Prepare Your Fleet Now for Higher Fuel Prices Later
Cardlock systems help fleet administrators manage their fuel assets by making it easier to authorize and provide accountability for fuel usage. Photo courtesy OPW
“>
Cardlock systems help fleet administrators manage their fuel assets by making it easier to authorize and provide accountability for fuel usage. Photo courtesy OPW
“>
While fuel prices may not be as high as they were a few years ago, fleet managers continue to be challenged by an unpredictable fuel market that makes it difficult to budget for fuel expenditures. Strict oversight of fuel assets can help maintain a healthy bottom line over the long term.
The Department of Energy is projecting moderate increases in the price of crude oil and diesel fuel over the next year, but as always, unrest in the Middle East could wreak havoc with those gradual price projections. The best time to review the effectiveness of your site’s fuel management equipment is before price spikes hit. Such an audit can help identify ways to cut costs through reduced fuel losses and streamlined operations.
Control Fuel to Reduce Expenses
Whether you’re managing a large fleet of more than 1,000 tractor-trailers or a small fleet of 25 concrete trucks, aging equipment and fuel are two of the largest expenses. What’s more, one expense (variable fuel costs) makes it difficult to fund the maintenance and equipment needed to overcome the other (aging equipment).
Cardlock systems, also known as fuel control systems, let fleet administrators carefully manage fuel assets by providing authorization and accountability of fuel usage. By tracking every gallon of fuel that goes into every fleet vehicle, fuel control systems help identify unauthorized fueling, prevent fuel theft, document fuel usage and create visibility into operating costs.
Related from the HDT archives: Fuel Buying Smarts (May 2009)
Today’s fuel control systems also can help drive efficiencies in your operation. For example, many fleets still rely on manual statistical inventory reconciliation, which is inaccurate, inefficient, and expensive. Automated reconciliation programs eliminate hours …Read the rest of this story
