Fleet Cost Management Elements
Fleet cost management is one of many difficult responsibilities that come with fleet maintenance. The profitability of your business and the well-being of your entire organization may suffer if you don’t control your fleet costs.
It can be difficult to manage fleet expenses, especially when they are calculated manually or using numerous spreadsheets. You might overlook significant trends and flaws in your fleet because of fluctuating costs and difficult-to read-data
- Calculate the overall cost of ownership
The most complex and difficult part of fleet cost management is determining the true total cost of ownership for your fleet. Understanding true total cost enables you to manage your fleet more effectively by making data-driven decisions.
Fixed and variable costs are separated in fleet costs. Regardless of usage, fixed costs are established costs that remain constant. Here are some instances of fixed costs: ( Permits and licenses, Taxes, Payments on Loans and Leases, Depreciation )
- Control fuel costs
For fleets, fuel is the biggest ongoing expense. There are ways to minimize and manage these ongoing expenses even though you might not be able to control the price of fuel.
Monitoring the cost and consumption on each of your assets is essential because fuel is a variable cost. You can calculate the average cost-per-mile to predict future costs by keeping track of all your fuel purchases.
However, it is a waste of time to try to keep up with fuel receipts and manually enter them into a spreadsheet, It is more challenging to track trends and compare the mileage of different assets when you have to look for data
- Improve Your Plan For Fleet Maintenance
Taking a proactive approach to preventative maintenance is one of the best ways to reduce fleet costs. Unplanned maintenance tasks do occur, but if your assets aren’t being properly maintained, you risk having more downtime and unforeseen costs.
A preventative maintenance (PM) schedule keeps track of routine servicing, oil changes, and forget servicing, These alerts increase uptime and reduce wasteful spending
- Take Asset Utilization Into Account
Do you own any vehicles that are never driven? Even idle assets that remain in the lot week can still accrue costs. TO maximize efficiencies and reduce operating costs, think about selling unutilized vehicles and combining your fleet
You can analyze costs, evaluate operations, and maximize asset utilization with some asset management software. With all operating costs information in one place, your team can stay in sync as it decides how big to make your fleet
- Create a plan for replacing your vehicles
In addition to asset utilization, you might find some assets are underperforming or need to be repaired frequently. These assets might result in significant downtimes and unforeseen costs for you.
The idea of replacing a vehicle sound incredibly difficult and pricey. It may be tempting to keep vehicles requiring repairs all the time, but delaying the inevitable can end up costing thousands of dollars.
Upgrade your fleet to more fuel-efficient vehicles when creating a plan for replacing your current vehicles. Fuel is your fleet’s biggest ongoing expense, so making an investment in fuel-efficient vehicles now can save you a tonne of money down to the road.