As a fleet manager, you have loads of info on your drivers and vehicles. How you use that data affects how well your fleet does, but figuring out which info really matters can be tough.
To help you out, here are ten important metrics you should keep an eye on:
Maintenance and Repair
1. Time to Repair
It is essential for fleet managers to prioritize avoiding downtime. When vehicles spend days parked in the shop, it is a valid concern. Keeping track of how long vehicles stay in the shop and the active time technicians spend on repairs is crucial.
Technician productivity plays a key role in getting vehicles back on the road efficiently and managing costs. Using software like FleetFocus provides insight into the work being done and highlights instances of vehicles sitting idle for too long.
2. Scheduled/Unscheduled Services
When it comes to repair costs, understanding how unexpected downtime impacts your budget is key. Comparing unplanned service with scheduled maintenance ensures your preventive measures benefit your fleet. Using fleet management software to track work orders and maintenance helps monitor vehicle downtime and tasks. Leveraging maintenance shop automations streamlines service task approval or rejection, aiding cost control and productivity.
3. Preventative Maintenance
Regular maintenance, whether conducted internally or outsourced, is crucial for extending asset lifespan, reducing repair costs, and optimizing uptime. Monitoring vehicle downtime ensures timely repairs.
By establishing and monitoring a maintenance schedule, you can track routine maintenance effectively. Fleet maintenance software like AssetWorks Data Analytics and Reporting software helps track open work orders and service tasks, ensuring visibility into ongoing and completed work, and facilitating timely completion.
Vehicle Inspections
4. Inspection Completion Rate
Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIR) play a vital role in maintaining fleet compliance and notifying managers of vehicle problems. Additionally, they offer valuable insights into asset health when DVIR data is analyzed across user or vehicle groups. However, to harness this data effectively, it’s crucial to ensure consistent completion.
5. Pass/Fail Rate
Simply completing inspections is not sufficient; it is crucial to analyze the results to gauge the impact of your maintenance strategies and usage. Examining the correlation between your fleet operations and inspection pass/fail rates can swiftly identify areas needing improvement. Consistent passing inspections followed by frequent shop visits may suggest an inadequate inspection process. Conversely, repeated inspection failures might signal a vehicle that has exceeded its usefulness in your fleet.
Vehicle Performance and Utilization
6. Fuel Consumption
Fuel stands as a major and ongoing cost for fleets, emphasizing the need for close monitoring of usage and spending. Employing a system, like FuelFocus, to track and calculate fuel costs and consumption in real-time benefits fuel management. This process is easily facilitated through fleet management software and telematics integrations.
7. Mileage/Hours
Your odometer serves as the gateway to a wealth of fleet intelligence, guiding preventive maintenance schedules and vehicle replacement decisions. Consistently tracking odometer readings keeps you proactive for maintenance milestones and replacement schedules. Since many maintenance tasks are mileage or hour-based, receiving frequent odometer updates helps maintain your vehicles in prime condition.
8. Downtime and Uptime
In relation to scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, the downtime and uptime on each of your vehicles is the consequence of maintenance and tracking it can help you determine whether you are still getting a positive ROI on your assets. If a vehicle is spending more time in the shop than out on the road, it could be a good indication that it may be time to replace it.
Fleet Operational Costs
9. Total Cost of Ownership
One of the most crucial metrics to track is your fleet’s true total cost of ownership (TCO). Though it can be complex to manage, knowing your fleet’s TCO enables confident, data-driven decision-making for your business. By delving into your fleet expenses, you gain insight into your return on investment, aiding in strategic planning for preventive maintenance, vehicle replacement, and future procurement decisions, such as whether to purchase or lease vehicles.
10. Parts and Inventory Value
If you are managing maintenance in-house, you need to have the right tools on hand to minimize vehicle downtime. Tracking your parts inventory helps avoid stockouts and reduces unnecessary inventory costs. Because parts make up over one-third of vehicle maintenance costs, controlling inventory levels is crucial to your fleet management system.
Regularly viewing part order history and tracking inventory values helps you make actionable decisions on future spending and efficiently manage inventory storage.
