Age analysis identifies fleet winners, says Mycompanyfleet

New functionality from software solutions provider, Mycompanyfleet, allows fleet managers to review vehicles on the fleet against their age profiles, replacement policy and whole life costs to identify the winners and losers.

At a time when many companies are looking to reduce acquisition costs by keeping their vehicles for longer, the new functionality is extremely timely and shows whether extending from three to four years, for example, is cost effective.

Traditional replacement cycles within the fleet market are around three years/60,000 miles but, since the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent economic slowdown, many fleet operators have taken the decision to run their vehicles for longer periods in a bid to reduce costs.

Four or even five year fleet replacement cycles are now not uncommon. But measuring how cost effective they are, and whether extending for an extra year or two really does save money once increased servicing and maintenance costs are taken into account, is a challenge for many fleets.

Some models may be better being de-fleeted after three years, due to prohibitive additional servicing and maintenance costs, while others may be more cost effective to take into a fourth year, dependent on their whole life costs over time and their age profile.

These are some of the issues that Mycompanyfleet, the automotive division of HR software supplier, NorthgateArinso, has sought to help fleet managers address with its new functionality, which is available through the dashboards inherent within its main fleet software systems, FleetHR and FleetAcumen.

Paul Jackson, Product Development Manager at Mycompanyfleet said: “We have received feedback from many fleet operators that finding the ideal length of time to keep a vehicle on the fleet is a problem that is still causing them considerable anxiety, especially as cost-cutting pressures continue to grow.

“The powerful dashboards we have developed within our fleet software systems allow fleet managers to view the total cost of ownership year on year for individual models on the fleet.
These can also be compared against the replacement lease or purchase costs as well as profiling how downtime is increased as the vehicle gets older.

“In this way, the fleet manager can quickly see which models are best being de-fleeted after three years and which are more cost effective to keep on for a further year or two,” he said.

Once the fleet manager has identified the most cost effective vehicles and the optimum replacement cycles for them, he or she can then start to re-shape fleet policy lists to accommodate more of the most cost-effective models.

“This functionality is essential for fleet planning  and designing the fleet policy list to ensure the optimum mix of the most cost effective models,” added Paul Jackson.

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