Mark Savill Transport transform their haulage operations with Mandata Go TMS
Integrated System
TMS integrates seamlessly with Mandata apps
POD visibility
Real-time view of electronic documents
Easy to use apps
All Mandata apps are easy to learn and use
Mark Savill Transport, a London-based haulage business, is reaping the rewards from its Mandata Transport Management Software, with greater visibility over their operations than they have ever had before.
As a transporter of a wide variety of goods, where every delivery poses unique challenges, Mark Savill Transport have found Mandata Go TMS a brilliant addition to their working processes.
Having been in the haulage industry for 45 years, Mark Savill and his partner, Kate Butler first broke into the industry after Mark noticed a gap in the market, where European operators were providing a better value haulage service than their UK counterparts, and thus Savill Freight was born and subsequently Transtex.
Despite various changes throughout the years, including being part of a prepack buyout in 2014, the pair decided to start again from the very beginning in 2021, with a new company, Mark Savill Transport.
Starting with just one vehicle handling subcontracted work, they’ve since grown at an extraordinary pace in such a short time, now boasting a fleet of 30 vehicles already, and now subcontracting out their own work.
Kate, General Manager, and part owner of Mark Savill Transport stated that they provide haulage assistance for a plethora of different industries and companies including the transportation of goods for Rolls Royce, delivering emergency water supplies, and even recently transporting equipment for the country rock band, The Eagles.
Simple to use platform
When talking about Mandata Go TMS Kate described it as “Brilliant” and a “Simple to use platform”.
Having been a Mandata customer since 2010, Kate is a big advocate of Mandata, and knows the value it offers to hauliers like herself.
Kate described how they’ve evolved their use of Mandata Go TMS over the years “We’ve moved it forward hugely and started to use a lot of the features, including the apps.”
“The Manifest app is really easy for the drivers, like most hauliers, we have an ageing workforce who are a bit reluctant to adopt new technology, but all our drivers are now trained on the app.”
Mandata Go TMS is a cloud-based TMS platform. This not only means that all the updates are automatically added, ensuring users are always on the most up-to-date version, but also that the system can be accessed away from the office, with all work updated across all users’ systems, meaning no one is duplicating work, and everyone has visibility.
“I love that Go is in the cloud so it doesn’t take up any room on our servers, and that I can log in from anywhere. When I’m out and about I can look at the tracking system from my phone and see the progress my drivers are making,” said Kate.
Integrated apps supporting Kate’s business
Mark Savill Transport have a full suite of Mandata solutions. They use the TMS platform for their job entry, planning and invoicing, the Manifest app to handle their ePODs, the Vehicle Checks app for their daily walkaround inspections, Team Admin to gain full visibility of driver timesheets and Mandata Tracking so they know the location of all their drivers in real time.
Kate went on to describe how the addition of the apps, alongside the Go TMS software has really helped her business, as now they have everything connected to each other and the data all in one place.
“Everything’s integrated and that’s one of the biggest benefits of Mandata. A lot of people would say don’t put all your eggs in one basket. However, there’s also a huge benefit of having all your systems integrated and working together.
I can go on the tracking system and click on the truck, and I can see the driver’s POD, or their job progress using the Manifest app.”
Kate went on to describe the apps as “really easy to use”, which she sees as essential, as you’ve got to get your drivers to embrace the systems that have been put in place, if you want to maximise the potential of the system. Some drivers can be reluctant to adopt new technology, however, the Manifest App is not only easy to use, but very easy to train new users.
“It is a one stop shop” Kate added. “You can virtually run everything you need for your business through Mandata if you choose to. I like the fact that there are addons and you don’t have to have everything at once if you don’t want to”.
Job creation made easy
Creating jobs in Mandata Go TMS is a simple process, with job data being able to be inputted manually, automatically imported from external sources, or inputted directly by the customer via the customer portal. In addition to this, job templates can be set up to save significant amounts of time, rather than re-keying the same data repeatedly.
Job templates are something that Mark Savill Transport take advantage of on a regular basis.
“I think the templates are great, I like the fact that we can copy jobs, it makes job creation very easy. With regards to the pricing, I like the fact I can add fuel surcharges and the extras and have it all shown. And we’re generally able to provide an invoice either the same day, or next day, so from a cash flow point of view that’s superb.” Says Kate.
Another part of the jobs screen Kate feels supports her and the team is the ability to select all her jobs and print them off. “This is really useful in an industry that still relies heavily on paper,” Kate added.
Visibility from PODs a great benefit
Visibility is one of the TMS key selling points for Kate. She described how the planners at Mark Savill Transport use three screens: One with the tracking pad so they can see their driver locations in real time, one with the job planner so they can see live driver job status updates such as unloading, collected, enroute and more, and the third screen containing their emails where booked jobs can be simply loaded into the TMS ready for planning.
“Instant PODs are absolutely amazing for us. We’ve also got the instant time sheets. I can just log into the Team Admin app and see what time drivers are logging on.
I can see what hours they’re working. Even with the Vehicle Checks app, the drivers can take a supporting photo so I can instantly see what they’re telling me the issue with the vehicle is.”
As General Manager Kate has many different responsibilities throughout the business. She describes the visibility that Go provides as a real benefit to her in her role. Mark Savill Transport have auto-PODs set up in their system. This means that as soon as a driver completes the job, an email will be sent to their customer. This, including all the important documentation associated with that job automatically attached to the job, saving her staff time from having to do that process manually.
Additionally, the reporting functionality within Mandata has been very useful, especially the Customer Last Job report, which Kate uses to cross-reference previous customer jobs, and flags customers that might have issues and need contacting, helping to improve their customer service.
Impressed with Mandata
Implementing new systems can often be tough. As a Mandata customer, Kate received support from the Mandata Implementation team, and a proactive account manager to help embed the system to suit their requirements, an aspect Kate is very impressed with.
“One of the things we found three years ago was that the implementation was brilliant, and the support in terms of what we needed. Same with the support from our account manager, Sam is very very good.
If I ever have a question or if I’ve had a problem or if there’s something I want to do with the system, the support we’ve had from our account manager is very very good, and I don’t just have to go to a help desk to resolve the issue.”
By bringing all aspects of their transport operation into one location, Mark Savill Transport now, through Mandata, have the visibility to make real-time and data driven informed decisions to best suit their business.