FLEETDRIVE
For many years , Microsoft Excel has been the favoured tool for small to medium size fleets to manage their motor vehicles . Indeed , there are probably some large fleets that use it as well . But I suspect we are now witnessing its replacement in a number of these fleets due to its limitations as a fleet management system .
Don ’ t get me wrong – I love Excel , it has a certain logic to it that I cannot find in Word , by comparison . For an ‘ off the shelf ’ product it is highly powerful and ticks a lot of boxes when it comes to database management , analytics and graphical presentations . It even comes with the cost of a Microsoft Office subscription , so the price is certainly right !
Most fleet reviews I undertake start with me requesting data on the fleet , and invariably what I receive from my client is an Excel spreadsheet with data provided in a multitude of formats . In most cases , important fleet vehicle data is missing but that tends to be one of the reasons for the review .
The First Limitation - Us
We need to firstly acknowledge that Excel is a spreadsheet that features calculation , graphing tools , pivot tables and macro programming capability . Accordingly , it has incredibly broad application across most organisations - it was never designed to be a fleet management system !
While some people may have had training , I suspect that most of us have learnt our Excel skills on the job . That being the case , we often lack the necessary skills to use the comprehensive range of functions at our disposal . So , I believe in the first instance we tend to be its biggest limitation .
Do we sit there each month entering or importing odometer readings to do some basic calculations on vehicle utilisation ? If we do , is that an effective use of our time when the information could be available on demand ?
For those that take responsibility for managing the fleet along with a range of other tasks ,
ISSUE 30 AUGUST 2021 / WWW . AFMA . ORG . AU 9