One of the unique things about CCG is the depth of our technical and fleet experts. Mark Jerome in our Fleet Services Team spent 31 years as a Fleet Manager, most recently at the City of Plano, Texas. Danny Brashear another member of Fleet Services has 18 years of fleet experience and was the Operations Manager at Lee County, Florida. These pros spend time onsite with our customers during implementations to ensure that the fleet maximizes their processes up front to fully harness the power of FASTER. At the same time, they work with our skilled technical advisors to guide key users at the site through an orientation for administering and using reports and other key areas of FASTER providing substantial value to the site as a whole. Our existing customers also reap the benefits of our on-staff fleet experts. They do site visits as part of our customer support coverage providing insights and expertise from seasoned fleet pros who have truly been in your shoes.
While at our customer conference, I so enjoyed seeing the passion with which Danny and Mark shared their insights with customers. Thinking about this, it hit me that you would benefit from reading their fresh ideas honed from the time they spend in the field with your peers. So Windy Phillips, our Communications Director, and I recently sat down with them to begin this process of sharing their voices with you through a new addition to FASTER News. In this inaugural column Danny and Mark share some valuable tips on equipment purchasing. In these economic times, it is critical to get all the value we can from our equipment investments. As you will see, they have a wealth of practical knowledge to share.
-- Joe Healey, CEO
Mark and Danny have some quick tips on how you can make those acquisition dollars go further. As we look at the economic crunch, Mark and Danny see a silver lining out there when it comes to your acquisitions…vendors are hungry for sales. This puts you in a prime negotiating position to put those vendors to work for you and get the most bang for your buck.
Require Transportation with Your Warranty: When warranty repair work needs to be done, especially on your heavy equipment, getting the asset to and from the factory authorized repair center can be a stumbling block that delays repairs and increases your down time. To offset this, require the warranty coverage to include the vendor being responsible for pickup and delivery of the asset to the authorized repair center. And leading in to our next tip, while you’re at it what about a loaner?
Require Loaner Coverage: For all of your assets, including your admin sedans and light vehicles, require loaner coverage for warranty repairs. Mark related “I’ve seen fire chiefs and other fleet customers get pretty irritated when their new admin vehicle is tied up for a month for warranty repairs and they’re out a vehicle in the meantime. If you can provide them with a loaner and tell them it’s even a freebee for your tax payers, having their asset out being repaired is an easier pill to swallow. Not only that, if you start getting loaner coverage in your contracts now while vendors are eager for sales, it becomes an established practice that can continue into the future.” Danny expanded that this is a timely practice to get going , “Now that everyone is right-sizing their fleets, there aren’t spare vehicles sitting around for use.” Requiring loaner coverage can help everyone feel that much better about right-sizing their fleet.
Get Support When Going Green: We all want to do our part for the environment and go green whenever we can. At the same time, the newer hybrid vehicles can pose a problem when it comes to maintaining them in-house. Danny recommends, “For those buying green, include in your contract that the vendor must provide X days of training for your technicians on the hybrid components to go along with any other training materials that are available.” But what if training simply isn’t available? Mark shared another option if training is unavailable, “As a fleet manager, I bought 80 hybrid vehicles. Training wasn’t available and our technicians were experienced with standard voltage systems, but not the higher hybrid versions. So we required an extended warranty that covered the preventative maintenance for all of the hybrid components.”
Require Energy Efficient Components: When you write up your specifications for vehicles with additional components (such as patrol cars, EMS, traffic and service vehicles, and solid waste vehicles), it’s critical to require components that are energy efficient and draw less power. If you reduce the draw on the alternator, you reduce the draw on your fuel tank as well. Specify more efficient options like LED lighting components, electronic sirens, low profile light bars for your EMS and patrol cars and so forth. While the impact each individual component makes may seem small, it adds up and every little bit helps. And with lower draw components, don’t forget about that alternator. Mark and Danny both say they’ve often seen new vehicles get specified with all the right energy efficient components, but the same old higher power alternator. With low draw components, you can go with a lower amp alternator that will put less strain on the motor and increase your fuel efficiency.
Buy Turnkey Vehicle Packages: Why not require the vendor to do your outfitting for you? According to Danny, “You can spend a great deal of time upfitting brand new vehicles after they arrive eating up technician time. Making your spec require a turnkey package means you can receive it, decal it and hand it over to your customer.” Mark added, “Not to mention with replacement vehicles while you’re spending time outfitting the new vehicle the old one is out there still incurring maintenance costs.”
Mark and Danny both had a lot more they were eager to share once we got them on a roll. They had so many great ideas we eventually had to throw on the brakes. They did manage to squeak in one final bonus tip: Request the vendor include tire monitoring systems in your new vehicles since tire pressure can have such an impact on your fuel efficiency. In any case, our readers can certainly look forward to more helpful tips from our fleet experts in the future!