Below you will find some of the most valuable key takeaways from the webinar. To watch the full session to get a more in-depth view, click here.
identifying the common challenges in Fleet Inventory Management
The first step toward effective solutions is to identify these challenges. These include inventory spend, cost of surplus inventory, poor planning for scheduled work, storeroom layout, and the cost of obsolescence, all of which are major roadblocks for companies. John also identified several alarming statistics about the importance of effective inventory management.
Since 2020, parts and labour costs on heavy-duty fleets have inflated by a staggering 40% on average, with 60% of Fleet Managers reporting these costs as their primary concern. Fortunately, with good management, managers can knock out about 25% of the cost and improve our fill rates by 5-10%.
The benefits of optimized Inventory Management
Maggie and John analysed all the benefits of inventory management optimization and provided insight into how streamlining helps the company overall.
On the financial side, optimizing can reduce the excess inventory and recovery costs while providing a full overview of your operational budget management. An interesting statistic was that 25% of inventory in most fleets is excess or obsolete. In this case, excess inventory is when a company has more items in stock than it needs, and outdated inventory is items that have been unused for an extended period. By identifying inactive and redundant parts in the catalogue immediately, fleet managers can return and resell them to a vendor, removing potential losses.
Another example was managing redundancy by streamlining the processes via real-time and computer systems instead of paper, you can improve accuracy more efficiently. Paper forms are cumbersome and lead to multiple errors and inefficiencies. To avoid this, implementing paperless verification through mobile devices allows for continuous, on-site stock-level verifications. This not only improves accuracy but also facilitates making efficient adjustments with ease and has proven to reduce inventory errors by up to 30%.
The importance of KPI dashboards
As the webinar continued, our speakers delved into the role KPI Dashboards play in Fleet Management. As any good manager will tell you, KPI dashboards are essential in boosting operational efficiency, improving strategy, and enabling efficient decision-making in one convenient place. For Fleet Inventory, we can see:
- How much excess stock
- How much surplus stock
- The fill rate
- What’s missing/Stocked out
- Potential supply chain interruptions
Whether you are purchasing or a shop supervisor, these visual dashboards are an incremental help for the entire hierarchy of your organization.
Maggie and John continued the webinar looking at storeroom layout and organization as one of the biggest challenges to overcome. Storerooms can easily become cluttered and unlisted, making it difficult to find anything and have an excess in stock, resulting in organizations wasting money on extra spending of parts.
Before wrapping up the webinar, our speakers demonstrated examples of AMCS helping customers resolve this problem using the software, whether searching and tagging parts via maintenance/VMRS codes, organizing heavy equipment, or disposing of obsolete parts. Finally, right before our session ended, John and Maggie answered several questions from the audience which included:
- “How frequent should their counts be?”
- “What type of report do customers pull to see what parts are needed for the upcoming Preventative Maintenance service?”
Fleet Inventory Management explained
With AMCS Fleet Maintenance software, you can leverage advanced features to efficiently manage your inventory. You can set minimum and maximum levels, as well as reorder points for each part, even adjusting these levels monthly for parts with seasonal demand. This ensures that parts are ordered only when necessary, maintaining optimal inventory levels. The software’s automated reordering capabilities help prevent stockouts and ensure timely ordering, reducing costs associated with overbuying and excess inventory.
Another effective strategy for addressing supply chain, cost, and stocking challenges is to stock parts strategically within geographic regions. AMCS Fleet Maintenance provides visibility of all parts across various sites and storerooms, allowing you to stock expensive parts like turbochargers regionally rather than at each site. This approach ensures you have the necessary inventory while minimizing carrying costs and the risk of obsolescence. The system also supports recording, tracking, costing, cycle counting, and automatic reordering, ensuring you always have the right number of parts on hand. Barcoding and QR codes enable real-time tracking of parts usage and inventory levels, reducing errors and avoiding overbuying, which can lead to higher costs.
benefits of AMCS Fleet Inventory Management
- Up to 30% decrease in parts/ inventory costs
- Reduce on-hand quantities by up to 30%
- Identify non-used/excess and obsolete parts to save 10%
- Reduce vehicle downtime due to out-of-stock problems
- Comparison shop for cost reduction by 3-5%
- Make physical inventory count easier
- Stop duplicate orders by knowing where to find existing parts
- Stop excess stock on hand with parts cross-referencing
- Track and control fuel, oil, and other fluids as inventory items
If you’re not using a fleet maintenance software solution, you’re working too hard, spending too much, and falling behind the competition. As we’ve previously established in our research, between 30% and 35% of the average fleet’s maintenance costs are spent on inventory management.
You can discover more about how AMCS Fleet Maintenance Software transforms these diverse industries by reading our success stories today!
find out more about Fleet Maintenance
To listen back in full, sign up to learn more from this 50-minute webinar. You can also learn more about our Fleet Maintenance software by visiting our website or booking a demo today.