FLEET PROFILING - AN EASY WAY TO SAVE TIME AND MONEY

Fleet profiling is the assessment of the number, location and type of vehicles that is demanded by the distribution profile i.e. location of depots (pick up points), delivery points and volumes.

Many companies have already discovered the benefits of scheduling their transport using optimising software.  However, whilst they may be scheduling vehicles, what many people overlook is the impact an inappropriate fleet profile can have on transport cost-effectiveness. The very best scheduling software will only deliver the optimal benefit if the fleet profile has also been optimised.  It can only use the vehicles that are available.  If those vehicles are not in the right place, or they are of the wrong type, or there are too few or too many of them, the result will be sub-optimal.

On the other hand, many companies do not use scheduling software arguing that it is too expensive or that they can do it better manually.  Whether a company utilises scheduling software or not, considerable productivity improvement can be made if the optimal vehicle profile is introduced.

Some industries have relatively constant distribution profiles e.g. supermarket secondary distribution.  They have fixed distribution centres; fixed delivery points (supermarkets) and volumes are generally predictable on a week to week basis. 

Others have less certain distribution profiles e.g. the aggregates industry.  The collection points (quarries) change periodically due to: closure through exhaustion of raw material or commercial viability and new sites being opened up.   The delivery points (construction sites) are continually changing.  It must be said that in a mature business, it is true to say that as one job finishes, another one starts, which gives rise to overall business stability.  However, by region or quarry or site there can be considerable fluctuations in activity.

Whilst fleet profiling is important in both these cases, it needs to be reviewed more frequently in the latter example where the distribution profile is changing on a daily basis.

Case study

A recent project entailed assessing the opportunity for cost saving  the haulage operation of a major blue chip client.

They do not use optimising software but were aware that their vehicles were not in the right place.  This meant that vehicles had to be moved from their nominal base to another place of work on a daily basis.  Not only did this waste valuable time each day in transfer travel time but the company was also paying a transfer fee to its hauliers when they operated from a different base.

In addition they had just introduced a new business tool which identified the most economic source for each of their product lines.  The effect of this was to change the source depot for many product lines which in turn changed the output volumes of nearly all the depots.

An analysis of delivery data was obtained for 2 representative periods, one before the introduction of the sourcing tool and one after.

The comparison of the source depot before its introduction and after showed that 41% of product was now being sourced from a different depot to the traditional one.

The new data was processed through a number of models using optimising scheduling software which produced an optimal fleet profile.  This was compared to the current profile and a ‘gap’ analysis produced.  This was discussed with the distribution team and other intelligence taken into account e.g. knowledge of any depot openings or closures, major contracts planned for the near future.

It was calculated that this would reduce the transfer of vehicles to other operating bases by 48% thereby saving a considerable amount of money and improving productivity. Armed with this information a migration plan was produced which detailed the individual steps needed to change the fleet profile to the optimum.

This company is now negotiating the purchase of scheduling software, primarily to allow the profiling of the fleet to be reviewed on a regular basis.  They will also be evaluating whether there is an advantage to be gained by introducing electronic scheduling of vehicles on a day-to-day basis.

Checking your fleet profile

You do not need to be using a software scheduling application to have your fleet profile checked.  Nor do you need to buy expensive software to have a check carried out.  Consultants Axios have the necessary tools and experience to evaluate fleet profiles in almost any industry.  Profiling can take from a few days to several weeks depending on the size and complexity of the business.  Once you have seen the value of this work, you may decide to purchase your own software so that more frequent reviews of the fleet profile can be carried out in house.

Ian Russell