Ways To Reduce Your Overall Fleet Maintenance Cost

Maintaining your fleet can be challenging, since failing to control your costs can erode organizational profitability. Fluctuating costs combined with difficult to interpret data might lead to missing key trends or deficiencies, but below are some fleet maintenance cost tips that will help.

Manage Your Fuel Costs

Fuel is without a doubt the biggest expense you’ll incur for fleets. Though you don’t have any control over the cost of fuel, methods exist for lowering the expense as much as possible. Since fuel costs are variable, monitoring the consumption and price for every asset is critical.

Once you begin tracking your fuel expenses, you’ll be able to determine the typical cost for each mile to better predict future charges. However, you don’t want to bother with spreadsheets and fuel receipts. Instead, purchase fleet management based software where drivers can log their fuel entries inside the mobile app, which will conserve time while minimizing information bottlenecks.

Enhance The Parts Inventory

After fuel, parts comprise approximately 1/3 worth of truck maintenance costs, which is why you want a robust system for inventory management. The trouble is that finding a balance between on-hand inventory and getting unnecessary components can be tedious. While it is important to have the correct components on hand for maintenance work, you might be acquiring excess stock which is costing unnecessary money as well as storage space.

One of the best ways to keep control of inventory and lower unnecessary spending is through leveraging fleet management tools, as they will allow you to track the quantities while receiving reorder notifications and then assigning components for work orders.

Determine Your Total Ownership Cost

One of the toughest aspects of fleet management is determining the true ownership cost. Once you understand the TCO, it enables you to make better decisions that are data-driven, resulting in superior fleet management. Your costs should be divided into variable and fixed. Variable costs will fluctuate based on fleet size and usage, and consist of things such as:

• Tolls
• Part replacement
• Fuel
• Maintenance

Fixed costs involve established fees that will not change irrespective of usage. Examples for fixed costs are:

• Depreciation
• Lease and loan payments
• Taxes
• Permits and licenses

Cloud-based software can enable you to generate reports which are customized that readily determine your total ownership costs and will provide insights that can help you track your assets. It is a much better alternative to traditional number crunching and spreadsheets.

Prioritize Asset Utilization And Vehicle Replacement

Many fleet owners have trucks that are rarely, if ever used. Having underutilized assets which sit in your lot all day can drive up costs. You should consider selling any vehicles which are rarely used and then consolidate your fleet so that your efficiency is maximized and your operating costs are lowered. This can be accomplished with asset management tools. You’ll also want to consider developing a replacement plan for your vehicles since some will underperform as time passes due to age and wear. Such assets will cost you in terms of downtime as well as unplanned expenses.