If your field service organization uses fleet vehicles to distribute products, make other deliveries, or get technicians to appointments, at one point or another, you’ve probably wondered how you can manage your fleet more effectively. After all, monitoring an entire fleet of vehicles and all the drivers that operate them can be an enormous management undertaking. And yet, conglomerates like Amazon are able to manage massive fleets with such ease — how do they do it?
The answer is fleet management solutions. Or, more specifically, work order management through field service management software. With work order management of this nature, the need for endless spreadsheets and documents to keep track of where everything is are a thing of the past. With fleet vehicle work order management software, you’ll always know which vehicles need your attention, which need simple attention like tire rotations, and which need more serious maintenance to ensure the best overall engine health. Field service management software keeps every aspect of your operation organized, so you never fall behind.
The Purpose of Work Order Management For Fleets
In 2017, Gartner reported that fleet management was a $16 billion market. Clearly, then, there is a significant benefit to using work order management for fleets. Work order management is the organization and administration that coordinates your field service company’s vehicles.
The end goal is for organizations to have control over the full lifecycle of their fleets. This allows for increased efficiency and productivity, lower costs and risks, total compliance with regulations, and overall fleet improvement.
Work order management entails a variety of tasks, including tracking:
- Vehicles in the field and back at the yard
- The mechanical needs of each vehicle to ensure all are up-to-date with maintenance
- Drivers and driver behaviors to ensure the highest degree of safety on the road
Using field service management software, you will have an eye on all of these metrics and more. This allows you to be able to easily manage time, cost, performance, and much more.
Overall, FSM software allows your organization to maintain its competitive edge, an imperative for any successful field service operation!
The Benefits of Work Order Management Through FSM Software
While you can clearly see the overall benefits of work order management creation and organization through field service management software, a few more specific examples of the advantages it offers may help you decide to finally pull the trigger.
Let’s take a look at the benefits you can leverage for your field service organization by using FSM software for work order management on a day-to-day basis.
Fuel Management
Fuel can be an enormous expense in fleet-based business operations. And, because fuel prices fluctuate from one day to the next, there’s little you can do to control how much you will spend on it from one week to the next. However, by using field service management tools specifically to manage fuel consumption, you w
ill finally have the power to reduce what you spend on this particular resource.
This is possible because the software provides fleet managers with all the information they need to decide when and where to purchase fuel. This gives you and your drivers the ability to choose the fuel that is the most cost-effective for your fleet. Effectively, FSM software allows managers to clearly evaluate the options available to drivers in the field so they can make the best choice in fuel for their field service organization.
Furthermore, work order management solutions equipped with telematics can keep track of driver behavior and how it affects fuel consumption. By using telematics, you can ensure your drivers take the most fuel-efficient routes and don’t engage in hard driving behaviors, which will also save on fuel costs for your fleet.
Driver Safety
The best FSM software will ensure that you can keep your drivers safe. With dual-facing and AI-powered dash cams, GPS fleet tracking, and driver bonuses that incentivize safe driving, your drivers will learn that safe driving practices benefit their employer while also allowing them to reap the rewards as well.
And, should anything bad happen on the road, with field service management software in place, you’ll know about it immediately, instead of hours later. This means you can take action to help your drivers and technicians right away, ensuring they’re safe much faster than you would without the real-time assistance of FSM software.
Maintenance
Work order management through FSM software also ensures that maintenance on vehicles is done in a timely fashion. In fact, you will be alerted instantly by way of a smart device notification when maintenance is required.
This ensures that no mechanical issues occur when drivers are on the road or alone in the field. It also means you can plan and schedule jobs around your maintenance schedule, resulting in increased efficiency and productivity for your entire operation.
No More Information Overloads
Managing fleets can be a laborious and overwhelming task — because it requires that you monitor and manage all kinds of information coming at you from all directions.
By conducting work order management through FSM software, all the information you need will be presented to you in a digestible manner. Every piece of data you need will be in one place rather than scattered across your desk in disparate stacks of paper. This allows you to have a clear mind to make the best decisions possible, and makes finding the information you need a quick and easy process.
Ensuring Compliance
Compliance with regulatory measures is of utmost importance. If you don’t have updated evidence of your company’s compliance, your organization could get into a lot of trouble. With FSM software, you can ensure that you’re up to date with all compliance measures. What’s more, field service management software allows you to document what you have done to maintain compliance to-date, and finding the compliance documents you need is a breeze.
This means you’ll have complete information on hand for every vehicle in your fleet, proving that you meet all regulatory requirements. If you are ever faced with an audit, or if there is an investigation into an accident involving a vehicle in your fleet, all your bases will be covered.
Other Benefits of Field Service Management Software
Here’s a short list of additional FSM software benefits to help you understand the deeper advantages for your field service-based business, regardless of how big or small your operation is:
- Loads of administrative tasks, including invoicing, dispatching, routing, and rerouting drivers, can all be automated through FSM software
- FSM software gives you insights that can assist you with budgeting, sustainability, driver safety training programs, and more
- Most FSM software comes with apps for your drivers’ phones or other smart devices, so you can keep track of your assets, fleet vehicles, and their operators no matter where they are in the field or the yard
- FSM software simplifies many of your other existing processes, including driver scheduling, appointment scheduling, and customer appointment cancelations
Work Order Management With Azuga’s FSM Software
There’s no disputing that work order management through FSM software improves your fleet-based businesses’ efficiency and safety. And, using such software also ensures that your drivers stay safer too.
While it may seem that FSM software is challenging to implement at first glance, it doesn’t have to be! Azuga brings your field service operation everything from GPS fleet tracking to dual-facing dashcams and from field management software to complete asset tracking for a complete end-to-end fleet management experience.
Our mobile app also offers differing views for managers and drivers to ensure efficiency from both sides of your operation. Get started today with Azuga’s GPS fleet service management software!
