Offering fleets real-time, AI-based automated decision-making and optimiSation, SCALAR delivers advanced operational efficiency
28 Aug 2022 | 2337 Views | By Autocar Pro News Desk
ZF’s Commercial Vehicle Solutions (CVS) division has presented SCALAR, its advanced new digital Fleet Orchestration Platform, ahead of IAA Transportation 2022.
Offering a diverse suite of features designed to optimize commercial fleet operations, SCALAR supports a wide range of customer requirements including fully automatic and live planning, routing, scheduling ...
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ZF’s Commercial Vehicle Solutions (CVS) division has presented SCALAR, its advanced new digital Fleet Orchestration Platform, ahead of IAA Transportation 2022.
Offering a diverse suite of features designed to optimize commercial fleet operations, SCALAR supports a wide range of customer requirements including fully automatic and live planning, routing, scheduling and dispatching solutions. This will help operators, including shippers, carriers, cities, and other stakeholders, embark on the next levels of Mobility (MaaS) and Transportation (TaaS) as a Service. A key building-block of SCALAR is its industry-leading fleet orchestration technology which was acquired from Bestmile in November 2021.
“Leveraging the powerful capabilities of our SCALAR digital Fleet Orchestration Platform will enable ZF to virtually redefine Fleet Management,” said Hjalmar Van Raemdonck, Head of Digital System Solutions with ZF’s Commercial Vehicle Solutions division. “Helping commercial fleets achieve new levels of efficiency, SCALAR establishes intelligent end-to-end systems which ‘orchestrate’ the whole process of freight logistics as well as passenger transport.”
“To achieve this, ZF is bringing advanced connectivity on a whole new level through SCALAR to enhance fleet services and operations. Orchestration undoubtedly has the potential to be the next big thing in fleet management, capable of bringing the technologies of the future, such as autonomous driving, together today,” added Van Raemdonck.
Technology enabler, underpins MaaS strategy
SCALAR further extends ZF’s leadership in commercial vehicle connectivity. Building on over 35 years of ZF’s advanced Fleet Management Solutions (FMS) expertise through its cutting-edge Transics-branded telematics portfolio and fleet digitalization experience, ZF has now also added world-class autonomous vehicle orchestration capabilities. Leveraging unique vehicle data and taking real-time, AI-based automated decision-making and fleet optimization to the next level, SCALAR’s open, modular platform can support a wide range of customer requirements for both homogeneous and mixed fleets.
The integration of Bestmile’s Orchestration solution represents both a technology enabler as well as a significant commercial milestone for SCALAR in preparing the ground and delivering orchestration services. Underpinning ZF’s strategy to realize Mobility-as-a-Service (MaaS), ZF is already successfully commercializing the Mobility Service Orchestration Solution, enabling public and private mobility providers to plan, launch and operate highly efficient fixed-route and demand-responsive transportation services for passengers.
With over 25 percent of freight journeys estimated to be empty runs, Orchestration has the potential to help improve fleet efficiency by sending the right driver to the right vehicle at the right time. This includes helping select the most fuel-efficient and less environmentally impactful route, supporting fleet sustainability and reducing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).
Leveraging its position as the largest global vehicle technology provider for commercial vehicles, ZF says it can access rich and unique proprietary vehicle data from its comprehensive portfolio of IoT/connectivity devices. Having additionally acquired Bestmile's world-class optimization technology for autonomous vehicles and passenger cars, ZF has further enriched its extensive Fleet Management System expertise with capabilities of forecasting, self-learning and live automated decision-making for fleets. ZF has now built an open, modular and dynamic platform to bring all these capabilities together. Fully automating fleet processes, ZF’s SCALAR ensures fleets can automatically send the right mission to the right vehicle at the right time – all in real-time.
Orchestration generates greater value than combining individual isolated digital solutions through active integration, automation and self-learning. Planning, routing, dispatching and business intelligence are actively integrated and optimized with AI to deliver significant benefits. This includes eliminating management by exception and human error margins as well as ensuring live adaption and re-optimization to fully automate fleet operations.
SCALAR also provides a wide range of technology benefits to support operational efficiency, sustainability and vehicle uptimes. During its recent Global Technology Days, ZF showcased two key proof-of-concepts to demonstrate SCALAR’s future capabilities. This includes supporting driver safety as a result of advanced processing of data from a vehicle’s ADAS systems. Additionally, by processing data from cargo monitoring sensors, such as CargoCam, SCALAR has the future potential to provide better protection and management of trailer payloads.
“ZF’s unrivalled ability to leverage rich commercial vehicle data, combined with a world-class orchestration system and SCALAR’s open, dynamic, modular platform, offers enormous potential,” concludes Van Raemdonck. “SCALAR is uniquely positioned to support the transition of cargo and people mobility towards an increasingly mixed and autonomous world for tomorrow’s fleets.”