Coencorp Blog

"Workaholics aren't heroes. They don't save the day, they use it up. The real hero is already home... Because she figured out a faster way to get things done."

— Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson

Fleet managers with business acumen know the importance of not just working hard, but also working smart. And yet, when it comes to fuel management, many fail to reap the full promise of automated fuel management systems.

Still, automation done wrong will decidedly do more harm than good to your fuel management efforts. In this edition of Fleeting Thought, we make the case for fully automated fueling but, just as important, we address some of the pitfalls you may face in deploying this rewarding technology.

"If the shoe fits, wear it", the saying goes.

But fleet managers of the public transit industry often learn to their chagrin, that the shoe doesn't fit all that well with the generic fleet fuel management systems available in today's market.

Managers have expressed the desire for systems that recognize and address the unique challenges of public transit organizations. In a previous blog about fuel management systems, we briefly touch upon those challenges, but there is much more to say.

So what are these challenges? Read on to find out as we break them down in detail and present elegant, field-tested solutions to them.

Regarding fuel, remote working operations such as construction sites, open pit mines, commercial farming and logging operations create unique challenges for the fleet or operations manager. 

Most successful entrepreneurs can tell stories of humble beginnings where product and service development slowly eased into their targeted marketplace.  This is not necessarily so for the Tavassoli brothers and Coencorp.  Their beginnings were far from humble, and they exploded onto the transit scene with one of the country's largest public transit companies.  Here is what happened.

According to some recent fleet maintenance statistics on AutomotiveFleet.com, the repair cost (labor and parts) of running your ageing fleet increases annually by 5% to 7%, but when you look closer at the segment breakdowns, the numbers are much more dramatic. Looking at “Repair Spend by Odometer”, we see the cost rise almost 10 times once the vehicle hits over 90,000 km and “Repair Spend by Months in Service” shows a jump of nearly 8 times once we get past the 37-month mark. Furthermore, these statistics exclude regular tire and oil changes, rental of replacement equipment and emergency overtime costs, or accident expenses.  If these jumps seem extreme to you, it’s because they are, but they are a manageable part of the cost of maintaining a fleet. Keeping your fleet assets (vehicles and other mobile-fueled equipment) and drivers safe, productive, and mobile is pivotal to reaching your organization’s sales and service goals. A great Fleet Management software will help you keep an educated eye on your maintenance costs, indicate when they begin to rise, and how to plan for the optimization of the fleet. So, what can you do to keep your fleet in optimal shape?

The business world was rocked when Stephen R. Covey, the author of the best-selling book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change,” said, “Ineffective people live day after day with unused potential.” Industry leaders, managers, and entrepreneurs everywhere quickly realized he wasn’t only talking about people but also describing the primary factors limiting a company’s growth.

Being a fleet manager has its unique challenges.

The Bad News

Buses running out of fuel on the road occur far more often than most people would believe and are seldom addressed (if at all) by the average fleet management system. It is a major, costly problem in terms of both money and citizen goodwill. The problem is much more complex than it seems and much simpler to solve than many within the industry believe. 

The global construction industry accounts for between 25-40% of the world's carbon emissions from all its gas-guzzling assets. It’s no surprise construction companies are under intense scrutiny over fuel consumption. Increasingly rigid government regulations demand accountability for every drop of fuel that goes into an asset’s tank and how every one of those drops is being spent. Public opinion now plays an equally strong value in sales, and gas-dependent companies need to get green to keep and gain more clients, especially regarding lucrative government contracts. Construction fleet managers are needing to report on behaviors they once took for granted and provide detailed data beyond the amount of fuel purchased. They must know where, how, and why it’s being spent. Traditional manual data collection methods are no longer adequate, and new industry leaders must implement more efficient solutions. The need for accurate reporting tools has become clear, and gas giants like BP are painting perspectives for their customers on the imperative benefits of having automated & integrated fuel management systems like SM2. At Coencorp, we always start with the individual’s unique needs, so let’s start there to illustrate what BP is telling all fuel-consuming industries.

Across industries and markets, we hear the call to real-time data collection and its importance to profitable big data analytics. Companies with fleets to manage have known this for a long time and continue to partner with fleet management system (FMS) suppliers to improve business practices and outcomes.