Optimizing fleet management with Microsoft connected fleets reference architecture

[Mario_Ortegon]

For more than a decade, I didn’t own a car, and I relied on the bus to go to work. My bus stop was in front of a bakery, and every morning I would watch delivery trucks come and go. Around me, I saw vehicle fleets of all types: vans delivering freshly baked goods in front of my stop, trailers and trucks bringing large goods, garbage collection, police cars, postal services, and installation vans. Waiting for a bus (and smelling fresh bread) gave me time to look around and appreciate the importance of the movement of people, goods, the delivery of services, and the great potential of optimizing operations and sustainability. This made me wonder: how can Microsoft support companies running fleets to achieve more?

Using connected fleets reference architecture​

Fleet operations present a unique set of challenges. A fleet manager must make an efficient route to deliver bread to bakeries, consider how to load the right goods while optimizing for unloading speed, and take into consideration which drivers are available for the morning shift. Additionally, fleet managers must ensure drivers’ safety and that the vehicles are road worthy and compliant. It is also necessary to consider costs – from electrical charging to maintenance. This complex flow of information for both the fleet managers and drivers relies on information from multiple systems, often from different companies, which is time consuming and potentially error prone.



We are supporting our partners with the Microsoft automotive connected fleets reference architecture to optimize fleet applications. The five layers – telemetry platform, fleet integration, data analytics, business integration, and business operations are implemented by partner solutions that interact with the other layers through common integration points.



This enables our partners to collaborate with complementary capabilities and enhance their strengths. As an example, a predictive maintenance request created by monitoring vehicle usage can trigger a repair and maintenance request that automatically influences the scheduling of the vehicles. Now the bakery fleet manager knows how many vans are available for deliveries and how many need repair. We are also working with our partners to simplify this process by creating functional copilots that offer a natural language interface. With a couple of questions, the fleet manager is ready to start the day.



Figure 1: Reference architecture for connected fleets.



The reference architecture diagram categorizes the elements of a connected fleet solution in blocks (marked with letters) and describes common integration points (marked with numbers).

• Vehicles have a connectivity device (1) that can retrieve data from the vehicle electronic control units (ECUs) and their own sensors such as accelerometers and video cameras.
• The telematics platform (a) receives telemetry and messages from vehicles and performs device management. The telematics platform sends decoded status / event messages (2) to the fleet integration using a common payload.
• Engineering data processing (b) is a specialized telematics platform that specializes in high-resolution telemetry and recordings (3), typically used for validation. These can be sent directly to Microsoft Fabric with event streams.
• The fleet management component (c) is a user-facing application that deals with the management of vehicles, drivers, and tasks. It provides information to the fleet manager to optimize operations, such as energy consumption. It consumes status and event messages (4) from the telemetry platform to update the vehicle and task state. The fleet manager uses copilots to simplify interaction with the system.
• The data analytics (d) component is based on Microsoft Fabric and uses information from vehicles and all other systems to create insights on the vehicle and business operations.
• The low code / no code elements (e) are vehicle or driver management extensions to Microsoft Power Platform to customize business applications using Power Automate or Power Apps. As an example, creation of front-line worker applications with the help of the Microsoft Copilot in Power Apps use turn-by-turn navigation components (6).
• A business application is a software solution that helps with a particular business activity or role, such as accounting, inventory, or customer service. Dynamics 365 (f) allows the creation and customization of business applications (7). It is also possible to interact with external / pre-existing business applications (g) using APIs that provide an interface to the data (8).

Partner implementations​

Connected fleets are varied, and creating a custom solution requires partners with deep expertise: monitoring the temperature of a trailer to ensure fresh produce, tracking and recovering vehicles, managing a repair shop, analyzing vehicle and business data to create insights, or improve the routes to reduce energy consumption.



Imagine for a moment that your company provides repair and maintenance services to cranes and forklifts in logistic centers. You are responsible for managing a large fleet of repair vans and must ensure that the drivers have the right skills, parts and tools depending on the job, that they know where to go and that they get a good overview of the tasks before they get there. If they get delayed, you need to inform the customer and potentially reschedule the appointment. Having the right data at your fingertips will allow you to take the right decisions and have a successful business. The following video shows how our partners work together to create these solutions.






Using Microsoft’s horizontal platforms (Azure, Fabric, Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365), partners with industry expertise create composable fleet management solutions. Our robust global partner ecosystem includes several system integrators (SI) and independent software vendors (ISV) with whom we collaborate to support the needs of the automotive industry. Accenture, Annata, Bosch, Connected Cars, DSA, HERE Technologies, KPIT, Mojio, Netstar, and TomTom have created implementations to address a wide range of challenges and business functions.



Figure 2: Partner implementations.

