Here are the 5 best tips to improve, make profitable and optimize an equipment fleet management of any size.
Equipment fleet management is an activity that requires experience and knowledge. Indeed, equipment fleet managers often have additional objectives to carry out on top of managing the equipment. In order to facilitate his role, there are 5 effective ways to optimize the management of the equipment fleet. We’ll highlight them via the 5 questions below.
How to manage fleets of equipment?
Whether your fleet consists of 5 pieces of equipment or more than 500, managing a fleet of equipment is not an easy task. Indeed, in an organized construction company, it is recommended that you manage a fleet of equipment, machinery and tools effectively to ensure the proper logistics of the sites. Initially, the general principles of fleet management reside in the classification of its equipment.
Each class of equipment is thus divided into categories, themselves divided into sub-groups: earthmoving equipment, mining machinery, diesel hydraulic excavators, diesel tracked excavators, etc… The equipment specific to construction and public works is thus made up of a set of sophisticated mechanical tools that need to be classified. This classification then allows to have a good global vision of its fleet, to optimize the management of the equipment fleet and to rent efficiently according to the demand. If you are a multi-agency rental company, being aware of the shortages in the offer of certain rental agencies will allow you to compensate with the surplus of equipment from other agencies or sites.
How to maintain a fleet of equipment?
Maintaining a fleet of equipment in perfect working order is the second most important step in reducing capital assets and therefore your costs. A fleet of equipment and machinery includes on average between 5 and 200 pieces of equipment, but maintenance must remain important, whatever the volume. Indeed, maintenance allows you to optimize the life span of the machines, to maximize their resale price and to guarantee the safety of the drivers. Poorly maintained equipment is more likely to break down or cause accidents. If the costs of rigorous maintenance and upkeep are compared to those generated by breakdowns and accidents, the latter are much higher. Not to mention a possible increase in the price of insurance!
Keeping a detailed history of the maintenance and repair operations carried out in the workshop on your equipment will allow you to better monitor your fleet, in addition to being a guarantee of quality when reselling the machine. These are the bases of any good fleet management. This rigorous follow-up can easily be set up thanks to a material fleet management software, we will come back to it.
How to make a fleet of equipment profitable?
To make a fleet of equipment profitable, you need to control your costs and calculate a break-even point. The revenues generated by the rental of machines, machinery and tools must compensate your company’s costs such as investments, rent, salaries, maintenance, or insurance. Finding the right balance between revenues and expenses is mandatory to optimize the management of a fleet of equipment. Knowing your expenses will allow you, for example, to better negotiate your purchases and maintenance with suppliers and garages. Cost control is therefore extremely important in the good management of a fleet of equipment in order to reduce expenses and ensure its profitability.
How to control the costs of managing a fleet of equipment?
Controlling the costs of fleet equipment management requires above all a good control over expenses, especially fuel. Indeed, many equipment fleet managers claim that fuel represents between 15% and 30% of the total expenses generated by a fleet of vehicles and machines. Fortunately, there are several solutions to limit its impact and abuse.
When renewing your fleet, pay attention to the consumption of the model you wish to acquire and its fuel. Also, use fuel cards to control consumption and mileage in real time. You will thus see if there are any inconsistencies between drivers in your fleet. A very useful asset in equipment rental! Integrating an equipment fleet management solution into your computer system will allow you to efficiently monitor consumption data.
How to optimize management with an equipment fleet management software?
In order to optimize management of equipment fleets, there is an efficient and intuitive equipment fleet management software. This management tool that centralizes and synchronizes all your data and information of your fleets and your website is called harmony. The harmony equipment ERP software managesall kinds of equipment: construction equipment, handling equipment, agricultural equipment, computer equipment but also small equipment such as drills, lawn mowers, scaffolding or audiovisual equipment.
Developed by hitechsoftware’s experienced teams, the harmony equipment fleet management software package records each movement of your equipment thanks to an intuitive planning while managing each of your maintenance and all of your stock, purchases and suppliers. Compatible with the rentpad tablet inventory of fixtures application to facilitate the rental and management of equipment fleets, the harmony solution ensures a precise logistic and financial assessment of your activity thanks to complete analysis and traceability tools. Managing claims and insurances, planning and following up inspection and maintenance visits, rental or transfer contracts and establishing the appropriate transport vouchers are done in a very simple way thanks to the ergonomics of the harmony equipment fleet management solution.
In addition to the management of equipment rental, the harmony equipment fleet management software also ensures commercial management, financing management, invoicing management and accounting management via numerous functionalities adapted to each user profile. Adopting harmony is the assurance of time saving and consequent productivity to boost and enhance your activity as a material fleet manager. More information on the harmony ERP software for equipment management by clicking here.
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