May 12, 2014
Editor's Analysis & Top Industry News


Sutton_Janice How to Train Your Drivers

We’ve man­aged our fleet man­age­ment com­pa­nies, nego­ti­at­ing for the best financ­ing and ser­vices; our OEMs, search­ing for the best ‘deal’ in return for an order com­mit­ment; and, more recently, we have turned our atten­tion to man­ag­ing our dri­vers. We know that when your dri­ver oper­ates the vehi­cle prop­erly, the cost sav­ings become imme­di­ately apparent.

If dri­ver behav­ior is on your worry list, check out NAFA’s upcom­ing webi­nar, “Eco­driv­ing and Your Fleet” - May 27, 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m, EDT. NAFA says, “‘Eco­driv­ing’ refers to a set of dri­ving behav­iors and tech­niques that improve fuel econ­omy, save money, reduce green­house gas emis­sions, pro­mote safe dri­ving, and reduce wear-and-tear on vehi­cles. Many of the tech­niques are com­mon sense prac­tices, but sig­nif­i­cant improve­ment in the above areas is achieved when imple­mented col­lec­tively, on a con­sis­tent basis, and with proper train­ing and reinforcement.”

Drive Safety,

Jan­ice Sut­ton
Exec­u­tive Editor


Mark Petersen AFLA Mid-Year Forum: It Was a Very Good Day!

By Mark Petersen, AFLA Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee Chair

The Auto­mo­tive Fleet & Leas­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (AFLA) held its inau­gural Mid-Year Forum on May 1st at The Enter­prise Cen­ter at Burling­ton County Col­lege in Mount Lau­rel, NJ, a Philadel­phia sub­urb. This one-day event was orga­nized by the AFLA Edu­ca­tion Com­mit­tee as part of an ongo­ing ini­tia­tive to add edu­ca­tional value for AFLA members.

Scott Pat­tullo, Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Sales, Wheels, kicked off the day lead­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion and think tank dis­cus­sion on “Fleet from 10,000 Feet: Where We’ve Been, Where We Are and Where We’re Going.” Com­bin­ing his years of expe­ri­ence in the indus­try with a sense of humor, Scott’s pre­sen­ta­tion explored how the fleet indus­try has changed and the dif­fi­cul­ties that we can expect to face in the com­ing months and years.

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VIDEO: A Proven Solution to Help Reduce Accidents

Dri­ver­Care Risk Man­ager from The CEI Group has always been a proven solu­tion to help reduce acci­dents. But with ver­sion 5.0 they’ve upped their game by incor­po­rat­ing great cus­tomer feed­back to help drive even more safety to par­tic­i­pat­ing fleets.

VIDEO: Join Us in Orlando
NAFA-Intl
  NAFA’s International Fleet Academy 2014
 

This 3-day con­fer­ence in Orlando this July offers NAFA Mem­bers, NAFA Affil­i­ates, and fleet pro­fes­sion­als alike com­pre­hen­sive dis­cus­sion and train­ing on today’s global fleet con­cerns. Watch the video to learn more.


Click here to watch video
VIDEO: Smart Telematics
donat-rob
  More Than a Few Dots on a Map
 

In nearly 10 years of evo­lu­tion, GPS Insight has grown to suc­cess­fully serve and accom­mo­date fleets as large as 4,000 or 5,000 vehi­cles — includ­ing all the reports, alerts, admin­is­tra­tion and map­ping those fleets need to run as safely and effi­ciently as possible.


Click here to read more



The Fleet Spot


Scott Burrows Scott Burrows, Keynote Speaker at AFLA Conference

Scott Bur­rows is an expert on trans­for­ma­tional change and uses his inspi­ra­tional life story to encour­age every­one to stand up to their chal­lenges. He will speak on his expe­ri­ences at the upcom­ing upcom­ing annual con­fer­ence of the Auto­mo­tive Fleet and Leas­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (AFLA), Sep­tem­ber 7–10, 2014, at the M Resort & Spa Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.

Dur­ing the AFLA con­fer­ence, Bur­rows will use his prin­ci­ples of vision, mind­set, and grit to dis­play how cutting-edge lead­er­ship strate­gies will ben­e­fit your entire company.

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Weldon Long Weldon Long, Keynote Speaker at AFLA Conference

Wel­don Long, suc­cess­ful entre­pre­neur, sales expert, and New York Times best-selling author, has been selected as a keynote speaker for the upcom­ing annual con­fer­ence of the Auto­mo­tive Fleet and Leas­ing Asso­ci­a­tion (AFLA), Sep­tem­ber 7–10, 2014, at the M Resort & Spa Casino in Las Vegas, Nev.

