Effective fleet management is an ongoing process with many opportunities for improvement. There are a variety of ways to approach this, and it’s a topic that is hugely important for any business with a fleet of vehicles. In this post, we are going to take a look at some of the things you’ll want to look into to help ensure that you are managing your fleet as effectively as you would hope to.
Here’s How to Manage Fleet Management:
1. The Right Vehicle For The Job
This is one of the main things that you will need to make sure of, and a relatively simple one too if you put your mind to it. Essentially, you need to make sure that you have found and are making use of the right vehicle for the job at hand. Depending on what industry you are working in and what you are producing, that could be anything from a Buick to a truck, or a tractor or anything besides. The point is that you have found the right vehicle for whatever it is that you are doing.
2. Know Your Data
You need to make sure you are tracking as much data as possible. In particular, look into metrics like fuel consumption, maintenance costs, driver performance and idle times. With enough information around these, you should be able to start making decisions much more positively and effectively, otherwise you are pretty much just doing so in the dark. Telematics systems can give you real-time insights, which helps in cutting unnecessary expenses and to spot issues before they get worse, so it’s important to make full use of these.
3. Prevent Problems Rather Than Fix Them
This is applicable generally, but is especially true when it comes to your vehicles themselves. When they develop problems, they are always going to be more expensive to fix, compared to what the cost would have been if you had prevented them. So it’s a good idea to have a preventative maintenance approach rather than a reactive one. This is going to cost you much less in time and money, and you’ll find that it’s all in all a much better approach to take towards your vehicles. It’s amazing what a difference it can make.
4. Keep Drivers Accountable
Your drivers are the face of your fleet, and effective fleet management requires ensuring their accountability. That means looking into training to ensure that you are keeping up with this, doing regular check-ins so you know what is going on with them, and considering offering performance feedback on a regular basis too. You should also talk about accident reduction, improving fuel efficiency and generally do whatever you can to try and boost morale. If you can do that, you are going to find that it leads to much better driving all in all.
