Are you prepared for CSA? You should be!

It has been a few months since I have had an opportunity to write for the 30,000 Ft. view. I’m sure none of the readers of this blog have been stressing over the lack of posts, but it is nice to finally have some time to write about the new happenings at Concorde.

As for an explanation for my absence, I have been traveling a lot over the past few months and had the great fortune to sit down with various companies to learn more about the pains they are experiencing when it comes to U.S. Department of Transportation compliance (more specifically FMCSA). I see a real benefit in listening to the day-to-day issues carriers experience and seeing where Concorde can find new opportunities to service our customers.

A great example of this is what we have been doing with CSA 2010 (now just referred to as CSA; the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administrations Comprehensive Safety Analysis program designed to reduce accidents and fatalities on the nation’s highways). For those of you unfamiliar with CSA, I suggest this link as a resource. When the CSA program was first announced by the FMCSA over a year ago, we never really thought about it as a business opportunity for Concorde. There were a few companies that began offering CSA 2010 products during the test phase of CSA, but at that point it did not become clear that there was a need Concorde could fill. Most of the CSA products out on the market simply take the CSA data that is available online and use pretty charts and graphs to re-display the data. That did not interest us as a business opportunity.

Then one day this Fall a long-standing Concorde client mentioned to me the issues they were having with managing their CSA 2010 data. The DOT’s CSA website provides motor carriers direct access to the data. The limitation of the CSA portal is that the data is collected and displayed by DOT number, which is inefficient for many motor carriers. For example, a carrier with 5 DOT numbers would have to login 5 times each month to view or download the CSA data for the respective DOT number. Once the data is downloaded, the carrier would then have to find a way to sort the driver violations or manually match them to locations…as many carriers do not align their DOT numbers to Area and Region breakdowns.

The client I met with was manually downloading the raw excel files of data from the CSA website and manually generating reports for the safety department at monthly meetings. The biggest issue for them was that the company did have multiple DOT numbers, which made the process of generating reports and sorting the data to safety managers even harder. This company had tried other CSA software on a trial basis, but none of the products completely satisfied their needs.

Some of their needs included: the ability to consolidate all of the DOT Operating Numbers to a single report, automatically match drivers and violations to the divisions they operate from, rather than by the DOT number (i.e. which divisions caused the CSA points), ensure the quality and accuracy of the CSA data, and focus their managers on improving scores in the high risk areas.

I was surprised that none of the CSA products on the market were able to satisfy these requests, because they seemed so simple and obvious. I confess that it was not so clear to me either, because I originally did not see the value Concorde could offer with a CSA tool. But as I listened to the issues and concerns from the client, it clicked that Concorde could offer a value that was not available in the CSA marketplace because we currently manage the company’s DQ files, drug testing, and background checks. The value was simple; we can leverage the DQ-it software (electronic driver files) to match CSA violation data to specific company divisions and then use the software’s driver profiles to create a consolidated database of DOT compliance information. I could begin to see that if developed correctly, DQ-it could provide a valuable tool to display, identify, and solve CSA problems at all levels of the organization.

From that meeting, DQ-it CSA was born. What makes DQ-it CSA unique is that we are able to display the CSA data from a Company/Operation viewpoint rather than through the eyes of FMCSA. We believe this is an important element to uncovering the violation trends and problem areas within an organization. I am planning a “Sneak Peak” webinar on DQ-it CSA January 4th at 10:00 AM EST. You can register by clicking here. I can also provide private demonstrations using your data, so please do not hesitate to reach out to me.

On-site scanning for Driver Files
DQ-it and our driver qualification file system has become a flagship program at Concorde and I think it is a good time to officially announce a new offer. In 2010 we began a beta program with a handful of motor carriers that began using DQ-it for driver qualification files. For those that purchase our DQ-it Together and DQ-it Enterprise levels, Concorde will send a team to your locations to scan the driver files for the initial setup. Essentially, you provide us with the files and a desk, and let us do the rest. We bring the scanners and equipment on-site, scan the files, and have them transferred to our office for review and installation into the DQ-it platform. We have received great feedback from this program and are available to discuss your DQ file options.

New pricing model
On a final note, Concorde is working on some new service offerings for 2011. Stay tuned for more information on a new program that we believe will change the way DOT Compliance services are delivered and how motor carriers can more accurately budget for these services.