Long has helped hun­dreds of com­pa­nies improve their sales results, but it hasn’t always been easy.

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Frank Memolo Frank Memolo Joins PARS as NE Regional Sales Manager

Frank Mem­olo has joined PARS, Pro­fes­sional Auto­mo­tive Relo­ca­tion Ser­vices, Inc., as North­east Regional Sales Man­ager. Mem­olo will sup­port com­pa­nies and any orga­ni­za­tion requir­ing vehi­cle trans­porta­tion and logis­tics ser­vices in the Mid-Atlantic and New Eng­land areas.

Pre­vi­ously, Mem­olo was Fleet Man­ager for Pana­sonic Cor­po­ra­tion of North Amer­ica where he worked for 28 years. He was respon­si­ble for their 850+ vehi­cles located in the U.S.

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Fleet Electrification  

By Mike Sheldrick, Senior Edi­tor, Fleet Man­age­ment Weekly

Fresh from his accept­ing the Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency’s 2014 Clean Air Excel­lence Award for inno­v­a­tive pro­grams on behalf of Florida Power & Light Co., we caught up with Claude Mas­ters, CAFM, NAFA Pres­i­dent and FPL’s Man­ager of Vehi­cle Acqui­si­tion and Fuel. We found that Claude’s long­time enthu­si­asm for the poten­tial of elec­tric vehi­cles to save energy and con­tribute to our energy inde­pen­dence remains undimmed — in fact, even brighter.

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ACT Expo 2014  

By Jon LeSage, Edi­tor, Green Auto Market

Alter­na­tive, clean trans­porta­tion appears to be gain­ing sup­port – as evi­denced last week dur­ing ACT Expo 2014 at the Long Beach, Calif., con­ven­tion cen­ter. Now in its fourth year since incep­tion, the conference’s atten­dance was up – per­haps as many as 4,000 atten­dees, mak­ing it the largest event of its type in the US and per­haps the world. ACT Expo keynote speak­ers, work­shops, ride and drive, and an expanded exhibit hall, fea­tured the lat­est in alter­na­tive fuel vehi­cle tech­nol­ogy, the reg­u­la­tory envi­ron­ment, and cost-benefit analy­sis by fleets.

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Fleet Trends & Issues


maintenanceAnnual GE Capital Fleet Study Finds 4% Drop in Fleet Car Maintenance Costs

GE Cap­i­tal Fleet Ser­vices announced the results of its 19th annual fleet pas­sen­ger car main­te­nance study, which found that over­all fleet car main­te­nance costs decreased by four per­cent in 2013 as com­pared to 2012. Main­te­nance costs include unsched­uled repair ser­vices, pre­ven­ta­tive main­te­nance, tires and replace­ment rentals.

The study ana­lyzed actual main­te­nance expenses incurred by nearly 37,000 pas­sen­ger cars from Jan­u­ary 1 to Decem­ber 31, 2013. Research found monthly pre­ven­tive main­te­nance expenses decreased 14 per­cent in 2013 and aver­age vehi­cle main­te­nance costs decreased from $50.47 to $48.36 per vehi­cle per month.

READ MORE and find out about the key factors. 

NAFA OEM panelOEMs See Demand for Trucks and Vans in Fleet Sales

NAFA Pres­i­dent Claude Mas­ters mod­er­ated the OEM panel at the NAFA Insti­tute & Expo, which took place April 8–11 at the Min­neapo­lis Con­ven­tion Cen­ter. The panel dis­cus­sion included fleet rep­re­sen­ta­tives from truck and car man­u­fac­tur­ers and kicked off the sec­ond day of ses­sions at the conference.

“When we look at the com­mer­cial seg­ment, we sep­a­rate cars and util­i­ties from trucks and vans,” said Fritz Ahadi, gen­eral man­ager for com­mer­cial and gov­ern­ment fleet oper­a­tions for Ford Motor Co. “Cars and util­i­ties are steady, but there is a lot of demand for trucks and vans.”

