If you’re in the shipping business, you know that time is money. Every late shipment is not only money that you’re losing, but a bit of your reputation being lost in a way that can’t easily be regained. If your goal is to reduce your late shipments whenever possible, you’ll want to follow these tips to make your shipping fleet more efficient.
Streamline Your Paperwork
Long before you start looking at your fleet, you need to start looking at how you keep track of everything. Your paperwork processes may well be holding things up at home, so look at your processes to figure out where they can be streamlined. It might be wise to switch over to an electronic fleet management system so that everyone on your team can easily submit, upload, and read their relevant documents all in one place.
Keep Up With Maintenance
You already know that a vehicle that is out of service is going to slow you down. The best way to get around this problem is to make sure that you’re taking care of preventative maintenance properly. Make sure that every vehicle in your fleet is up to date on its basic maintenance and that you’re fixing problems as soon as they are identified.
Keeping up with maintenance will become much easier if you don’t have to order every part only after the old piece has broken down. It’s a good idea to keep some basic parts on hand to prepare for an older part breaking down or getting damaged. Order tires, engine parts, Scania left hand headlamps, and right hand headlamps ahead of time so you can get your trucks back on the road.
Use Telematic Technology
Telematics is one of the most important fields of technology with which shipping company operators should be familiar. This technology, along with GPS tracking, will help you to get a better idea of where your drivers are, how they are driving, and what conditions they are up against. You can use the data you gather from these devices to help plot more efficient routes and to help your drivers become more efficient.
Audit Regularly
Finally, make sure that you’re constantly auditing your processes. Don’t let things go because they’re working for now. Spot the moments of inefficiency and fix them as soon as you can. Think of this like preventative maintenance for your business—if you can stop a driver’s tendency to leave five minutes late every day now, that actually will allow you to stop your entire fleet from leaving late on a regular basis in the future.
Keeping your fleet moving efficiently is a matter of having the right data and the right attitudes at the right time. Make it as easy as possible for your drivers to succeed by providing training and support, especially when you’re looking for ways to increase efficiency. The more emphasis you put on this as part of your business, the better your results will become.