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FleetCommander
Case Study
Focus On: County of Ventura, California
ABSTRACT
The GSA Central Motor Pool Services staff at the County of Ventura manages 31 pooled vehicles. Since August of 2006, the county has used FleetCommander to manage the pool. They have decreased fleet size by 21%, streamlined fleet operations, increased customer satisfaction, improved fleet staff morale, and implemented automated fleet policy enforcement. The county estimates they realize a savings of $17,000 in labor per year as a result of FleetCommander. A conservative return on investment annually, considering other fleet cost reductions, is in excess of 1300%.
CASE STUDY OVERVIEW
The purpose of this document is to provide insight into the use of FleetCommander in a live fleet setting. This document is prepared to provide increased visibility of FleetCommander capabilities to existing FleetCommander users and, also, provides insight to prospective users of FleetCommander.
This case study does not represent an endorsement of the product
ABOUT THE FLEET
The GSA Central Motor Pool Services staff at the County of Ventura California manages a variety of pooled vehicles. The motor pool is located at the Ventura County Government Center. There are currently 31 vehicles in the motor pool. This pool is comprised of:
- 16 Sedans
- 8 Hybrid Sedans
- 3 Mini vans
- 1 Station Wagon
- 1 Hybrid SUV
- 1 Cargo Van
- 1 Pickup Truck
Prior to starting use of FleetCommander, there were thirty eight (38) pooled vehicles. Using metrics in FleetCommander, incremental fleet size reductions are taking place. To date, seven (7) vehicles have been eliminated without impacting service to our end customers.
ABOUT THE STAFF AND FLEET DRIVERS
There are two main roles involved in the County’s motor pool operations. These roles include the dispatcher role and the billing role. A manager periodically reviews fleet utilization reports and makes decisions regarding fleet right-sizing. There are approximately 500 drivers that are eligible to use FleetCommander and the motor pool vehicles.
With FleetCommander in place, the dispatcher role is now performed by a receptionist in a part-time capacity. That is, the receptionist has other job duties and using FleetCommander’s capabilities to assign and dispatch vehicles is just one of the duties. The FleetCommander automated fleet dashboard is used to streamline operations. The data entry component of this job is automated and is no longer required. Metrics are automatically captured.
The billing process previously required data entry into Microsoft Access. A file was exported from Access and sent to the Finance department. The Finance department would review the data and send the file back to the data entry staff to resolve billing data conflicts and omissions. Today, FleetCommander automatically generates the billing export file. No data entry is required and the need to error-check the data and resolve conflicts and omissions is eliminated.
Fleet utilization statistics are generated automatically and periodically reviewed by a County financial manager. All utilization metrics are available on-line to authorized staff. Utilization metrics on FleetCommander’s fleet dashboard update every five minutes and are available to the manager. Several reports show utilization from different perspectives. All tools are available via a browser by the manager.
The 500+ fleet drivers request use of vehicles on-line using FleetCommander. The dispatcher typically responds within minutes to each request using the fleet dashboard. Drivers receive an email confirmation. Picking up a vehicle at the motor pool is efficient and even includes the ability to print a travel sheet that details the trip and the vehicle.
HOW FLEETCOMMANDER HELPS
Differences in the efficiency of the fleet operations at the GSA motor pool, as the County’s Fiscal Officer puts it, “are like night and day”. FleetCommander has changed virtually every aspect of their operations, including:
- Vehicle requests are now streamlined and the outcomes are better for the fleet drivers
- Staff morale is higher due to the elimination of cumbersome, manual data entry tasks
- Metrics are available to make smart decisions about fleet size
- Billing processes have been optimized
- Policies are now enforced automatically
- Expensive paper-based forms are no longer required
- A cost reduction of more than $50,000 annually is realized
These are described in detail below.
Vehicle requests are now streamlined
 Each month the County receives between 100 and 150 requests for vehicles via FleetCommander. Drivers make a reservation on-line. FleetCommander automatically enforces security and only allows drivers to access authorized functions. After completing the easy-to-use on-line form, all data is error-checked and transmitted to the dispatcher. Email confirmation notices are automatically sent to the driver and optionally to the driver’s supervisor. This dramatically streamlines the request process.
In the past, this task was performed using a triplicate form. The form was completed by hand by the driver. The driver was then required to take the form to a supervisor for signature. Finally, the triplicate vehicle request form was mailed or hand-carried to the motor pool staff. One copy was maintained for motor pool records and the others were returned to the originating department.
Drivers get automated email confirmation messages and can even check the status of vehicle requests on-line 24 x 7. Supervisors no longer are required to sign forms. Metrics are captured effortlessly by FleetCommander at each step of the process.
Staff Morale is Higher
The dispatcher role is now optimized. Vehicle requests automatically appear on the fleet dashboard. With the click of the mouse, vehicles can be assigned to a request and approved. But the most important feature – the data. By virtue of having the driver complete and submit a form, the data entry task is no longer done by the dispatcher staff. This eliminates one of the most burdensome jobs that use to exist in fleet – data entry.
