It goes without saying that failing to manage your fleet effectively can have a detrimental impact on your organization’s bottom line. A poorly managed fleet can hurt profits in many ways, including through increased fuel and maintenance costs, and increased potential for mismanagement. It may be challenging to maintain a fleet well, but with a fleet management system, organizations can make it a lot easier. Below, we’ll go through 5 key benefits of a fleet management system and how it can help improve your organization’s everyday operations.
1. See Your Entire Fleet On One Screen
Lack of visibility creates a host of problems, from inefficient fleet management to poor productivity. Often, this can lead to delays in delivery and shipments, which can hurt the company’s reputation and relationship with clients.
A fleet management system helps managers gain real-time visibility and manage the entire fleet on one screen, allowing them to make changes remotely. Managers also get information on the location of the vehicles and crew, their productivity levels, and fleet performance, based on routes, trips, and events. Fleet management systems also allow managers and supervisors to better inform their customers of delivery times or potential delays, which helps build and maintain trust with new and existing clients.
2. Boost Driver Safety
Unfortunately, according to OSHA, a motor vehicle crash happens every 5 seconds. Since these accidents tend to occur during busy work hours, fleet managers must go through safety training programs that educate drivers regarding safe driving and proper everyday maintenance of their vehicles.
With a fleet management system, managers can set reminders so drivers remember to maintain their vehicles routinely. There are also new video technologies, like Vision, that help drivers improve their poor on-road habits with video event-recording. Vision’s forward-facing camera records specific traffic violations, like tailgating or lane-drifting, and provides real-time audio feedback to help drivers make better decisions on the road.
Vision helps drivers proactively manage their performance and review their driving in a personalized dashboard that is also available to managers for a fleet-wide review.
{{cta(‘e2c4c0fe-f526-4964-8e09-43378432606f’)}}
3. Monitor Drivers with New Technologies
Today, there are many tools and devices that can help assess a driver’s susceptibility to drowsiness. Ron Knipling, truck safety researcher and author of Safety for the Long Haul, encourages companies and drivers to consider using perclose eyelid monitoring systems and lane tracking devices to help prevent driver fatigue.
Another important (and legally-mandated) piece of tech that should be in every truck is an electronic logging device (ELD). ELDs help track a driver’s hours and duty status, that can be viewed by their employer. If a driver isn’t taking mandatory breaks or has exceeded their hours of service, their manager is able to address this and help tackle issues that are causing the overtime.
Although there may be a bit of friction between companies and drivers with the implementation of these technologies, with open communication, hopefully drivers will be able to see how they can help keep them safe.
3. Make Your Vehicles More Fuel Efficient
Did you know that in 2016, the US trucking industry spent an estimated $89.7 billion on fuel? According to Tech.co, since fuel expenses are as much as 20% of the operating costs for fleets, saving on fuel is essential for all companies with fleets.
To increase your mileage per gallon, you must reduce speeding and aggressive behavior, cut down on idling, maintain vehicles, keep tires inflated, and drive more efficient routes. With a fleet management system, you can implement all these fuel-saving measures. The system can help address speeding, harsh braking, idle times, and acceleration. Fleet managers can also assess data and send notifications to drivers to inform them of any dangerous driving activities.
4. Safe and Reliable Vehicle Maintenance
A broken and defective vehicle that needs to be replaced can be extremely costly to your company. Furthermore, unsafe vehicles can also pose major risks to your driver and other passengers on the road.
Fleet Complete helps fleet managers and drivers maintain safe and reliable vehicles with the Inspect App for their Driver Vehicle Inspection Reporting (DVIR). With Inspect, drivers can quickly carry out their vehicle inspection and log any problems or defects to the company’s mechanic and fleet manager through a Mechanic Portal with electronic sign-off. It’s a great safety tool for managers and drivers to monitor their vehicles, particularly if DVIRs are required on a daily basis.
According to Alan Fong, “Our customers want their vehicles on the road and not in the mechanic’s garage; hence, we decided to address this need with a cost-effective solution… …As a bonus, we made it even better than the standard DVIRs.”
5. Establish Employee Accountability
Timesheet fraud is a genuine issue in company fleets. Just recently, in August 2019, a truck driver in Australia was accused of timesheet fraud that netted him almost $30,000 for work he hadn’t done.
With fleet management systems, companies no longer need to rely on handwritten timesheets. These systems come with GPS tracking solutions and task tracking apps that allow managers to monitor the hours driven, deliveries made to the client location, and workload completed for the day. This way, you can remove the guesswork and mitigate any potential discrepancies, as well as simplify your payroll admin.
If you’re managing a fleet of commercial vehicles, you’re aware of the difficulties of having a well-managed fleet. It can be challenging to oversee operations and deliver supplies on-time to clients. Forward-thinking organizations are therefore implementing fleet management systems to help make effective fleet management much easier.
With new GPS technologies, managers can now gain real-time visibility into fleets, boost driver safety, improve vehicle fuel efficiency, maintain safe and reliable vehicles, and eliminate employee fraud. If you’re interested in streamlining fleet operations, learn more by requesting our BigRoad demo.
If you enjoyed this article, please share it through your social network.