Accenture​

The Intelligent Fleet Management System from Accenture allows fleet owners and operators to gather real-time data on vehicles, customers, and operations, enabling them to make informed decisions by translating this data into meaningful insights. Their Intelligent Fleet Management system can consume events and status messages from multiple telemetry platforms simultaneously. The vehicle feeds were combined with additional fleet and vehicle metadata, as well as driver assignments, to build use cases such as vehicle tracking, energy consumption, geofences and fleet insights. The usage of Power BI to generate custom reports and integrated with Power Automate to create automatic notifications.

Bosch​

The Bosch Automotive Connectivity Hub is an end-to-end connectivity retrofit solution for digital fleet services that includes software and hardware components. It offers standardized data exchange between vehicle cloud, and services, and services for vehicle health, efficiency, and safety and security, and the option to integrate with any third-party services. Bosch services can be integrated into individual frontends to deliver fleet management service providers more options towards their customers. Bosch Connectivity Control Unit (CCU) can connect to an accelerometer to measure roll, pitch, yaw and send crash events in case of exceeding specific thresholds. The information was processed using their Automotive Connectivity Hub to send event and status messages. The information was displayed using a Real Time Dashboard built on Microsoft Fabric.

Netstar​

Netstar integrated their RF recovery devices and telematics platform, sending status events. Their new Fleet Management copilot uses the telemetry data collected in Microsoft Fabric Real Time Analytics database integrated with additional fleet information and reference documentation.

TomTom​

Front-line workers must react quickly to changing road conditions to ensure the optimal travel time to their next task. This requires integration of logistics tasks with vehicle navigation and the dispatcher, specific to the fleet type. TomTom has a proof-of-concept Turn-by-Turn PowerApps component that can be easily integrated in front-line worker applications using low-code / no code. The component can be easily connected to logistic tasks stored in Dynamics 365 business applications.

Connected Cars​

Connected Cars offers a connectivity platform for vehicle management with real-time diagnostics and proactive maintenance to optimize vehicle operations and extend vehicle longevity. Connected Cars CC-Link device and their CC-DataStream telematics platform collects deep technical vehicle telemetry from the OBD-II port using Unified Diagnostic Service commands (2). Their CC-ConnectedWorkshop fleet management solution processes these events and generates dealership related leads and predictive maintenance events (2). Their Connected Cars App can react to the events and provide notifications to the drivers.

Annata​

Annata offers a suite of digital business capabilities for automotive, trucks, buses and equipment business built on Microsoft Dynamics 365. It integrates Microsoft Technologies such as Microsoft Copilot and PowerPlatform. Annata integrated vehicle repair and maintenance events to their Annata 365 automotive business platform (which includes a dealer management system). Specifically, they consume leads created from CC-ConnectedWorkshop and create Service Appointment proposals. The dealership can then establish contact with the vehicle owner to schedule a visit, ensure that the parts are available and reserve necessary resources, mechanics, equipment, bay, and parts.

KPIT Technologies​

Vehicle downtime is detrimental for fleet operators because it directly affects productivity and disrupts schedules. Efficient and proactive repair and maintenance operations minimize downtime, extend vehicle lifespan, enhance safety and optimize operational costs.

KPIT Repair and Maintenance copilot built on Trace2Fix is designed to help technicians identify the most probable causes of failure and suggest appropriate repair procedures. This copilot retrieves customer and vehicle data from various aftersales systems, providing context for faults and ensuring precise, first-time-right diagnosis and repair.

HERE Technologies​

Secure data sharing that enforces user privacy is a cornerstone of the digital economy. HERE Technologies Trip Anonymizer removes personally identifiable information (PII) from collected vehicle trips and enables use cases such as geospatial analysis.

Mojio​

Mojio provides a turnkey connected mobility SaaS service with easy to install retrofit hardware devices. Mojio integrated their Fleet Force system to the standardized data feed. Their fleet management solution offers an easy-to-use web and native mobile apps interface for both fleet managers and drivers.

DSA Daten-und Systemtechnik GmbH​

High-resolution data collection enables automotive engineers to perform system validation and root cause analysis in test and validation fleets to accelerate vehicle development. DSA telematics unit XCG and PRODIS.DriveRecorder, collects high-resolution telemetry data streamed directly into Microsoft Fabric. This data is collected from the CAN bus at speeds up to 100 hertz and can include thousands of vehicle signals, which makes it useful for detailed vehicle performance analytics. Additionally, DSA integrated to the standardized data feed for commercial vehicles and remote diagnostics capabilities.

The road ahead​

Delivering goods and services around the world demands immense coordination among multiple companies. The complexity of these relationships highlights the critical role of transportation in our modern world. This makes fleet management essential, as it involves coordinating vehicles, drivers, routes, schedules, safety, compliance, and operational efficiency. Supporting our partners to create composable, modular and flexible solutions help companies adapt better to a fast moving and interconnected world.



I am thrilled to collaborate with our partners. Their industry expertise, combined with the scalable, secure, and reliable approach from Microsoft that will create dynamic, composable fleet management solutions.

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