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Webb_Tom_ManheimWholesale Still Strong Thanks to Dealer Demand

Tom Webb Chief Econ­o­mist Man­heim Con­sult­ing Whole­sale prices are remain­ing strong – up for fourth con­sec­u­tive month in April. The Man­heim Used Vehi­cle Value Index reached 124.9, a 4.8% increase from a year ago. While the mar­ket has been care­fully watch­ing for declin­ing used vehi­cle val­ues from surg­ing sup­ply, that time hasn’t arrived yet. Strong […]

Chevy City ExpressChevrolet City Express Fills Microvan Need

The Chevro­let City Express was intro­duced at the Chicago auto show in Feb­ru­ary and is sched­uled to arrive at deal­er­ships this fall. The City Express gives Gen­eral Motors a vehi­cle to com­pete in a class that also includes mod­els like the Nis­san NV200 and the Ford Tran­sit Connect.

The Chevy van is essen­tially a Nis­san NV200. Both are built on a Nis­san front-wheel-drive plat­form in Cuer­navaca, Mex­ico. Both offer 122.7 cubic feet of cargo space and use a 131-horsepower 2-liter 4-cylinder engine with a con­tin­u­ously vari­able auto­matic trans­mis­sion. They even share a 5.8-inch dash­board touch screen.

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Fleet Management Case Study  

ARI has pub­lished a util­ity fleet man­age­ment case study detail­ing how suc­cess­ful sup­ply chain process improve­ments saved $378,000 for the reg­u­lated energy com­pany NiSource.

In order for NiSource to deliver nat­ural gas and elec­tric­ity to nearly four mil­lion cus­tomers, the com­pany pri­or­i­tizes processes to ensure the new vehi­cles that trans­port its skilled crews and spe­cial­ized tools are acquired on time and are road ready.

NiSource aligned each step of its acqui­si­tion process with the tools avail­able in the advanced, award-winning ARI insights® sys­tem to com­pletely auto­mate its order requests and approvals.

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Fleet Telematics Solutions  

Are you aware of how valu­able dri­ver reten­tion is to your busi­ness? Unfor­tu­nately, high dri­ver turnover is a com­mon chal­lenge to deal with across the fleet indus­try and can have dam­ag­ing affects to your busi­ness that you may not even real­ize. Although keep­ing a pool of new can­di­dates may seem like a viable solu­tion, hir­ing and train­ing new employ­ees takes time away from man­age­ment that could be spent more pro­duc­tively. Con­stantly hav­ing new dri­vers on the road can lead to more acci­dents, less effi­ciency, and lower cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion. To main­tain dri­ver reten­tion, uti­lize a GPS fleet track­ing plat­form, like GPS Insight, to help retain qual­ity dri­vers and keep your fleet as pro­duc­tive as pos­si­ble.  READ MORE

 
Driving the Global Fleet  
Orlando, Florida

Merg­ers and acqui­si­tions, along with “going global”, are com­mon busi­ness and finan­cial prac­tices in today’s econ­omy, leav­ing many orga­ni­za­tions’ employ­ees to be expected to quickly pick up new skills and respon­si­bil­i­ties in a com­plex envi­ron­ment of vary­ing cul­tures and processes. NAFA’s fourth Annual Inter­na­tional Fleet Acad­emy (IFA) offers cost-saving strate­gies and valu­able lessons to help the fleet pro­fes­sional who man­ages their fleet of vehi­cles across nations and cul­tures. The con­fer­ence will be held July 14 – 16 in Orlando, Florida.

“As indus­tries con­tinue to grow beyond their bor­ders, and merge with other com­pa­nies around the globe, fleet pro­fes­sion­als can quickly find they need spe­cial­ized train­ing,” said NAFA’s Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer, Phillip E. Russo, CAE.

Russo added, “Whether you are build­ing the infra­struc­ture for a global fleet, are mov­ing from a tra­di­tional fleet back­ground to a global dynamic, or are an expe­ri­enced pro­fes­sional with a com­plex fleet that spans across numer­ous nations and cul­tures, NAFA’s Inter­na­tional Fleet Acad­emy will ben­e­fit you!”

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Fleet Management Resources 
AmeriFleet
Offering a nationwide vehicle delivery and relocation service; serving the corporate and commercial fleet industry.
LeasePlan
LeasePlan is the world's leading high-touch service provider for vehicle leasing and fleet management.
PHH
Customizing global fleet management to achieve your goals.
ARI
Driven fleet professionals. Driving results.
NAFA
NAFA is the association for the diverse vehicle fleet management profession regardless of organizational type, geographic location, or fleet composition.
The CEI Group Inc.
North America's largest accident management and fleet driver safety company.
GPS Insight
GPS Insight offers GPS tracking solutions to meet your organization's unique requirements and challenges.
PARS
PARS' mission is to provide you with high-quality service at competitive prices for all of your transportation needs.