2 Distinct Activities Profoundly Important to Fleet Management
What’s Complicated About Managing a Fleet?
There are two distinct activities that are profoundly important to fleet management. They are Asset Management and Enterprise Management. Asset management and enterprise management are two separate, yet interdependent, activities that each fleet manager is responsible for.
To the average person, the fleet manager’s task of ensuring that breakdowns aren’t an issue might seem simple enough, but it’s quite a bit more complicated than checking the oil every few thousand miles.
Asset Management
Asset Management refers to the direct management of a fleet’s vehicles and equipment, including:
- Dispatching
- Routing & scheduling
- Vehicle acquisition
- Accident management
- Parts procurement & supply
- Vehicle operation
- Mechanic supervision
Enterprise Management
Enterprise Management refers to the administrative duties of a fleet manager, including:
- Training
- Professional certification
- Management reporting
- Cost analysis and control
- Billing and collections
- Customer surveys
- Business plannings
The importance of a competent fleet manager paired with a sophisticated fleet management software system is undeniable. Responsible for the unhindered flow of a fleet’s day-to-day activities, the fleet manager has a lot riding on his or her ability to effectively regulate their operation.
Do You Have an Effective Fleet Management System?
On the most fundamental level, the value of any software can be determined by evaluating cost vs. quality. By creating cost vs. quality matrix, you can decide whether the benefit of the software outweighs the cost of licensing that software.
- High Quality software at a Low Cost is your best value.
- High Quality software at a High Cost means that you still benefit from the software but at a much higher price point. In certain circumstances, it makes sense to pay for expensive software if the benefit of using it outweighs that cost.
- Low Quality software at a Low Cost is less than ideal, but sometimes necessary. Paying very little for software that accomplishes a requisite task can be an acceptable tradeoff if it works well enough to get by.
- Low Quality software at a High Cost usually isn’t worth paying for. Why shell out substantial resources for tools that fail to accomplish what you need them to?
Of course, there’s always more to consider. This is a decent starting point, but there’s really no simple algorithm for gauging the effectiveness of any off-the-shelf fleet management software system.
Some vendors, such as RTA Fleet offer custom fleet management software solutions, allowing customers in every industry to address their individual needs specifically.
Choosing the right fleet management software comes down to balancing your specific company needs with software that allows you to cover as many of those bases as possible.
An effective fleet program furnishes assets that are:
- Suitable
- Available
- Reliable
- Safe
- Economical
- Eco-friendly