Posts Tagged ‘fuel planning’
By Glen Sokolis - December 14th, 2009
On the fifth day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Five fuel consulting experts,
Four mobile fleet fueling companies,
Three Fuel planning programs,
Two fleet fueling cards,
And a fuel management company for me
Fuel Consulting experts- people that have spent years in the fleet fuel industry and understand how to provide fuel management clients with maximized value. A fuel consulting expert knows all of the ins and outs of fleet fueling cards, fleet fuel discounts, fleet fuel auditing, fuel rebates, federal & state fleet fuel taxes to name a few.
Mobile Fleet Fueling companies- fleet fuel companies that go to the fuel management client’s location with their fuel truck during off hours. This type of fleet fuel service is best for a company with fleet management issues such as labor rates or labor time to fleet fuel at a fuel island. Mobile fleet fueling will save fuel management clients money in their labor expense.
Fleet Fuel Planning programs- a fleet fuel plan is a strategic plan for a fuel management client to meet his fleet management goals of lowering fleet fueling costs, staying under the fuel budget, improving fleet fuel audits to lower overcharges and fraud, increase fleet fuel knowledge through outsourced fuel management programs.
Fleet Fueling cards- a fleet fueling card is a plastic fuel card used to purchase gas and diesel fuel. It has controls in place within the fleet fueling card to protect the fuel management client from fraud and abuse. The fleet fuel cards also provide fleet management with fleet fuel information such as miles per gallon, fleet fuel usage, number of times a fleet fuels in a day, etc.
Fuel Management-when your fleet fuel program is actively managed by fleet fueling experts to achieve lower fuel costs for your gas and diesel fuel purchases. This increased visibility to your fleet fueling program on your fleet fuel cards, bulk fuel deliveries, mobile fleet fueling and fuel inventory is reviewed and audited daily providing you with up to date fleet fuel data
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Tags: diesel fuel prices, fleet fuel, fleet fueling, fuel consulting, Fuel Management, fuel planning
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By Glen Sokolis - December 9th, 2009
On the second day of Christmas,
my true love sent to me
Two fleet fueling cards,
And a fuel management company for me
Fleet Fueling cards- a fleet fueling card is a plastic fuel card used to purchase gas and diesel fuel. It has controls in place within the fleet fueling card to protect the fuel management client from fraud and abuse. The fleet fuel cards also provide fleet management with fleet fuel information such as miles per gallon, fleet fuel usage, number of times a fleet fuels in a day, etc.
Fuel Management-when your fleet fuel program is actively managed by fleet fueling experts to achieve lower fuel costs for your gas and diesel fuel purchases. This increased visibility to your fleet fueling program on your fleet fuel cards, bulk fuel deliveries, mobile fleet fueling and fuel inventory is reviewed and audited daily providing you with up to date fleet fuel data.
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Tags: diesel fuel prices, fleet fuel, Fuel Management, fuel planning
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By Glen Sokolis - December 7th, 2009
When you’re talking fuel management or fueling your own car, isn’t your time worth something? I stopped the other day to fill up my Honda Accord with gasoline. It was a little busy at the Shell station, though it was 2:30 in the afternoon and regular gasoline was $2.799 a gallon.
I did pay at the pump for fuel buying and filled the car with just over 13 gallons for my fleet fuel buying. As I left, I realized just how long the whole fuel buying experience took me. Of course being a fuel consultant, I have done fleet fueling time test studies. I know I have also observed my own fuel planning before but this just seem different.
My experience took me 14 minutes in total fuel buying time. The time it took at the fuel dispensing island was 7 minutes to buy fuel. Think about this, you get out of the car, you take off your gas cap, put your fleet fuel card into the fuel card reader, a few seconds goes by and it says begin fuel buying. The flow from the fuel pump (by law) , can not run any faster than 10 gallons per minute but most places are closer to 6 ½ gallons a minute. I put my 13 gallons of gas into my fuel tank, selected I didn’t want a car wash and also selected I didn’t want a fuel receipt (as the owner I didn’t need one but a good fuel management program, you should have your fleet fueling get a receipt), then I got back into my car, started it up and away I went. That was 7 minutes of my time. The other 7 minutes came from getting to the gas station, finding a fuel dispenser that wasn’t occupied and getting back on the road.
