Tread customer story: Tomlinson

About R.W. Tomlinson Ltd.

Vertical: Material Producer, Civil Contractor
Company size: 2000+ people
Number of trucks: 40 internal and 150-200+ brokered trucks

The Tomlinson Group of Companies is Eastern Canada’s leader in environmental, construction and transportation infrastructure services. The third-generation family-owned business is headquartered in Ottawa, Ontario. 

Through six decades of growth and innovation, Tomlinson has become a fully-integrated corporation providing a large array of turnkey services to its municipal, provincial, residential and industrial customers. 

Tomlinson boasts a staff of over 2000 skilled professionals and tradespeople. Tomlinson’s size and streamlined/consolidated structure allow the company to retain specialized technical expertise and centralized administrative resources to implement functional quality, safety, and environmental management systems.

The Challenge 

Before using Tread, Tomlinson team had the challenges below with their dispatching, fleet visibility and ticketing operations.

Dispatch:

• Too much time and effort needed to dispatch anywhere from 150-200 trucks/day, leaving room for error and breakdowns in communication. 
• A high volume of operators would rely on the scale attendants for job details, causing mass congestion and slow-downs during rush hours. 
• Scale operators and foremen were unsure of who to expect and had no way to determine their location or contact information with the same day dispatching.

Fleet Visibility:

• Too much time was spent on the phone trying to track down operators to inform them of changes or to re-route the trucks. Also, they had no visibility with the external hires to accomplish change orders.

Ticketing:

• Collection of paper copies of external rental tickets would be delayed, or lost copies would cause accounting and payment discrepancies.
• Inability to view job history of internal and hired trucks, i.e., operator on duty, uploaded tickets, routes taken, time on/off-sites. 

“In an industry where it’s all about relationships, not knowing who was driving the trucks disabled creating synergies to better help construction.”
Tom Desarmia, Construction Dispatcher

The Solution

Looking for a better way to communicate with their team and a more efficient way to manage their operations, Tomlinson turned to Tread’s solutions: 

Scheduling / Dispatch:
Their favourite features of Tread’s scheduling and dispatching solution are:

• The ease of copy-paste and edit functions.
• The ability for foremen and field personnel to request trucks through Tread in a standardized format.
• Downloading and sharing of schedules with a variety of internal departments. Visibility for all those using it, internal and external clients, as well.

Reporting / Insights:
Their favorite features of Tread’s reporting and insights solution are:

• Easily identifying the drivers with low compliance, scheduling them for additional training or support.
• Driver visibility from dispatch to scale house allowing everyone to know who is driving what truck where.
• Being able to capitalize on their strengths after viewing the reports.  
• Using history to download and verify time cards for payroll. Being able to give their hires all the necessary information to 100% complete their assignment. 
• Taking the “he said-she said” out of the business with all parties being able to view what has been asked. All changes tracked by Tread inactivity was a plus for them.

The Process
“New technology can be hard for some people in our industry to not only adopt, but embrace. Tread is enabling a smooth transition within an industry [that is primarily] based on outdated technologies. Our customers and hired trucks feel confident using this platform, not only to help strengthen their relationship with Tomlinson, but to embrace the tools Tread has to offer.”
Tyler DuBroy, Tomlinson Tread Specialist

Dispatch:
“It has exposed what we always knew was there, that a good portion of end users did not take advantage of technology to help them succeed and progress. We were able to identify the problems facing the end users and liaison with Tread to smooth the way for easy dispatches, ones that all parties can understand.”
Tom Desarmia, Construction Dispatcher

Customer Support:
“With the excellent customer support and responsiveness to feedback, Tread staff has made our experience using Tread very enjoyable.”
Tyler DuBroy, Tomlinson Tread Specialist

The Result

Through standardizing the flow of information in Tomlinson’s trucking organization, Tomlinson employees were given more time to focus on initiatives like driver recruitment and fleet management. This extra time allows them to do more with less, reducing the impact of driver shortages within Ontario.

“Having worked in the trucking industry for more than 37 years, I will say, Tread has been a much appreciated asset. We need to embrace change and work together to help build what’s next!”
Tom Desarmia, Construction Dispatcher

If you’d like to learn more about how Tread can make your business more profitable, reach out to us to book your free demo!

About the Author

LinkedIn

Erika Geremia Director of Customer Success Erika is a proud Treadinator, dog-mom, hiker, and cyclist based in Toronto. She spent the first half of her career in eCommerce, leading eBay’s partnership program and travelling across North America to teach business owners about the power of eCommerce. She now leads Tread’s customer success team, working with dispatchers, drivers, and operations managers to better manage their day-to-day operations with our platform.