Managers of vehicle fleets have to adopt efficient strategies in order to properly care for the resources that have been entrusted to them. The advantages of proactive maintenance and the cost of neglect are all magnified if you are responsible for many vehicles. Fleet managers adopt best practices because they are indeed better than the alternatives. Would it make sense for the manager of a family’s fleet of two or three cars to adopt some of the same practices?
While some of the methods of fleet managers only make sense in volume, there are several fleet management techniques that will help in any setting. For example, it always makes sense to take the long view. What are the long-range considerations of owning, operating, maintaining and disposing of your vehicles?
Even if you have only two or three vehicles in your care, it seems logical to stagger the routine maintenance expenses in order to avoid unpleasant surprises. Many car owners do this intuitively, but a calendar would be a simple tool to enhance accuracy.
The most important practice of fleet managers that could help the individual owner is to keep good records. Accurate record keeping can help you manage proper maintenance. Good records can also help you track vehicle use and fuel economy. Those numbers can help you determine the overall operating expense of each of your vehicles, and they can help you determine whether those expenses are rising or declining.
A trustworthy database can help you monitor your maintenance calendar along with the financial information that will empower wise decision-making. This is the kind of information you need in order to make wise decisions about when it makes sense to repair your vehicles and when it would be better to replace and upgrade.
Whether you are responsible for one vehicle or one hundred, it is important to have a repair facility that you can trust.