Certainly, I wasn’t getting paid by anyone for my fleet fueling experience when I was buying fuel. It was 14 minutes of my life that I would have rather spent doing just about anything else. I can tell you this, as a fuel consulting person I wanted to get in and out and quick as possible. When you’re doing fleet management and how long you think it takes your hourly driver to pull into a location and fleet fuel your truck, I would say think again that it’s only taking them a few minutes. I am going to do some new fleet fueling studies on a few of our clients over the next several weeks. If you were to ask me today, how long it takes a truck to pull into a fuel location and fleet fuel the vehicle, I would want to know 3 items. Does the driver get paid hourly? Does the place they are fleet fueling have a store or something to buy coffee or something? Is the driver being closely managed in your fleet management program?
I believe to pull a truck into a fuel location, pump 40 gallons of fuel and get on the road. It takes at least 15 minutes to complete the fleet fueling. I think for each of the 3 items above add at least 5 extra minutes for your fleet fueling experience. That means if your driver is hourly add 5 minutes, if they stop at a location with a store add 5 minutes and if you’re not closing watching driver’s time through GPS or by delivery windows like FedEx or UPS adds 5 minutes. By the time your driver is done fleet fueling their truck, it just cost your company more than 30 minutes.
From your fuel consulting guy, who happens uses his own fleet fueling card to fuel his car. Time is Money! Are You Fueling Good?
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Tags: fleet fuel, fleet fueling, Fuel Management, fuel planning
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By Kelly Quigley - December 3rd, 2009
As turkeys around the world that survived the Thanksgiving holiday breathe a gobble of relief, consumers take a big gulp as they wonder how they’ll do all, if any, holiday shopping. While it would be nice if a big fat man in red delivered our wish list for being good, we know unfortunately that’s not the case. So how do all the holiday gifts to straight to your door?
There are miracle delivery companies out there that will deliver the 13.7% rise in online sales from Cyber Monday. So what does it take for the U.S Post office, UPS and FedEx to handle millions of deliveries in December?
Well, with a 221,000 fleet the United State Post office will reach or exceed their 121 million gallons of diesel fuel used annually. They do after all; deliver to over 149 million residences. FedEx, with a prominent investment in hybrid vehicles that use bio fuel & reduce carbon footprint as noted by CleanFleetReport.com, has 48,000 vehicles. UPS, arguably the largest delivery company around, has over 100,000 vehicles which drive up a tally of over 2 Billion dollars a year alone in fleet fuel for the giant. That is one big fleet fuel cost. Sounds like these companies should have fuel management & fleet fuel planning on their mind at all times.
The UPS fleet fuel savings plan is not based sole on a single plan; rather they implement many micro plans. These micro plans start with their fleet management company that helps ensure fleet fueling is properly procured. Another fuel management plan is designing delivery routes to best utilize the drivers time and reduce left turns, which wastes idling time , idiling which increases carbon footprints and fleet fuel usage. This alone will save UPS 3,000,000 gallons of fleet fuel. While that may not be a transaction it sure is one way to handle fuel management and a good fleet fuel program. They also implore ‘driver helpers’ in December, who will run off a package while the driver stays in the truck, this reduces the amount of time a truck will idle as well, more reduction of a carbon footprint.
The drivers at these dedicated companies don’t get snow days (barring a State of Emergency in most cases), they run and walk in the rain, and they eat lunches in under 10 min and have late hours. Behind the trucks are thousands of other employees who sort the packages, ones who load the trucks, others to plan the routes. There are managers who run smooth operations and keep fuel management and employee concerns on the top of their ‘to do’ lists. Santa makes it look easy, his fuel planning program is carrots for the reindeer and his fuel management program is set.