Prior to FleetCommander the triplicate vehicle request forms would be stacked and queued up to be entered into the Microsoft Access database manually. When other jobs were higher priority, the data entry tasks got pushed aside. Data entry was then a priority job twice monthly when billing data was needed by the financial department. This complete step is now eliminated.
METRICS ARE AVAILABLE TO MAKE SMART DECISIONS ABOUT FLEET SIZE
Metrics are now automatically captured as a byproduct of the vehicle request process. After a vehicle is returned, the County has key information such as, the name of the requestor, the name of the driver, the specific vehicle used, the type of vehicle used, the duration of the trip in miles and time, and more. This data is accurate and is readily available through the automatically updating fleet dashboard and via reports.
The fleet dashboard automatically updates
every five minutes. Note the graph that
shows the hour-by-hour vehicle utilization.
The Vehicle Demand Report is one more
example of utilization metrics in action
Billing processes have been optimized
The billing process has been streamlined tremendously. What was previously described as a “monstrous task” is now performed with the click of a mouse.
FleetCommander considers the nuances of the County’s billing algorithm. The County bills based on a time-window of the day and they limit, or cap, the number of hours per day that are billed in the event that a trip spans more than one day. The billing report is exported in a format that can be directly imported by the County’s accounting system.
Policies are now enforced automatically
Many policies that were previously too time-consuming to implement are now enforced automatically. Driver license expiration and late return policies are two examples of the many policies enforced by the system.
In the event that the driver’s license on file with the motor pool expires, drivers are notified of the expired license and reminded to show their driver’s licenses at the time they pick up the vehicles. Dispatchers are reminded of the expired license at the time of dispatch. And, the dispatch form has a quick-and-easy spot for recording the driver’s new expiration date so that the new information is on file with the motor pool. This all happens effortlessly.
Late returning vehicles affect the efficiency of the motor pool and therefore are monitored very closely. FleetCommander’s fleet dashboard automatically identifies late returning vehicles as soon as the vehicle is beyond its scheduled return time. Late Return emails can optionally be sent to the driver as soon the vehicle is late. The Late Return Report can be used to report after-the-fact late returning vehicles to department supervisors. In addition, dispatchers can tack on late fees, if desired, at the time a vehicle is returned. The result is that drivers and department supervisors are made aware of the infractions and the consequences of late returning vehicles. This has dramatically reduced the occurrence of late returning vehicles.
Policies are communicated to users on-line via FleetCommander. In addition to requiring each user of the system to acknowledge the policies the first time that a user logs on to the system, fleet administrators can also require users to acknowledge the policy each time the policy changes.
Expensive paper-based forms are no longer required
Triplicate, paper-based forms were previously used for all vehicle requests. Those forms were initiated by the driver, signed by the driver’s supervisor, hand-carried or mailed to the motor pool, approved by the motor pool staff, and subsequently copies of the form were mailed or hand-carried back to the originating department. These triplicate forms were also the source of information for the manual data entry tasks performed by the dispatcher staff to support bi-monthly billing. The forms were required to be purchased and stocked within each department.
Those forms are gone. The approval process is now handled sending a copy of motor pool emails to the driver’s supervisor. No data entry is required from paper-based forms because all of the data is automatically captured by FleetCommander.
A cost reduction of more than $50,000 annually is realized
Some work tasks such as data entry of vehicle request data, data clean-up, manually coordinating vehicle requests, and more are no longer needed due to FleetCommander’s automation capability. In addition, costs associated with vehicles no longer needed are eliminated. The net to the County is in excess of $50,000 annually.
The County estimates the savings of staff hours at approximately $17,000 annually. This equates to roughly $9,000 in savings due to streamlined vehicle request processing and $8,000 in savings related to data entry and billing processes. An intangible cost savings is the savings realized by a lower turn-over of staff. Previously, staff turn-over was high due to the undesirable nature of the data entry tasks that were required to capture paper-based vehicle use data.
Using FleetCommander, the County realized a 21% reduction in fleet size while providing the same level of service to its end-users. Seven (7) vehicles have already been eliminated. In addition to avoiding replacement costs of $140,000 (7 hybrids @ $20,000 each), the County estimates they save $5,000 in depreciation and maintenance costs per vehicle for each of the seven vehicles eliminated from the fleet. This equates to a savings of $35,000 annually.
PARTING WORDS FROM A FLEETCOMMANDER USER
FleetCommander has helped us organize nearly every aspect of managing our motor pool. The implementation of the software was straightforward. And, the value to the fleet’s drivers and the fleet staff is fantastic. We now have tremendous visibility in to the utilization of the County’s vehicles. We anticipate further right-sizing of our fleet in the future. – Greg Bergman, GSA Fiscal Manager
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