Fleet management is not a child’s play; it requires a great deal of time, costs, and effort for the fleet managers to ensure-
· Ensuring complete utilization of each vehicle’s capacity
· Selecting the right delivery vehicle
· Creating primary and secondary trips
· Tracking them during delivery
· Scheduling maintenance
Besides aforementioned, another important task is to reduce vehicle maintenance costs. Before we check out ways for it, let’s understand what accumulates this cost. It includes the cost of repairing, insurance, servicing, etc. Keeping a record of two or three delivery vehicles and managing all their activities can be easily done manually.
However, if you have a big in-house fleet of vehicles or run a 3PL company that caters to multiple customers, it is not easy to control all fleet-related activities and find out ways to minimize maintenance cost without using fleet management software or logistics software. Such software automates fleet management and eliminates the need for hiring human resources for the same. Here is how fleet managers can use logistics management system to decrease vehicle maintenance cost-
Vehicle capacity utilization
The software considers all possible factors, including type of vehicle, size of vehicle, and weight capacity, to ensure that each vehicle’s capacity is utilized completely. Considering all these factors and then designing the loading and unloading sequence manually is not a feasible task. The software performs this task within minutes and ensures that more orders can be delivered using less vehicles, which directly contributes to minimizing maintenance cost.
Maintenance scheduling
With the help of logistics management software, you can easily monitor each vehicle’s performance and keep a record of its usage. The software considers usage as one of the prime factors to automatically schedule vehicle maintenance. When done manually, the fleet manager might schedule maintenance for each vehicle without considering the fact that which vehicle has been used more and require an early maintenance.
Identifying faults
Identifying faults early increases the chances for repair rather than replacement. It is one of the best ways to lower vehicle maintenance costs.
Selecting the right driver
Choosing the right driver and providing them required training can also contribute to reducing vehicle maintenance cost. As the level of wear and tear on different parts of a vehicle largely depends on the style of driving and experience of the driver.
Insuring the vehicle
Vehicle insurance is imperative; but keeping a record of which vehicle is due for insurance can be a tough task. With logistics management systems, fleet managers can maintain record of the insurance as well as other documentation.
Now when you know the significance of logistics software in bringing down the vehicle maintenance cost, how about getting the one for your business. While choosing such software, always look for the one that can be customized as per your specific business needs. Also, it should include all advanced features and can be integrated into your ERP system without any hassle.
