It is crucial for fleet managers to make their fleets more efficient, by controlling expenses, maintaining vehicles, and keeping their employees safe and on task. In order to stay within budget and keep operations running, they must improve their fleet's efficiency.

You can improve fleet efficiency by addressing maintenance issues, controlling fuel and tire costs, reducing paperwork, and using new technology.

Preventive Maintenance

Preventive maintenance of your vehicles can actually save you time in the long run. It is estimated that one hour of Preventive Maintenance can save 3 to 8 hours of work.

The first step in scheduling preventive maintenance is to schedule it at specific intervals, such as

• Every three months, for instance

• Travel distance, such as every 10,000 KMs

• Hours of operation of the vehicle

• All three combined

When making a schedule for preventive maintenance, keep the following points in mind

• Your vehicles' use or working conditions

• Estimated annual mileage of the vehicles

• Vehicle recommendations from the manufacturer

• Other factors that could cause wear and tear (climate or terrain)

• Vehicle age and mileage

Once you have created a schedule for preventive maintenance, the next step is to know how to do it. 

• Identify the baseline: First, determine the current status of your fleet before implementing PM

• Decide on the intervals of maintenance: Lay out a schedule for when maintenance is to be performed.

• Invest in fleet maintenance software: While you can manage fleet preventive maintenance manually, investing in a software solution will help automate much of the oversight and management process.  

• Create a checklist of preventative maintenance tasks: The checklist should include inspections, safety tasks, and preventive maintenance tasks.

• Implement a driver inspection and reporting system since drivers are your first line of defense and they often pick up on subtle signs and symptoms during fleet operations

• Track metrics and monitor for success

Tire Management

Poorly maintained tires are one of the leading causes of traffic accidents. Low tire pressure is always a problem.

Using tire management systems (TMS), fleet managers and drivers can keep a close eye on tire metrics, such as tire pressure and temperature, thereby optimizing mileage and fleet performance. When you integrate tire monitoring systems into your vehicle, you have the ability to schedule and maintain your tires in an optimal manner. 

When you add a TMS to your vehicle, you don't have to manually monitor tire pressure, you'll extend tire life, and you'll find that your vehicle will use less fuel.

Fuel Management

Regardless of how minor it seems, everything from proper vehicle maintenance to bad driving habits accounts for nearly 18% of your fuel consumption. There are several ways to track fuel consumption, such as fuel cards, manual tracking, and even getting logs from telematics, but the most comprehensive and effective way is to implement Fuel Management Systems.

With the Fuel Management System in place, you can 

• Easily monitor fuel consumption across your entire fleet of vehicles

• Support efficient drivers with incentives and provide training to those who have inefficient driving habits by collecting information about unnecessary speeding, harsh braking, and excessive engine idling.

• Capture and prevent fuel theft and leakage

• Calculate and report fuel taxes

Telematics

The Telematics System basically connects various hardware devices like GPS tracking devices used in fleets with software to provide data associated with communications, data analytics, informatics, and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Many commercial vehicle manufacturers now install embedded GPS tracking and telematics technologies directly in their fleet vehicles. If these tools are not preinstalled, aftermarket GPS devices can be installed. 

Telematics offers valuable insights such as

• Identifying bad driving habits like speeding, sudden braking or accelerating, and idling

• Allows drivers to be rerouted according to traffic conditions

• Reduces fuel expenses by implementing route optimization

• Alerts fleet managers and drivers to potential vehicle problems

• Provide assistance in identifying urgent issues, or those that should be addressed during the next preventative maintenance

Transfer to paperless modules

Adding the Fleet Management Solution to your fleet can greatly benefit your fleet, but the best thing about it is that you don't have to rely on any hard copy reports, excel sheets, or PowerPoint presentations to know about your fleet. 

If a Fleet Management System is in place, you can get a complete overview of the fleet along with minute-to-minute information. Additionally, the attractive dashboard gives you detailed information about your fleets and analyzes cost, efficiency, tracking driver behavior, route optimization, and much more.

There are many benefits of adopting a paperless Fleet Management Solution, among them are

• The ability to accurately track time eliminates the guesswork of how long a project will take.

• It simplifies the maintenance process for technicians by providing them with the necessary information, including repair history and warranty information, at their fingertips. 

• Transparency is maintained between employees and management since all details are available