It’s a constant balancing act — working multiple sites — efficiently and economically. One place where inefficiency has a measurable impact directly to the bottom line is fuel delivery. You’ve probably experienced some of these frustrations:
- Equipment operators and fuel truck drivers who can’t seem to find each other.
- Time wasted as delivery trucks touch bases with every unit on site, even the full ones
- Dispatch errors
- Unexpected shortages
- Hard-to-find assets
- Return trips
When the process doesn’t run smoothly, costs escalate and productivity suffers.
Now there’s an easy way for VisionLink users to optimize fuel delivery. It’s one of the new features of Unified Fleet, a VisionLink application that lets you manage your assets—no matter what the brand—with a PC or mobile device.
Our engineers call this feature “parametric reporting.” Google the term if you’d like, but all you really need to know is this: As a VisionLink user, you set the parameters for notifications. In the past, we made those decisions for you, but now you’ve got greater flexibility to choose the limits that make the most sense for your fleet and worksite. You may want to know when any asset’s fuel level drops below 25% full. Maybe 30% is a better option or 15% is right for you. The point is it’s your choice. Customized fuel notifications combined with near real-time data about machine location give you what you need to plan and manage fuel delivery. It’s easy to engage dispatchers, fuel truck drivers and others in the process too as Unified Fleet can be enabled on their mobile devices to further streamline efficiency.
Fueling your fleet may be costing you more than you think.
What’s the impact of inefficient fuel delivery? Here are some of the extra costs we’ve see across worksites:
- Fuel cost for the delivery truck
- Emissions
- Transportation
- Labor
- Maintenance on delivery truck
- Insurance
- Lost production (whether machines run out of fuel unexpectedly or are stopped for refueling prematurely)
Take a minute to jot down a few ways you could be saving time and money if fuel delivery was accurate and timely every time.
Craig E. Cutting is a construction technology applications consultant with Caterpillar Inc.
