Fleet managers are the ultimate jugglers, and yet a lot of their work is challenging to measure. Here’s how to start.
Your fleet manager has a pivotal role to play in your organisation. Not only will that person directly affect your company’s reputation, in terms of whether deliveries land on time or not, but can also directly affect your company’s profitability.
How so? Well, vehicles not properly maintained, idling too much and not following the best possible route will dramatically increase your fleet’s overall costs.
The question then becomes, how do you measure your fleet manager? What key performance indicators (KPIs) do you measure?
Below are some key KPIs that may seem obvious, but are often overlooked.
1. Safety and driver behaviour: Does your driver accelerate harshly? Does the same driver brake or have multiple accidents? You should be measuring your fleet manager on this, and he – or she – should already have implemented aspects such as telematics to monitor driver behaviour, and accident or incident alerts, not to mention necessary training.
2. Efficiency: It’s your fleet manager’s job to make sure your fleet is efficient. A vehicle should get to where it goes without wasting fuel, without spending unnecessary time in traffic because of poor route planning, and doesn’t sit idle in the lot. This is where technology should be harnessed to make sense of all the data. In other words, what is the Rand spent per quantity delivered?
3. Cost of fleet: The overall running costs of your fleet comes down to several features, all of which are measurable as part of a fleet manager’s KPIs and link up quite tightly with the efficiency of the fleet. Essentially though, this metric is about the useable time of the vehicle. Here they are in more detail:
- Maintenance Outside of your normal service intervals, are your vehicles needing constant repairs? Are you sending the same vehicles in with the same repairs? This is a sign they are not being maintained properly. Are the vehicles being sent for their annual services in time, are the parts being replaced on their optimum replacement cycles? All of this forms a part of the picture that says whether or not the fleet is being properly maintained. It’s also important to look at benchmarks: are your vehicles performing at the same level of similar vehicles?
- Downtime Looking at downtime - how much time vehicles spend off the road, for example, after accidents, during services, and others - are a key metric for fleet managers. Another way some companies measure this is by up-time - how much time vehicles spend up and running.
- Effectiveness Does the fleet have the most effective combination of vehicles for the end goal of the fleet? For example, if you’re delivering milk in a rural part of the country, a sedan wouldn’t be the best choice. However, a cold-chain refrigerated truck would be a far better fit for purpose.
- Fuel Fuel takes up a massive portion of your fleet’s day to day running costs. Making sure that your driver behaviour (i.e. fuel efficient driving) is fuel friendly, and that the routes are optimal, are a key part of keeping a fleet’s running costs and fuel costs down.
- Customer satisfaction This is a bit harder to measure, but also really vital! Are your end customers satisfied with the functionality of you fleet? If you’re in sales, are your sales reps comfortable on their drives?
In the end, there are many measurable factors that make a good fleet manager. Which is the most important to you?