How Vlantana enhances transport security and optimizes route planning with Bosch L.OS
Vlantana is a Lithuanian family-owned business founded back in 1996 and one of the biggest asset-based transport and logistics companies in Europe.
The corporate headquarters, consisting of a modern building complex, warehouses, the company’s own drivers training facility, refueling station and workshop, lie on the outskirts of Lithuania’s port of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea. Vlantana group has also founded companies in Germany, Spain, Poland, and recently established Hauflex SIA in Latvia, which, although still in its early development stage, represents an important step for the group.
Dedication to customer needs, innovation in services and sustainability measures in coherently growing business have secured Vlantana a strong position in the European and Scandinavian markets. Results are credited to focusing on people, customers and core values of the company – innovation, leadership, responsibility, respectfulness and agility.
Customer challenge
As a provider specializing in secure, high-value transportation, Vlantana must comply with rigorous security protocols, including TAPA TSR and GDP standards. To ensure compliance and maximize safety, Vlantana adopted Bosch Road Services – an innovative solution offering reservable, secure truck parking spaces across more than 600 locations throughout Europe. The Bosch Road Services platform provides transparent access to key security and comfort features for each parking area, enabling users to pre-book parking spots best suited to their cargo and route. While BSR addressed their security needs, it introduced a new operational challenge: the lack of seamless integration between this new solution and their existing IT landscape. Integrating Bosch Road Services with their Fleet Management System (FMS) Fleethand was critical to streamline booking and improve operational efficiency.
Utilizing Bosch Road Services as a standalone service alongside Fleethand FMS led to substantial inefficiencies in Vlantana’s daily workflows. The primary issue stemmed from the manual synchronization required between the two systems. Dispatchers needed to manually replicate route details planned in the FMS within the parking booking platform - searching for suitable parking along designated routes, followed by copying key details like driver identification, vehicle license plates, and estimated arrival times. This cumbersome process was highly prone to human error, increasing operational risk and administrative workload. Moreover, after booking parking spots, dispatchers still had to manually log planned rest periods back into the FMS, resulting in duplicated tasks, reduced productivity, and missed opportunities for optimization.
Compounding the problem, unforeseen delays such as traffic congestion often rendered reserved parking spaces unreachable. This highlighted an urgent need for a more integrated and automated solution to streamline processes and enhance security.
Solution Overview
Bosch L.OS – Logistics Operating System is designed to integrate previously siloed systems, providing the smart, seamless connectivity needed by Vlantana and many other Logistics Service Providers (LSPs). Leveraging a horizontal integration layer, Bosch L.OS facilitates the seamless exchange of data across different services for enhanced processing and operational efficiency. Typically, fleet management or transportation management systems (FMS/TMS) form the backbone of every logistics business. Through Bosch L.OS, value-adding services can be integrated without significant development efforts, amplifying operational benefits.
Thanks to Fleethand’s integration via Bosch L.OS, Vlantana can now access Bosch’s Road Services features directly within their FMS – eliminating manual tasks in finding and reserving appropriate parking spots. The planning and booking process has been fully automated, providing a more efficient and error-free experience.
Thanks to Fleethand’s integration via Bosch L.OS, Vlantana can now access Bosch’s Road Services features directly within their FMS – eliminating manual tasks in finding and reserving appropriate parking spots. The planning and booking process has been fully automated, providing a more efficient and error-free experience.
Bosch L.OS – cloud-native platform that comes with a marketplace and horizontal integration layer
Bosch Logistics Operating System is designed as an open platform for all ecosystem players in the transportation and logistics domain. The platform is running on AWS cloud and built natively on AWS services including AWS Lambda, Amazon API Gateway, Amazon ECS, and Amazon CloudFront and is designed to help fleet managers and dispatchers to execute their daily operations more efficiently.
Through its horizontal integration and data layer between carriers as customers and digital solutions from ISV partners the platform acts as a one-stop shop for logistics solutions and provides users with centralized access to services. Additionally, it connects services and data across partners to unlock synergies. This is exactly what has been the basis for the seamless integration of Bosch Road Services with Fleethand FMS via Bosch L.OS, the solution that has been delivered to Vlantana and many other Logistics Services Providers (LSPs) in Europe.
Results
Thanks to Bosch L.OS, no integration effort was required from the customer side to bring together the two systems. To enable the feature in the FMS, Vlantana was only required to:
- Create a Bosch L.OS account free of charge.
- Link its existing Fleethand subscription.
- Subscribe to Bosch Secure Truck Parking in the Bosch L.OS Marketplace.
- Configure its subscription within the FMS.
- Start using the new feature.
The seamless integration of the service into their FMS Fleethand via Bosch L.OS unlocked in addition an enormous efficiency potential: by automatically displaying suitable parking slots in the map during route planning and being able to directly book a parking space via the FMS itself, saves ~3.30min per dispatch.
Want to leverage this feature within your Fleethand FMS? Just have a look into this online tutorial to learn more how to enable this smart integration. Are you using a different FMS but want to get this functionality as well? Get in touch with us.