Know where your resources are.
It might seem like the most basic of advice for any business, but it can also be difficult at the best of times. And the bigger the business, the bigger the challenge becomes.
Now, what if your resources are mobile?
This is the issue that fleet operators come face to face with on the daily when managing large fleets of trucks. This is also the issue that is precipitating the need for fleet management systems.
These all-in-one systems integrate hardware, software, and communication technologies to help fleet operators control their commercial vehicles.
The systems can be used to manage fuel, track driver behavior and vehicle location, offer navigational assistance and ensure that operators meet the regulatory standards set by national governments.
So it’s no wonder that the Global Fleet Management System Market is rising to meet this widespread demand, and posting a CAGR of 26.23 percent from 2014-2019.
Three Key Needs in Fleet Management
Need to Elevate Operational Productivity
In the logistics industry, productivity reigns supreme, but current conditions are at odds with this. Higher costs of both vehicles and fuel are putting even more pressure on fleet operators to not only boost their productivity, but also increase efficiency.
An industry benchmark productivity increase of about 20 percent per vehicle is achieved by employing high-end fleet management systems, which improve vehicle tracking, monitoring and routing. Redundancy in the whole process is eliminated by using these systems, which is essential to balance the negative effects of increased prices.
A waste elimination model with fleet management systems at its core sets the cornerstone for achieving higher productivity and lean management. The system also helps operators improve customer satisfaction by tracking delivery time and job completion time and addressing customer complaints effectively.
Need to Optimize Fuel Management
We mentioned above that fuel prices are going up, and the volatility of crude oil prices in the international market is putting operators in an unsettling position.
How a vehicle consumes fuel is affected by a number of factors, including vehicle chassis aerodynamics, vehicle capacity, tire resistance, and handling.
From the driver side of things, some of the problems that propagate improper fuel consumption are excessive idling, over-revving, impact braking, improper gear shifting, and sudden speeding. These can lead to partial burning of fuel, which causes problems such as residue building up on cylinder walls, which can ultimately damage engine components and increase fuel consumption.
Fleet management solutions can help reduce fuel costs by 25-35 percent per vehicle, by monitoring driver performance, suggesting more fuel-efficient routes, and exporting critical consumption data.
Need to Increase Driver Satisfaction
We’ve already written about the consequences of too heavy a focus on putting profit ahead of people, especially in the logistics sector—all this concentration on optimizing profits and increasing efficiency is great for the industry, but not always the best for the people actually doing the work.
Basically, large organizations that focus on profit maximization instead of value maximization face consequences that hamper their long-term development by increasing dissatisfaction among drivers.
Luckily, fleet management systems also seem to have a solution to help drivers out. Solutions such as critical event reporting, truck routing software, automated hours of services, and performance monitoring help ease stress on drivers, enable safe and timely delivery, and even help reduce the number of data input errors.
