ELD selection should not be taken lightly according to trucking experts who say that beyond setting high expectations in the C-Suite, carriers should avoid obsessing over cost and turn to additional stakeholders who can better ensure the best pick for the price.
When former trucking consultant Louis Giardelli, who now leads information technology at Veltri Trucking, was shopping for ELDs he saw a red flag when a provider made cost an issue.
“I think one of the things that turned us off on one of the providers towards the end was cost,” Giardelli said during a recent TCA webinar hosted by ELD provider ISAAC Instruments. “It was, ‘What number can I give you to make this happen?’ And that was probably the worst thing someone could have said to us. Not that cost didn't matter. It did matter. The cost needed to be competitive but I didn't want somebody to sell their soul for our business.”
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Giardelli also said it was important to raise company expectations at Veltri, a roughly 150-truck regional hauler in Washington, Penn. Since routes are under 150 air miles, hours-of-service requirements aren’t the driving concern. However, electronic data interchange (EDI) is an important factor that if not functioning properly can lead to a lot of headaches and lost efficiency, as was the case when Veltri tried using consumer grade tablets with an ELD app.
“I found that the technology that we had in place was completely unreliable,” said Giardelli who added that prior to his arrival at the 74-year-old company a decision had been made to focus more on an ELD solution that was “less expensive to get the job done based on what a lot of companies were doing.”
