What is ARI’s strategy with respect to fleet services?
ARI’s global strategy, which filters down through all the pillars of our organization, involves a strong commitment to investment in our organization, in our people, and in technology with a focus on creating value for our customers: understanding their business, working closely with them to understand what the challenges are within their core business product(s) and helping them to manage their fleet in support of achieving their objectives. Our strength also comes in the customization and flexibility of our programs for complex fleets. Everything that we offer to our customers is customizable. We go to great lengths to understand their business and challenges in order to make sure everything we do to assist them in managing their fleet day-in and day-out is aligned with their corporate strategies.
Bring us up to date on what’s new in fleet management.
Over the last three or four years, through the economic downturn, many customers extended the life of their fleet vehicles. They didn’t replace vehicles at the same pace or may not have replaced vehicles at all. These customers are now looking for optimal replacement times and ways to control the cost of maintenance. Customers who are replacing vehicles are making great use of a lot of new technology that is now available. From emissions technology to electronic technology and telematics, fleet managers are finding innovative ways to more closely track their vehicles and manage their fuel consumption. The experts in our call center are managing both scenarios: older vehicles that need more work with strict cost controls and newer vehicles with newer technologies and requirements. At the end of the day, it is about helping customers keep vehicles on the road while managing their fleet at the lowest possible cost.
What is a best in class for fleet maintenance?
It is amazing to me how many fleet managers don’t properly maintain their vehicles, which involves sound lifecycle analysis and pinpointing optimal times to replace vehicles. Extending replacement cycles is a short-term gain for long-term pain. If a vehicle is not properly maintained – particularly the more complex vehicles, the operating costs later in life become much, much greater. Best-in-class for fleet maintenance means vehicles are both run well while in service, and they are properly cycled when operating costs begin exceeding the cost of new vehicles.
Best-in-class also pertains to a proper mix of vehicles spec’ed with the core need of the vehicles in mind. Fleets will experience higher operating costs and/or see an effect on their core business delivery if they are not running the right vehicles.
Running the right vehicles, properly maintaining them and replacing them at the optimal time will produce best-in-class fleet operations.
What is ARI’s approach to asset management?
Vehicle bodies for both cars and trucks are changing, often in an effort to increase safety and meet federal mileage requirements. The manufacturers’ increased use of composite materials has improved the vehicles relative to this, but damage repairs have become a lot more expensive. To help clients manage this kind of accident costs, ARI looks at both reactive and preventative cost saving opportunities. First, when vocational vehicles leave a shop or garage and we know they are going back into the field to be run hard, they may not need to look beautiful – they primarily need to function as the tools they were designed to be. In these cases, managing the costs appropriately and making sure the vehicles are safe are our priorities. Proactively, we also employ training methods to avoid the accident from the beginning. This involves data analysis, trending, risk assessment and driver behavior training.
What are some of the techniques that you use to manage the driver?
The more data we can gather relative to driver behavior, the more trending and exceptions that we can identify. Typically, drivers who adhere to their company policy show consistent compliance across the board. On the other hand, drivers don’t typically show non-compliant behavior in just one area; bad tendencies will pop up in a number of areas. Our teams will look for exceptions in the data. If they spot problems with a driver and preventative maintenance, for example, they’ll also check for fueling exceptions and accidents as well. Newer technologies like telematics help ARI and fleet managers more closely manage and monitor other driver behavior such as speeding, hard stops, distracted driving and other types of unsafe activity. Looking at the driver’s behavior and identifying trends and proactively reaching out to the fleet manager to help change that behavior is how fleets get ahead of the curve opposed to just managing the accident when it happens.
Are telematics being adopted by more fleets? Is that kind of an explosion now?
Almost all of our clients are working with telematics, but I don’t think the new technology has become fully integrated. I think there are a couple of barriers to full global acceptance of telematics. One is cost; it is still relatively expensive. Business costs are being closely scrutinized while the economy is still somewhat questionable. Secondly, the telematics industry is very fragmented with no real standardization yet. People are afraid of the VCR/beta scenario. They don’t want to buy beta and then find out the next year that VCR was really the way to go. The last barrier is the volume of data available. It still takes some type of action on the part of the fleet or somebody within the organization to look at and manage all that data. Certainly, telematics companies and fleet management companies can provide assistance, but the organization has a significant role in managing the driver behavior. I think fleet managers are still looking for the case study and the ROI model that says clearly this will produce a return on investment.
Are they mostly using telematics for route planning?
Some fleets are using telematics for route planning, but many have identified other core issues that they want to address. For some fleets it is fuel. For some it is logistics: making sure they are optimizing delivery of their product or people. For others it is safety/accidents. Identifying a specific area to manage using telematics makes it a little easier to track and monitor the results. The fleets that have a well-defined strategy around implemented telematics are better at selecting the right partner and are better at getting the return.
Other than fuel prices, what are the chief concerns that fleets are bringing to you?
We spend a lot of time ensuring clients have the right vehicle. Vehicle selection has a great impact on the amount of money spent on operating cost throughout the vehicle lifecycle, from upfront costs and optimal use of the vehicle to ultimately the return at the backend.
There are a lot more regulations today that are more strictly enforced and there are probably more coming in the future. Government entities are driving more costs and fee structures to our customer base, such as tolls and inspections, because they are looking to capitalize on revenue. Many fleets are not well educated or prepared to manage this, so they come to companies like us quite often to help.
How do you help clients manage their tolls?
We help clients identify the vehicles that will be operating in areas where there are toll authorities. We can register the vehicles and manage the transponders if necessary, and it all flows through us seamlessly. We help fleets avoid cash outlay, avoid the fines and avoid the administration expense.
Let’s talk about CSA compliance.
Many fleets are aware or at least partially aware of what they are supposed to be doing to be CSA compliant, but sometimes they don’t have all of the controls in place to know for sure. We work with our customers to help them understand their score. If they have some vulnerability, we help put strategies in place for them to be more compliant. Most government entities are looking for fleets to be responsible. It is hard to be perfect. They understand there are a lot of moving parts but those that are doing nothing are going to be at the most risk. We work with our customers on an incremental basis to address what is required and to get them in a position so that should they have an issue, they can show the agencies involved that they are responsible citizens and doing everything reasonable to maintain compliance.
What is the secret to your personal success?
I would say simply that I am inquisitive. I always like to learn new things, and I am not afraid of change. My family comes from a bunch of dairy farmers, so a little hard work in my family is not a bad thing. I was taught at a very young age that you get up early, you work late and at the end of the day you feel good about what you accomplished. I don’t know that I am smarter than anybody else, but I don’t know anybody that works harder than I do.
Who have been your mentors?
I think first and foremost my parents were great mentors for me. I have been with ARI most of my career, and there have been a lot of mentors for me in our organization. Our owners, the Holman family, are people that I think anybody could benefit by emulating; they are good role models and mentors. Bosses over the years that I had include Jack Kolb, Ken Baittinger, and Frank Cardile; there have been a lot of great people. I have been very fortunate to have good support and good teaching around me
BIO
Bob White, Senior Vice President of Client and Fleet Services, offers leadership to ARI’s Client Relations, Fleet Management, Call Centers and Remarketing departments. Since joining ARI in 1989, Bob was manager for three operations areas before being promoted to director in 1999 and vice president of operations in 2005. He has been involved in such ARI developments as Intellifleet®, Intellipay, Fleet Stats®, Technical Resource Center design, and TruckServe®. Bob’s bachelor’s degree in business administration/management comes from Albright College.