Fleet Managers worry about budgets and costs
A new survey by maintenance management experts Arsenault Associates found that fleet budgeting as the biggest worry facing trucking company managers. Next comes equipment life cycle costing. Arsenault will use the results of this survey where around 200 fleet managers participated, during its conference in October. The survey also covered driver/mechanic management; tire management, equipment specification, wireless computing, purchasing, and accident tracking.
Fleet managers, therefore, are not only accountable for keeping the fleet operational and running, but also for its financial management.
They must be conversant with budgeting fleet maintenance expenses, developing an operating expense plan and managing it.
Arsenault’s Dossier software helps track and report on actual fleet expenses vis-à-vis estimated expense budgets; tracks parts, labor, fuel, fluids, tires, and other related fleet operational and administrative expenses.
Fleet managers face the key challenges of managing the high cost of fuel and executing safety programs that focus on reducing accidents that can be prevented. Added to this is the constant pressure from management to reduce costs. They have to continuously show more and more cost savings every year while managing a bigger workload with minimum resources. But fuel and safety are the top challenges that face commercial fleet managers. One of the reasons for safety being a major concern is the pressure from corporate risk departments in fleet management. So much so, fleet managers think twice about taking on vehicles that do not come with the recommendation of the risk department, in case there is a safety related issue, ending up in an injury or accident, where they may be blamed for not taking the safety issue seriously.