Best practices for best performance
In a few generations, fleet operations have been completely transformed. A fundamental shift in how fleets work today is still taking place, triggered by:
- Rising costs
- Technological innovation
- Asset optimization
- Environmental sustainability
- Transparency
- Globalization
Each presents challenge and opportunity. Companies that equip their fleets against the negative impact of change are better positioned for success in today’s global marketplace.
ARI helps companies keep vehicles on the road by applying fleet management best practices. We look for ways to do things better, smarter and faster, streamline processes and generate savings.
Our best practices work with our service programs to solve the problems that matter most to customers during a fleet’s lifecycle. This approach succeeds in every industry, covers the full spectrum of fleet operations and costs, and makes significant improvements in fleet efficiency and TCO. ARI’s best practices today are helping many customers upgrade:
Asset Management
- Fleet policy
- Resource allocation
- Vehicle selection/acquisition
- Vehicle location/usage efficiency
- Vehicle safety management
- Lifecycle cost analysis
- Vehicle replacement optimization
- Financing alternatives
- Supply chain management
- Remarketing alternatives
Cost Management
- Licensing and legalization
- Maintenance management
- Accident management/driver safety
- Risk management
- Fuel purchasing, usage and management
- Systems management
Information Technology
- Systems for collecting, analyzing and capitalizing on business intelligence
Best practices are breakthrough techniques that go beyond the original application to give different industries new insight and solutions. This is how it works in fleet management, too.
ARI often goes beyond to mastermind even better practices. For clients, the savings created by ARI fleet solutions, with value added by best practices, translates into lower cost of fleet operation, greater ROI and a successful, fully-optimized fleet program.
ARI ingenuity creates an industry standard
Everyone has seen the red-and-white reflective tape on the back of walk-in vans. Hardly anyone knows that it’s an ARI innovation developed for a client that has saved the industry millions of dollars.
Years ago, drilled plastic body markers, approved by the Department of Transportation (DOT), was “state of the art” for reflectors. Unfortunately, they kept falling off. During an inspection of our client's walk-in vans, our team observed that standard reflective tape had exactly the same effect as plastic reflectors, but the tape was far more durable and cost a lot less. To surpass the current best practice, we advised our client to petition DOT for approval of reflective tape as a replacement for plastic reflectors, and the rest is history.
It's about more than knowing where to look
From our best practices approach, ARI has considerable experience helping companies keep fleets operating at peak efficiency. We created significant value for a railroad company by conducting a comprehensive acquisition-to-remarketing review and using process and savings opportunities we uncovered in the lifecycle to our client’s advantage. In vehicle specification—ordering, for example—our team compiled volumes of data that determined a new vehicle's net-effective cost, including depreciation, interest expense, management fees, anticipated maintenance cost, anticipated downtime and fuel expenses. Equipped with this information (the client had never before approached acquisition decision-making this way) both parties worked together to customize highly effective and cost-effective fleet specifications. Once the spec was set, we placed the order in a timely way and saved the client $101,451 on delivery and interest charges.