Most in procurement take the position that fleet’s primary responsibility is to buy assets and services, which annually can range from millions to tens of millions of dollars in expenditures. This amount of corporate spend requires it be managed by someone with superb negotiation skills and proven procurement acumen.
If you want to provide added value to your company, you need to view fleet as a business and not simply an aggregation of assets to be managed cost-effectively. The fastest way to improve your bottom line is to increase fleet utilization, which increases the productivity of each individual truck.
There is a direct correlation between high driver morale and high driver productivity. The converse is also true. The hidden cost of low driver morale has a direct bearing on a company’s bottom line. While low morale is an HR/management issue, and even though fleet managers do not control driver salaries, there are actions that fleets can take to help increase driver morale.
Fleet managers need to view work trucks as earning assets. To maximize the productivity of this working asset, it is necessary to optimize specifications, operating procedures, and replacement strategies. The best way to optimize truck productivity is to spec the right vehicle for the fleet application. This may sound like I am stating the obvious, but, as many truck professionals will attest, it is often not the case in the real world.
The fleet industry is on the verge of a productivity revolution through the introduction of faster, better, and more sophisticated analytical tools. Developing in parallel with this trend are increasingly sophisticated vehicle connectivity tools that will turn predictive analytics into a true science. The first manifestation of this will be the transition of fleet maintenance from reactive to proactive practices using remote diagnostic tools.
The best way to optimize truck productivity is to spec the right vehicle for the fleet application. This may sound like I am stating the obvious, but, as many truck professionals will attest, it is often not the case. While fleet managers understand how their trucks are intended to be used in the field, intended usage often does not match real-world usage.
What is your primary responsibility? Is it managing the vehicle or managing the driver? Where do you think you will have the greatest opportunity to control costs and increase productivity?
The cliché in fleet management is that trucks are kept in service until the wheels "fall off." In many cases, this isn’t too far from the truth. Typically, the more expensive the asset, the longer it will be kept in service, especially units upfitted with expensive auxiliary equipment. However, as study after study shows, extended truck replacement cycles often have the unintended consequence of resulting in greater long-term expenses and degradation in worker productivity.
COLUMBIA, MO – The County expects to save money on fuel and resources by tracking vehicles and reducing overlap in activity, reported the Columbia Tribune.
SIKESTON, MO - In addition cutting down on fuel use, GPS has helped NewWave Communications guarantee customers a two-hour appointment block instead of the typical four hours cable companies are notorious for.
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