Well, roadrat, here's what I think:

Some of the larger forklift service company's can have 100 or more road techs. Think about that for a while. Out of the 100 how many fit into the great tech category, the average tech category and the poor tech category. Now, by poor tech I don't necessarily mean that they can't fix something but that they dog the system for as much as they can. Let's say 30% (probably a conservative estimate) fit into the poor tech category and you have 40 techs. That means out of 40 techs you have 12 bad ones, each costing the company an average of 3 hours per day due to overbilled travel, rental, PM's, rework, etc. That's 36 hours per day x 5 days per week x 52 weeks = about 9,360 hours per year x $45 internal rate = $421,200.

Now, it is true you don't need GPS to single out these tech's, they are good at singling themselves out. So a company can fire every one of them (my favorite approach) and rehire 12 more guys, go through training and send the next 12 out. This could go on for months or years until you get a full crew of even average techs. In the mean time all the other techs are booking massive overtime, customer service is poor and the company is spending loads of money on training and other crap.

Or, you can just install GPS on everyone's van to keep the 12 slackers in line. I think this is the prevailing reason for GPS. It is the most cost effective and easiest way to keep your poor tech's doing what they are suppossed to do. I think it's a poor approach but it must work because GPS is becoming commonplace.

My approach would be to have a warning type system where tech's get a certain number of warning's, then days in the street, then fired. Your service department would have a revolving door but why bring great and average techs down to a mediocre level by showing them you don't trust them with GPS. Or, have a great service manager that can properly implement GPS and not **** off his good people, like that'll happen.