Running and managing a vehicle fleet with a mobile workforce for a small business is hard work but essential, even in normal times.
Donald Rumsfeld stated:
“There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.”
He could have been talking about managing a fleet of vehicles and a mobile workforce.
Today it’s all about knowing what’s happened, what’s happening and looking ahead. Sound familiar?
Turning unknowns into facts.
Do you have a paper based system to manage vehicle activity, start & finish times, mileage, time at site, etc?
Are you recording drivers hand written forms onto spreadsheets to manage drivers hours, pay overtime, plan vehicle maintenance and record activity on sites?
For day to day control do you guess where the drivers are or try to call them to check on progress?
Sounds like a lot of time and hard work. Possibility even guesswork?
Having knowledge and facts on what happened allows you to review and learn from “yesterday”, manage “today” and plan for “tomorrow”.