Fleet Optimization - 4 Tips to Improved Truck Management by Don Dovgin

Making good routing decisions is an absolute must. It's vital whether you have a private fleet, use owner/operators or contract with other carriers. Read on to find ways to lower your operating cost.

(PRWEB) December 7, 2003 --Making good routing decisions is an absolute must. It is vital whether you have a private fleet, use owner/operators or contract with other carriers. Considering that your competition will or already has solved this business problem, you must decide if you can afford NOT to get more productivity from your fleet and your drivers. Recent regulations curbing driver time only adds to the cost factors. As your company grows, manual routing will continue to use too many trucks, take too much time, and worst of all, increase your cost.

You must identify routing inefficiencies to get quick benefits. When you optimize your fleet, you need to do the following:

1. Optimize Resources
You will reduce the resources you have invested in underutilized vehicles. Some companies have cut their fleets by nearly half; others are able to increase their volume considerably without adding new equipment.

2. Reduce Mileage
Fuel costs will continue to to be an uncontrollable regulatory constraint. Your objective in managing your fleet is to run the most stops with the least miles, with the least amount of trucks. Avoiding this cost can add quick value to your corporation.

3. Improve Customer Service
No more late stops, forgotten shipments or losing track of your drivers. Your customer can rely on your service now because you know exactly when their product will be delivered, and you're confident in making that commitment. Our route optimization practice will give you a competitive advantage by giving your operations reliable work processes built from geocoded data models. Your customers will benefit from the routes.

4. Strengthen Management Control
Performing an impact assessment will provide accurate standards against which to measure driver performance. Using a systematic approach helps you identify unproductive drivers and get control over an operation that is often difficult to manage. Dispatching will become less intensive and allow your company to grow at a much quicker pace because you will be able to handle new business seamlessly.

You need to look at 9 main workstreams in operations:

1.   Mode & Carrier Selection
2.   Shipment Planning and Scheduling
3.   Routing & Dispatch
4.   Inbound Transportation
5.   Private Fleet
6.   Fleet Operations
7.   Fleet Maintenance
8.   Provider Communication
9.   Pipeline Visibility

Staying competitive in a tough economy means being synchronized with the latest technologies. Lack of action in the trucking industry today means you are losing market share. Can you improve your fleet performance?

###

Don Dovgin is a partner for the Transportation Management Group in Chicago, specialists in transportation management. To learn more about fleet management, call him at 312-280-1380, email at Dovgin@tmginconline.com.