Fleet Complete Uses AWS to Fuel Innovation and Generate Deeper Insights from IoT Data

Fleet Complete uses AWS to help fleet owners cut costs and reduce vehicle downtime, as well as expand its business faster by supporting more than 50 million requests daily. The company is able to launch innovative solutions quicker and release software updates faster than before. Based in Ontario, the company provides fleet, asset, and mobile workforce management solutions in the connected commercial vehicle space. Fleet Complete runs CONNVEX, its big data and analytics platform, on the AWS Cloud.

Fleet Complete is committed to helping motor vehicle fleet owners thrive, whether those fleets consist of 10 or 10,000 vehicles. By using smart sensors, connected to the cloud, to collect and transmit business-critical data from vehicles, assets, and employees, Fleet Complete helps fleet owners gain new insights into vehicle health, driver behavior, and more.

The company has experienced tenfold growth over the past several years, and it currently serves 35,000 businesses across 15 countries. Sandeep Kar, chief strategy officer for Fleet Complete, says, “We’re moving very fast, forging partnerships with vehicle manufacturers, system suppliers, and OEMs to make our systems smarter and create the foundation for connected cars and trucks.” As a result, Fleet Complete is collecting and processing increasing amounts of Internet of Things (IoT) data worldwide due to acquisitions and accelerated global expansion.

To stay ahead of this data growth, the company needed more scalability for its IoT data analytics applications. Kar says, “We had a traditional data center environment that served us well for many years, but we need a more robust, global platform for our data analytics pipeline to meet our new requirements.” 

To enable scalability and global growth, Fleet Complete chose to move its application environment to Amazon Web Services (AWS). “We knew cloud technology would help us accelerate our speed of innovation to meet customer demands, and AWS is clearly the cloud leader,” says Kar.

Tony Lourakis, chief executive officer of Fleet Complete, says, “AWS stood above and beyond from a global perspective and from a capability perspective. Our engineering resources can really hone in on our core competencies and not worry about a lot of the tech infrastructure and plumbing that you get inherently with the AWS Cloud."

Using AWS, the company developed CONNVEX, a cloud-based 50-terabyte platform for big data and analytics that collects more than one billion data points—everything from the speed and location of fleet vehicles to how vehicle brakes are performing. “CONNVEX is our purpose-built, scalable, big data analytics platform that serves OEMs, vehicle suppliers, assistant suppliers, infrastructure providers, financial institutions, and, most importantly, fleets,” says Kar. “All the data is anonymized and aggregated, and we add layers of analysis on top of that to make it mission-critical.”

CONNVEX enables the company to meet its mission of helping customers thrive by giving fleets, OEMs, and suppliers access to updated vehicle information. “As an example, when a container comes to a port in Los Angeles and the freight is ultimately delivered to a doorstep in Toronto, each leg of the movement of that freight requires constant visibility,” says Kar. “To that, we add vehicle diagnostics and prognostic information and analysis, preventive maintenance content, and video telematics. By layering all these different types of data, our customers can determine things like how driving behavior affects vehicle brake pads, or how poor roads impact vehicle components and lifespan.”

As a result, fleet managers get better visibility into when trucks need to be serviced, or when parts might be expected to fail. “Armed with these insights, managers can be smarter about keeping parts in inventory, which reduces costs,” Kar says.

Fleets are using analytics from CONNVEX to diagnose maintenance problems before technicians access a vehicle. This can significantly decrease the total time of service, reducing liability for late delivery as the result of downtime. “Downtime is the biggest enemy for fleet managers, and if you can reduce that by predicting an impending failure and the necessary maintenance, that is huge,” says Kar. “It gives them more efficiency and productivity.”

Fleet Complete is driving global growth for CONNVEX by basing the solution on the AWS Cloud, which makes it possible to scale from 20 million requests a day to more than 50 million to support customers in new regions. “By using AWS, we can scale up or down as needed and support the enormous amount of IoT data that we collect and process to support our business goals,” says Kar.

The company has accelerated its development time, which enables faster software releases. “By taking advantage of the agility and automation of the AWS Cloud, we have moved from monthly software releases to weekly releases,” says Kar. With faster development timelines, the company is offering innovative new solutions, such as a software tool that helps vehicle operators find freight if they are not sufficiently loaded. “For example, if you’re hauling freight from point A to point B and don’t have a load to carry on the return trip, the software helps you find cargo through freight matching.”

Additionally, Fleet Complete is creating new business models by using AWS data analytics tools. “Using data analytics from CONNVEX, a fleet of delivery vehicles can offer more predictability in freight delivery, or an OEM can create a system or component that can offer better warranty value,” says Kar. “These are the innovations that help differentiate us from our competitors and also create a foundation for long-term sustainable growth and the further development of our connected vehicle ecosystem.”