Innovating for Impact: Thermo King® and Dot Transportation, Inc.

Thermo King partnered with Dot Transportation, Inc. (DTI) to successfully implement advanced telematics solutions to help optimize DTI’s refrigerated fleet operations.

As a 100% Thermo King transport refrigeration unit (TRU) customer, major food industry redistributor Dot Transportation, Inc. (DTI) has long understood the importance of implementing state-of-the-art technology. Utilizing advanced technological solutions helps ensure reliable performance, reduce engine runtimes, better manage maintenance costs, and improve the driver experience. With a focus on digitization, the DTI team turned to Thermo King for their expertise in providing connected solutions that enable fleet optimization and the safe, efficient transport of valuable food.

The Opportunity

Thermo King has partnered with DTI for more than three decades, delivering the latest innovations that ensure product integrity throughout the cold chain and enhance fleet operations. With more than 2,900 trailers operating out of 13 distribution centers across the U.S., DTI is always looking for ways to improve efficiencies and increase the freshness of products delivered to customers. When Thermo King’s TracKing^® Pro telematics was launched in 2023, it was a gamechanger for the company. The technology allows the conversion of data into information that provides actionable fleet insights on their trailer units.

“We value each customer’s mission, supporting them throughout the cold chain with quality products, service, data and analytics, and cost management solutions,” said Dominic Hand, Vice President Digital, Thermo King Americas. “We are proud to lead the industry in enabling fleet optimization that delivers freshness and leverages data and insights to respond quickly if needed. Customers like DTI fuel our passion to make an impact across the cold chain.”  

The Solution

The Thermo King ConnectedSuite™ fleet telematics portfolio expanded in 2023 with the introduction of TracKing^® Pro telematics. A premium digital offering that harnesses the power of cutting-edge algorithms to estimate fuel consumption, electricity usage and opportunities to enhance uptime, TracKing Pro telematics also includes a benchmark analytics dashboard that allows customers to compare fleet energy usage and operations against best-in-class fleets to discover what is possible to achieve.

Thermo King worked closely with DTI to implement and optimize TracKing Pro telematics by activating subscriptions and demonstrating how data insights can boost operational efficiency and prevent the potential for load loss incidents. True to the company’s forward-thinking approach to technology adoption, DTI quickly saw the benefits of telematics when used to monitor their Thermo King Precedent^® multi-temperature TRUs. DTI’s customer team now actively monitors its fleet internally and utilizes the telematics data to help them increase fleet uptime, improve efficiencies and prevent food waste that could potentially result from an unexpected equipment breakdown.

Results

Utilizing the TracKing telematics fleet performance dashboard, DTI is seeing the economic benefits of running its refrigeration units in CYCLE-SENTRY™ versus continuous mode. As a result, the team converted all units to CYCLE-SENTRY where possible and has since reduced engine runtime associated with continuous mode from 6% to 2%. This reduced engine runtime is expected to save them $1.1 million in fuel and maintenance costs within 12 months.

In addition, proactive monitoring prevented a load loss that was valued at $78,000. DTI’s customer team was alerted by TracKing telematics that a TRU was inadvertently turned off. The team was able to react quickly to send a two-way remote command that powered the TRU back up before the load was compromised.

As a result of witnessing powerful examples of actionable fleet insights in action, DTI has increased its TracKing Pro telematics subscriptions from 600 to over 2,300 within a twelve-month timeframe ensuring their entire fleet operates efficiently and delivers freshness their customers expect and depend upon.

“The value of a reliable connected solution and proactive monitoring that TracKing Pro telematics offers has yielded proven savings for our organization,” said John Ourth, Director of Planning, Dot Transportation, Inc. “It is a service that allows us to operate more efficiently, protects our valuable loads and ensures the food we haul arrives safely to the communities we serve.”