So when it’s a late Saturday morning and you look out your window at the falling snow or rain with that cup of hot coffee in your hand and you see a large truck, be it brown or white, pull up to your home or a neighbors and a man or women jump out and run up (with a smile) to deliver a much anticipated package. Take a second to think about how much more it takes than one person, more than one collaboration, many fleet fuel driven miles to get that one single parcel to the door on time. I heard even Santa uses a fuel consultant to help him with his fuel management. Someone has to know how what the fuel price is for carrots and do a fuel audit on the carrots. Happy Holidays.
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Tags: diesel fuel prices, fleet fuel, Fuel Management, fuel planning
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By Glen Sokolis - November 6th, 2009
In 1999 a new word was added to the dictionary according to merriam-webster.com that word was ‘blog’. Notably word ‘network’ has been around since the 1530’s. What happens when those two worlds come together? We get even newer words like Facebook, LinkedIn and while Twitter is not a new word, there is a new meaning. All these network applications are here for us to keep up with the ever changing pace of your respective business.
Blogging will not only increase your target audience, but it also allows you to express your personal and professional view on the particular topic. Sokolis Group tries to blog as often as possible to keep our friends and colleagues up to speed on any change in the fleet fuel industry. There is no faster changing business like that of fuel management. When was the last time your local gas station had the same price for two days in a row?
Social networking keeps you in contact with clients and potential clients. It finds new employees in places you may have never looked before. As a matter of fact, Sokolis Group was just asked by Michael Lucas of Roadknowledge.wordpress.com if he could reprint an article written by Glen. Now Sokolis Group has a new audience being introduced to wonderful fuel management & fuel consulting news and advice they may have never had before. They may have never known they could get a free fuel audit from a fuel management company; they may have gone on for months wasting excess money on their fleet fuel purchases or lack of fuel planning or fuel audit.
So take to the web and tweet, blog and accept friends and invitations, having a large social network can expand your colleagues and client base in one short blog.
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Tags: fleet fuel, fleet fueling, fuel consulting, Fuel Management, fuel planning, Sokoils Group
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By Glen Sokolis - November 2nd, 2009
Talking about your wild road trips, how about the trip that fuel prices are on these days. No, no they’re not crazy, crazy like the summer of 2008 but they just move on any little noise. Like a deer in the woods.
Good friend of Sokolis Group’s, Tom Klosa, chief oil analyst for OPIS says “forecasting anything beyond 90 days makes witchcraft look like some sort of exact science.” He’s right. Heck, forecasting beyond a month is near impossible. Did anyone take notice that the price of crude oil went up $12 a barrel in October? Did you miss that? How about 22 cent for diesel fuel and 20 cents for gas prices?
Your asking yourself, I thought we have a lot of fuel inventory? I remember reading articles saying that we were swimming in fuel. This is very true so why the wild ride?
The price of crude oil and diesel fuel are no longer tied to supply and demand but tied to the economy. As there are signs that the economy is improving, these products move higher, trying to stay out ahead of the curve. If news is reported that the economy is slowing down, the price of crude oil and diesel fuel go down.
Klosa says, “If you ask me, what do you expect next year, will oil prices be $50 a barrel or $100 a barrel, I’d say, yes.” He also said that we may see something on the order of diesel fuel prices varying from just over $2 to maybe around $3.25 or so.
Wow! Now, if that kind of news doesn’t make you happy that you have Sokolis Group as your fuel management company, I don’t know what will. Actually, if you’re not a fuel consulting client, you should be. You will need help with your fuel planning program and it looks like you should consider doing some fuel price protection programs unless you really like the roller coaster. It looks like we could be on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride for fleet fuel management in 2010. Buckle in.
Sokolis Group is a fuel management, fuel planning and fuel consulting company that helps its clients with fuel programs to lower their fuel prices, improve their back office fuel processes and in depth fuel audits to prevent fuel theft and fuel overcharges. www.FuelManagementSokolisGroup.com
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Tags: diesel fuel prices, fuel consulting, Fuel Management, fuel planning, Sokoils Group
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