How to Maximize Efficiency with Fleet Asset Management Software

So get this: fleet management can be challenging. 

Crazy, right? You’d think tracking scheduled PMs across multiple vehicles, monitoring stock levels of countless inventory items, and making crucial decisions about the future of your fleet would be easy—but apparently, it’s not. And when you try to tackle this mountain of work manually, you’ll almost certainly fall behind (putting business efficiency at risk).

Even though managing one or more fleets can be a pain, fleet asset management software can help. This software automates essential aspects of the fleet management process while giving you enhanced insight into your shop’s operations. If you’re interested in using one of these programs to maximize your efficiency, read on for our detailed fleet asset management software guide.

What Is Fleet Asset Management Software (And Why Does It Matter)?

Fleet asset management software is designed to help fleet managers take care of the individual vehicles (or “assets”) in a fleet (or “fleet”). With one of these programs on your side, you’ll be able to: 

• Handle work orders with ease. Instead of forcing you to juggle physical work orders, the right software will allow you to create and track digital orders around your shop.
• Keep track of preventive maintenance. Automated service reminders can all but eliminate the possibility of you missing vital PMs for the trucks in your fleet.
• Reduce your risk of part shortages. Your fleet asset management software can also let you know when it’s time to reorder the parts you rely on.
• Make truly informed decisions. If your fleet management program comes with powerful reporting features, you’ll always know what your shop is doing well (and where you could stand to make improvements).
• Streamline your workflow. The easier it is for your workers to access your software, the less time they’ll waste on the job.

How Fullbay Improves Work Order Accuracy

While manual work order management can be a hassle, that isn’t something you’ll need to worry about with the right fleet asset management software. With a digital solution, you can:

• Create, assign, and track work orders. Well-designed fleet asset management software lets fleet managers monitor repair progress in real time (including notes and pictures collected as part of this process).
• Get real-time updates across your entire business. When you always know what’s happening around your shop, you’ll have the power to make truly informed decisions about your fleet’s future.
• Receive convenient digital service requests. If your fleet asset management software lets you get service requests through your program itself, your workers won’t need to drop what they’re doing to look at these requests.
• Reduce paperwork and turnaround times. By switching to a paperless workflow for service orders and other vital tasks, you can eliminate the risk of losing or misplacing paperwork—increasing your shop’s efficiency in the process.

Scheduling Preventive Maintenance to Protect Fleet Performance

As anyone involved in fleet management knows, it’s all but impossible to keep up with an entire fleet’s PM needs on your own. In fact, while you were reading that last sentence, you missed scheduled maintenance for three of your trucks. And one of them just broke down.

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to keep up on maintenance work and keep costly breakdowns to a minimum. Fleet asset management software can track repair milestones for you and give you automated reminders when the time comes for this work. With the help of these features, you can benefit from a truly proactive maintenance strategy (instead of scrambling to fix problems when your trucks encounter trouble).

The Importance of Real-Time Inventory Visibility

When you start using fleet asset management software, you won’t just get help tracking inventory levels for one storefront—you’ll be able to track this data across multiple locations. And since these systems can let you know when you’re about to run out of parts, you’ll have a much easier time avoiding stockouts (and the downtime that can occur as a result).

Thanks to this increased visibility into your shop’s inventory situation, you’ll never run the risk of panic-buying parts. Instead, you’ll be able to order the exact number of components you need when you need them, making it easier to keep expenses under control.

Making Data-Driven Decisions That Drive Fleet Efficiency

Once you have access to in-depth reporting data, you’ll have no trouble making informed decisions that improve your fleet’s performance and budget over the long term. If you make Fullbay your fleet asset management software of choice, you’ll gain access to these reports and others:

All-Revenue Report

The All-Revenue Report is a full breakdown of your shop’s various revenue streams (hence, the name). With this report, you’ll get a closer look at your true revenue, how many parts you sell, and the number of customers you work with (among other vital statistics).

Fleet Report

With the Fleet Report, you’ll get a deep dive into your fleet’s PM needs. This report provides a detailed overview of the maintenance services you’ll need to take care of across your fleet, as well as specific customers’ upcoming PMs.

Employee Statistics

The Employee Statistics list gives fleet managers information on:

• Clocked hours. This is a measurement of how long a tech has been clocked in.
• Completed hours. Unlike “clocked hours,” this focuses on how much work a tech has actually completed on a service order.
• Efficiency. Finally, this is a comparison of how long techs spend on repair work vs. the amount of time they spend in your shop.

How to Streamline Fleet Operations Across Teams and Locations

If your fleet asset management software is tied to a single workstation, it won’t matter how many tools and features it provides—you still won’t be able to reach your full potential in terms of efficiency. That’s why the leading programs in this category are cloud-based, allowing fleet managers and their employees to access everything they need across multiple devices and locations.

As a Fullbay customer, you can use your fleet asset management software no matter where you are. And if you have mobile repair teams, the people working on these teams will be able to bring up vital information on their phones without leaving the field.

Fullbay also makes it easier to streamline your shop’s operations with the help of user roles. You’ll be able to assign three different roles to your employees:

1. Full users. These users have unrestricted access to Fullbay’s features, including service orders, inventory management, and user permissions. Shop owners, technicians, parts managers, and service managers often fall into this category.
2. Office users. This role is designed for people who need to use Fullbay for administrative work, but who don’t have to use its complete feature lineup. Office managers and administrative assistants with this role can handle payroll and customer work, though they won’t be able to manage inventory or clock in or out of service orders.
3. Timesheet users. If an employee is a timesheet user, they’ll be able to clock in and out with Fullbay without using it outside of that capacity. You can give cleaning crew members, parts drivers, and part-time/floater workers this role.

Increase Your Fleet’s Efficiency With Fullbay

If you need all-in-one fleet asset management software to maximize your fleet’s performance, Fullbay has you covered. With our software, you’ll be able to keep up on scheduled PMs, reorder parts well before they run out, and rely on data while planning your business’s future. Because of that, you’ll be able to manage your fleet more efficiently than ever before, unless you already use Fullbay but decided to read this whole article anyway. We won’t judge.

Assuming you haven’t already adopted Fullbay, how can you get started? We’d be happy to give you a closer look at our powerful fleet management software—just schedule a demo today!