Expenses management is essential in fleet industries.
Fleet management is like an art, most of us assume it is just managing trucks but it is way beyond, it involves driver management, customer management, expenses management and resources handling.
Say, For example, the fleet manager needs to maintain a driver list, supervise vehicle maintenance and quality checking of vehicle condition.
Apart from this, the fleet manager needs to play a support role if any issue arises in consignment, he needs to work as an accountant when it comes to trip and vehicle expenses handling. To put it in short, he is like a genuine cricket all-rounder in fleet management software.
Even though the fleet manager plays different roles, he/she needs to concentrate more on expenses management because it has a direct correlation to fleet business.
Small things that cause more expenses in fleet management are:
1) Vehicle maintenance
2) Tyre maintenance
3) Engine idle
4) Freight overloading
1) Vehicle maintenance:
Truck maintenance is also an important aspect to be considered for expense management. As a fleet manager, your work is based on managing trucks. When the truck is not maintained correctly, it will create a burden on expenses handling and business overall. To list a few on how vehicle maintenance is affecting the logistics business
- Mileage drop
- Overheating of truck engine
- Brake failure
- Suspension failure
➔ Mileage drop:
Mileage drop may occur on vehicles, if it is not properly maintained such as oil level, tyre pressure, air filter check parameters, it will affect the vehicle fuel mileage.
Many times, fleet operators either ignore or give less importance but the end result impacts on vehicle productivity and increase in expenditure. You can track your truck using our truck tracking system.
➔ Overheating of truck engine:
Why does overheating of the engine cause mileage drop?
Engine overheating reduces the oil viscosity, which in turn increases engine friction. All these affect the vehicle engine’s life span and above all because of the engine overheating vehicle will consume more fuel. The fleet expenses increase because of truck engines indirectly.
Factors for overheating the engine.
1) Bad radiator.
2) Problem in a water pump.
3) Issue in the radiator fan.
4) Lower engine oil level.
Bad radiator:
What does a radiator do?
The radiator is designed to maintain the truck engine at a particular temperature. Whenever the truck engine gets heated-up, at this time, the radiator should run and reduce the engine heat.
Due to improper maintenance (or) low-cost maintenance, the radiator oil loses its property and fails to do the work. How can we say radiator oil is in bad condition?
Generally, the vehicle coolant oil will be in red, green, yellow, or blue in colour. In low-maintained vehicles, the radiator oil turns in rusted colour or in gold colour. This indicates coolant losses its property. Obviously, the radiator does not work, it will result in overheating of the engine. When a truck is running with freights, and the engine gets overheated. due to this overheating engine piston get damaged this will result in engine failure or engine seize if engine gets sized that means you are going to spend more money.
The problem with the water pump:
The water pump is managed to circulate the coolant oil throughout the engine to maintain the temperature, if there is any problem with the water pump it fails to do its job. So coolant will not be circulated. So the engine will get heated up quickly.
The issue in radiator fan:
Radiator fan helps in reducing the coolant temperature, truck engine cooling If there is any problem in a radiator or in radiator fan, it results in overheating of the engine.
Low Engine oil level:
Not only coolant and radiator keep the truck engine cool, but also truck engine oil helps to maintain engine parts in low temperatures. If the engine oil is low, the truck engine gets heated up and results in the engine seized.
Tyre maintenance :
Why do we need to maintain tyres?
Tyres are one of the main important spares to maintain in a vehicle. Because tyres gives the connectivity between road and vehicle
What happens if we do not maintain tyres?
If the tyres are not maintained properly it affects truck breaking, mileage drop, and imbalance of vehicle.
Due to problem in breaking and imbalance of vehicle, there is the risk of accident, this will result in bigger expenses in fleet operations
How to maintain vehicle tyres:
Maintain the air pressure as suggested by truck manufacturers.
Check the tyre size periodically.
Check tyre alignment properly.
Use nitrogen air for better tyre maintenance.
Engine idle:
Whenever your driver starts the truck, they run the engine idle for 3-5min to heat up the engine.
This will not cause any extra expense, but your driver is often leaving the engine idle will lead to severe damage to the truck engine. Whenever drivers drive trucks at low speed rather than driving at normal speed this will damage the interior parts of the engine. This will shorten your engine life and increase your service cost. The engine will consume more fuel in idle than a vehicle in running condition.
Freight overloading:
Overloading vehicles may increase the risk of accidents; overloading of trucks leads to mishappening. If the truck is overloaded, break failure may occur, or the distance of breaking increases in panic braking. Even drivers may lose vehicle control. This may lead to the accident, and also truck engine gets stressed.
As a fleet manager or a fleet owner, you are busy managing fleets. But you also need to look into those small things so that you can reduce the expenses and increase vehicle life span.
Author- Narendranathan E
Thanks For Reding
More Read On Mynewsfit