A Comprehensive Overview of Fleet Management Solutions
If you are managing a fleet in the food and beverage distribution industry, you are aware of the need for oversight of employees, vehicles, and other assets. It has become necessary that businesses in the field recognize this as an important daily basis. Fleet and asset tracking are becoming more common in these fleet based businesses as executives and fleet management look to ensure the efficient and effective use of their fleets, assets, and employees.
Global positioning systems—GPS fleet tracking can create a comprehensive fleet management solution that blends well into the day to day business needs for a food and beverage logistics business. This solution has many more capabilities than a simple track-and-trace option—allowing fleet managers to do more than locate vehicles or assets on a map. A comprehensive GPS fleet management solution should be an essential business tool for any food and beverage company with a fleet, no matter how small. With just the most basic usage, this system allow for increased fuel efficiency and employee productivity, showing a reduction in overall operating expenses.
Vehicle Tracking to Save on Fuel
A recent study conducted by the EPA found that trucks left idling for long periods of time waste approximately 960 million gallons of diesel fuel each year. That fuel comes from your bottom line. Real-time data collection gives you, the fleet manager/owner the power to monitor variable costs associated with fleets. A large number of companies now track their fleets to report on idling times, fuel consumption, driving speeds, vehicle location and verification of employee hours.
Maintenance monitoring allows fleet managers to automate maintenance schedules for vehicles and alerts headquarters when preventive maintenance, such as an oil change, needs to be conducted. Automating maintenance procedures can save money and keep vehicles on the road.
Hard Data to Cut Back on Costs
A look into operations is all that is needed to make it clear of what’s working and what’s not. GPS fleet management solutions provide a variety of reports and information on a number of driving factors, including how many times a truck starts and stops, how long it idles, and if any dangerous driving behavior occurs. These reports are not used to scold drivers, but to simply identify driving habits that can be altered to save money for the company. This fleet management solution provides a wealth of information and valuable insight at a moment’s notice. Perhaps, most importantly, the collected data can be presented in a graphically rich dashboard and is actionable, which means that the data can be used to improve processes. Dashboards also give fleet management the ability to set user-defined goals that allow for benchmarking operations.