to provide executives at P&S Transportation with time-saving, instant access to the company’s data through voice-assisted analytics. We look forward to providing solutions to other customers who seek similar technology for their fleets, as we see the combination of this with predictive analytics as very powerful.”

Last year, Omnitracs’ analytics team won an Alexa hackathon for creating a system where Alexa users could receive information about driver performance using Omnitracs' telematics data. With this system, rather than log into an internal portal, fleet managers would simply talk to Alexa to gain insights such as how many drivers were on-duty, in violation, or had hard braking events that day.