And there is a form of fleet management that is purely human powered, even with the assistance of saphyroo. Checklists, phone calls, manual logs, calendar reminders, spreadsheets, which are only well comprehended by one individual. It works - until the individual who knows the spreadsheet goes on holiday and all goes wrong.
The fragility issue is addressed with automation.
Most operations are dependent on manual systems, which are not realized until it breaks down. The most important information is in the heads of certain people. Processes are effective in that some individuals will recall doing them. That is not a system, it is a system of habits bound together by goodwill. Automated fleet management would bring that institutional knowledge to a platform that will work the same way whether there is someone in the office or not.
Automation of routing provides instant measurable effects. Every morning, the routes which used to take an hour to be worked out by an experienced dispatcher are created in seconds and they have to match vehicles, drivers and delivery orders. Humanly infeasible variables, such as live traffic conditions, driver hour restrictions, vehicle load limits, customer time windows, etc. are automatically considered. The system adapts when the conditions vary during the day. No frantic calls. No make-shifts that cause downstream issues.
The Fuel anomaly detection is timeline based and cannot be replicated by manual review. Instead of having monthly reports that indicated that something was amiss over several weeks, automated alerts indicate deviations of individual vehicle baselines the instant they occur. A car that consumes a lot of fuel compared to its usual trend may signify that it has mechanical problems, is idling, or it needs a one-on-one driver talk. Cost of resolution is directly related to speed of detection.
One fleet coordinator said that they had a fuel problem on the second day. We should have had it on the thirty-second day under our old system. The difference of cost was great.
Maintenance reminders cease to be the individual responsibility. Automated systems on actual mileage, engine hours, and diagnostic signals are used instead of a system that relies on the memory of the person who has to check. Services occur at the time. Records accumulate automatically. The cycle of deferred maintenance - now, pay later - is broken before it can become established.
The compliance tracking operates on an around-the-clock basis and tracks certification dates, inspection schedules and hours-of-service limits on all drivers and vehicles in real-time. Notifications are created long before the due dates. Nothing expires unnoticed. Preparation of audit is made easy instead of being a stressful task.
Complexity is not the truthful argument of automatic fleet management, but reliability. Manual processes perform when all things are okay. Automated ones can be used when nothing fails. That difference is important on a daily basis in the fleet operations.