Why are digital logbooks better than paper logbooks? Trux Solutions

A critical component of maintaining a quality control system is ensuring a proper logbook is maintained. A paper-based logbook is time-consuming and it can potentially expose trucking companies to major compliance risks. Data that is hand-written takes a lot of time and effort and is prone to errors. Employees will spend countless hours creating and reviewing logbooks to secure information, which at times is stored in various physical locations.

Why is it important to maintain a logbook in the trucking industry?

Managing a logbook gives one information on the compliance of your systems. Without that, you will be aimlessly running around trying to understand where are the issues. If you are looking to solve difficulties in production, you will be forced to inspect the logbook manually. As mentioned earlier, it is prone to errors, usually expensive and unscalable. If you have a digital logbook, it is structured, and you can extract relevant data.

Maintaining a logbook allows the business to see trends across your whole organization’s infrastructure, which gives you time to adjust quickly and design sustainable solutions that prevent potential problems in the long run.

Below mentioned are the cons of having paper logbooks:

1. A lot of time and effort

Manually documenting operations is a major resource drain. By recording the time, date, and product of each batch take a significant amount of time. Furthermore, it can also be time-consuming to clean data and log in relevant data.

2. There is a scope for human errors

Because you are manually logging a vast amount of data, it is a fact that mistakes are unavoidable. Sometimes, the information can be illegible or you may record the information incorrectly.

3. Safety of data can be compromised

Due to human errors and natural disasters like floods or fires, paper logbooks can be lost or misplaced. It can lead to employees wasting several hours repeating the work they have already done. These delays can slow time and potentially raise production costs.

4. Offshore storage is expensive

Paper logbooks are usually not kept in a central location. If you are needing to review previous log data, you must go through a large pool of documents in different storage facilities. This can be time-consuming and during the time of an audit or inspection, it can be dangerous as you need to find the relevant documents as every second counts. In addition to convenience, it can also be expensive.

Benefits of maintaining digital logbooks:

• Digital logbooks provide the business with real-time reports on speed, mileage, and stops the driver has made, including notifying truck drivers when their driving time for the day will come to an end. A digital logbook monitoring system will significantly impact the total safety of your business. Additionally, it will also result in lower insurance costs and an increase in revenue.

• It saves time for the truck driver

• Less paperwork for drivers will ensure drivers spend more time on the road leading to an increase in efficiency in business operations.

• It can be time-consuming and a hassle for drivers to fill out paperwork daily.

If you wish to find out more information about logbook monitoring, please do not hesitate to reach out to the team at Trux Solutions.