A HEATING, plumbing and air-conditioning company is making savings of more than £30,000 a year by installing telematics systems in 30 of its vans.

J&B Hopkins uses the Vehicle Management Information (VMI) system produced by Minorplanet to check against their engineers’ timesheets and claims it is saving them thousands of pounds in payments.

The company’s general manager Mark Luff said: ‘It became vitally important to eliminate excessive claims in respect of hours worked. Sometimes these would even be duplicated in a scenario where there would be two employees per vehicle.

‘Using the VMI system has allowed us to make payments based on actual hours worked – saving us more than £30,000 per year.’

He added that the system allows the company to plan its drivers’ workloads better and also ensures their vans are carrying sufficient materials to complete a job, saving on trips to the builders’ merchants.