5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Daily Fleet Management Operations Rastrac Team | Feb 2, 2018 11:27:50 AM

Fleet maintenance scheduling... ensuring that your services are in compliance with local, state, and federal regulations... tracking fuel usage and labor costs... The duties and challenges of an operations manager are seemingly endless, and a fleet management system can certainly help make those tasks easier, right?

Having a fleet management solution is not a guarantee that your daily operations will suddenly take significantly less time than before. What’s going to make the real difference is choosing the most effective fleet management system that is also the right fit for your business.

Rastrac’s customized GPS tracking solutions, including GPS tracking software and tracking devices, are not proprietary and can work in conjunction with third-party software or devices. What this means for you is that you can avoid the headache that results from purchasing a proprietary system and realizing that you can’t use it with your existing equipment. Furthermore, our system is intuitive, making it very easy to use. Because of this, you’ll be up and running faster than more complicated, cumbersome systems.

We’ve put together a list of the top five ways that the right fleet management system can improve your daily fleet management operations and help you to increase your efficiency as a manager.

5 Ways to Improve Fleet Management Operations 

#1: Live Vehicle and Asset/Tracking Monitoring 

#2: Access to Accurate Data 

#3: Save Money 

#4: Increase Compliance 

#5: Decrease Risks 

1: Live Vehicle and Asset Tracking/Monitoring

Being able to track your assets anytime, anywhere in real time from the comfort of your office is a huge boon to making your daily fleet management operations more efficient. This can be effectively done through a combination of GPS tracking devices and software. With the click of a mouse, you can use your fleet management software to:

• Track the location of your vehicles and large equipment
• Monitor the condition of your assets and schedule regular maintenance reminders
• Monitor the use and activity of your assets to ensure compliance
• Monitor wasteful and dangerous driver behaviors
• Optimize inefficient driver routes
• Verify time card information to reduce misreported information

Using the software’s geofencing tool, you can monitor that your assets remain within specified areas. For municipalities and emergency responders, this can help you know if you have emergency personnel coverage in specific areas. Furthermore, through the use of the software’s mapping and route optimization tools, you also can improve your department or organization’s emergency response time.

2: Access to Accurate Data

Fleet data and analytics are important sources of information for any operations manager. This information helps you to:

• Stay informed about the condition of your vehicles and other large assets
• Provide you with actionable information to make informed decisions
• Help you to ensure that your reports are accurate
• Reduce unnecessary costs by eliminating human errors

Any fleet management solution that’s worth its salt is going to provide you with data. However, some systems will provide you with too much data, forcing you to spend your valuable time sorting through unnecessary information just to get the snippets you actually need.

Having a fleet tracking system that can provide you with easy access to the right kinds of data, as well as provide you with the quality customer support you’d expect, is a win-win for any fleet management professional.

3: Save Money

If you’re like most operations managers, you’re being asked to do more with less budget. While it’s understandable since the ultimate goal of any business is to find ways to increase efficiency by reducing overhead and increasing its profits, it doesn’t make accomplishing that task any easier.

The good news is that an agile fleet management tracking software, can help you save money by maximizing the efficiency of your equipment, thereby increasing the productivity of your fleet. This can be done through the use of telematics, which can assess the health and performance of your vehicles and equipment. This data helps you to know the following: 

• How often your vehicles are in use
• When your vehicles are performing optimally or are experiencing technical issues
• Whether your assets are up on their regular maintenance
• When your vehicles are in need of repair

Furthermore, you can use your tracking solutions to know whether your fuel is being used most effectively, if your drivers are demonstrating efficient driving behaviors, and how much wasteful engine idle time your equipment experiences.

4: Increase Compliance

Compliance is always a tricky area. There are local, state, and even federal regulations that you must abide by each day regarding electronic logging and temperature conditions during transportation. Using an effective GPS fleet management system can help you to ensure that you remain compliant with these industry regulations.

Temperature compliance is an important area of concern for operations managers who are responsible for the transportation of perishable products, pharmaceuticals, and other temperature-sensitive cargo. Thankfully, modern GPS devices are capable of connecting with the temperature monitoring equipment in your vehicles so you can remotely monitor and receive alerts about your assets.

5: Decrease Risks

Risk managers have the challenging task of assessing and identifying any potential concerns that could threaten the safety, reputation, and financial prosperity of the company or municipality community. As such, it’s also your responsibility to know where your organization’s assets are at all times and how they are being used.

In a perfect world, you’d be able to trust all of your employees without question. However, the reality is that you’ll find yourself working with some employees you can trust and a few rogue people who try to abuse your organization’s resources and time. This behavior can potentially put your assets at risk, and put you and your company in a compromising position. Our GPS tracking solutions can help you reduce your liability while also saving money.

Using GPS tracking can help to deter theft and aid in the recovery of lost or stolen assets. By being able to pinpoint the location of your assets in real time, you can provide law enforcement with the most accurate information to help them recover your vehicle or equipment.

No matter whether you work for a company or municipality, if you’re using an ineffective fleet management solution — or no fleet management solution at all — then you owe it to yourself to make your daily operations more efficient.