Fleet management is not a simple task! Finding ways to reduce maintenance and repair costs to the fleet can seem even more daunting. While giving your organization a platform to easily keep track of parts, assets, and employees, it can also help you reduce the overall costs associated with keeping your fleet effectively managed. Here are 5 areas that are essential in reducing costs:
Data Management
Managing your data is about more than just providing a cohesive technological place to store your fleet’s information. Tracking day-to-day financial information, as well as employee performance is a must-have for managing data. Without versatile and subject-specific reporting capabilities, organizations have no hope of scrutinizing the day-to-day costs of running a business. Running a fleet is no different! Reporting on the data within your system is essential for keeping track of actions that occurred, parts ordered, work completed and financials billed. Administrators that require quick at-a-glance updates on departments or specific assets will save time (and therefore money) crunching their numbers.
The importance of this activity is shown in FleetFocus’ reporting functionality by not only giving immediate access to dozens of ready-to-use reports but by also providing the capability to design reports that display and summarize data in a way that meets each organization’s needs.
Expect the Unexpected
Those in fleet management already know the value of preventative maintenance (PM) for their vehicles. Efficient scheduling and tracking of these tasks are essential for reducing wasted time and resources. Tracking PM tasks by type and vehicle is simplified greatly by the use of fleet management software. By tapping into the technological resources of today, organizations can be served well by the intricate data options available.
At AssetWorks, that means using out-of-the-box reports on a scheduled basis to see which vehicles are due for these PM checks. It’s important to report on what’s due now, as well as units due in future weeks. The ability to track due dates in future weeks and months is essential for administrative staff and supervisors in fleet operations. Want to take your PM plan one step further? Show the difference between proactive and reactive maintenance by location. Reports that include charts and graphs are even better!
Plan to Succeed
Planning for future fleet needs is not for the faint of heart. Strategic discernment and forward thinking are required for tasks associated with forecasting needs, goals, budgets, and timelines. Creating ways to capture this type of information can be more time-consuming than the general planning phase itself!
Take a page (or several) from AssetWorks’ fleet management software with reports that automatically display goals entered for vehicles or projects. Once your projects have been succinctly defined, click a few buttons and gain data on risk assessments, goals, timelines, and even funding.
Looking for a quick way to see data on past projects? Utilizing reports tailored for capital planning can assess risk and evaluate individual asset history. Looking to the past is essential to improving the outcome of future projects and ensuring your organization has a way to quickly and accurately advise on that information is priceless.
Recognize the Downtime
When vehicles are down, their costs skyrocket! Implementing effective data management, preventative maintenance practices and data simplification are all key to keeping the vehicle and shop downtime to a minimum. Reporting on these numbers makes your job easier here. AssetWorks’ out-of-the-box reporting includes template documents designed to pull the information you need – and nothing else.
Conversely, when fleet maintenance shops incur downtime due to internal delays, they lose the ability to quickly attack their workload. Speed that up by assessing downtime instantly via reporting.
Keeping up with preventative maintenance is, of course, the best way to limit downtime. Use reports to find out what type of work is most often requiring vehicles to be taken out of service, and start trimming that time!
