Rutherford & Co. Integrating People, Process & Technology

Imagine being able to discern how fast employees drive a company vehicle to job sites and how much time they spend there, or whether an employee was parked at home instead of at a job.

That's not business-oriented science fiction, said Andy Bailey, president of Cool Springs-based NationLink Wireless. That's the problem-solving potential of GPS, or global positioning systems.

Global positioning uses satellites and hand-held or mounted devices to beam very specific geographic locations and other data from one point to another.

Hiller puts GPS in trucks

Nashville-based Hiller Plumbing, Heating & Cooling installed GPS in about 65 of its trucks and vans two months ago. Hiller said the new system has advantages over earlier versions of GPS that it used to aid dispatchers.

The company serves customers in Nashville, Clarksville, Murfreesboro and surrounding areas. Its drivers spend a lot of time on the road and have a lot of autonomy.

NationLink's GPS systems range in price from $140 to $1,200 per device, and it costs $15 to $50 per month to monitor, manage and maintain the equipment.

At Hiller, the payoff was clear, said Donna Murphy, a Hiller Plumbing executive assistant. Murphy receives an e-mail whenever a driver exceeds the speed limit spelled out in the Hiller driving policy. Dispatchers also can track a vehicle's location within 30 feet, can give better directions to lost drivers and can connect the closest service staff with the nearest jobs.

GPS has other small-business applications.

GPS showed Murphy that a Hiller employee who was supposed to be working on a particular job was actually at home. The employee was disciplined.

GPS aids workers on job

Like most technology, GPS has a way of answering and raising business challenges.

There are guys at Civil Construction Inc., a Nashville-based grading, utility line placement and road construction company, who have been operating heavy machinery for decades.

When Joe Rodgers, Civil's president, decided to outfit some of the company's earth-moving machines with GPS technology (computer screens that manage to guide the angle of earth-slicing blades on big machinery), some of the Nashville-based company's 450 employees weren't happy.

"There was some concern about all the technology," Rodgers said. "You know these guys have been doing this for years and felt pretty sure they know how to do their jobs. "

Civil's work is guided by plans generated by engineers and surveyors who determine how to best drain storm water, arrange streets or bury utility lines. Surveyors also set out ground stakes that designate how and where earth must be moved, removed, graded or paved.

But when the earth-moving equipment arrives and drivers start their work, it isn't uncommon for stakes to be displaced and grading work to be redone to get the angles exactly right. When a site is not properly graded, water may stand after a rain or a developed site can flood.

Since Civil began using GPS technology to guide the actual razors on equipment used on 15-acre and larger sites, the company has cut its surveying costs by about 50 percent, Rodgers said. And there's been a cultural shift as well.

"A lot of our guys are wondering why we didn't use it (GPS) sooner," Rodgers said.