Technology has had a huge impact on the transport and logistics industry over the past decade. Technological innovations have enabled companies to find new ways to optimise their processes, such as identifying cost reductions and workflow improvements. On top of that, it has given them the chance to add more value to their end customer’s experience. In order to get you up to speed, we have provided you with 5 essential fleet management tips to help you improve your fleet’s efficiency and profitability.
#1: Fleet management tip: optimise office efficiency
Dispatchers that use traditional systems can only effectively track a handful of trucks In practice, they often need to track far more trucks than this. This takes a lot of time, which can be put to better use. By implementing a telematics system, a dispatcher can easily monitor dozens of trucks and still manage to save time. This does not only improve your fleet’s efficiency but also reduces your employees’ stress level. In the long term, this will result in much higher employee retention.
#2: Improve your fleet’s workflow
Communication between the office and the driver is often conducted via mobile phones, which is not efficient. By improving your workflow, drivers can be in direct contact with the office, showing real-time actions and sharing documents. This communication channel can save you an enormous amount of time and money. For example, these systems enable the drivers to invoice customers immediately after delivering the order. This provides your company with improved cash flow.
#3: Coach your drivers
Monitoring your drivers is important because they have a huge influence on your fleet’s performance. Thanks to some advanced telematics systems, you can control and compare drivers’ behaviour and cut costs by doing so. You can, for example, monitor how they break and accelerate because this has an influence on the fuel consumption. Aside from having more insight into fuel consumption, you can monitor if your drivers are driving safe.
#4: Digitise your business
When drivers are on the road for one or two weeks, they return to the office with a huge pile of paper documents. Think about delivery documents, CMR documents, trip documents, etc. Does this sound recognizable? If it does, you should really do something about it. It takes office employees a lot of time to process this paperwork. The solution is to digitise your paperwork, which enables your office employees to process the documents faster. This saves your business a lot of time and money.
#5: Add value for your customers
Good fleet management does not only benefit your company. It also adds value for external stakeholders, such as your customers. For example, an accurate ETA saves your customers’ employees a lot of time. They do not need to communicate with your drivers and they can plan to have staff ready to receive shipments.
