www.truckandtrack.com Autumn 2022 Truck and Track 21 DESCARTES ensuring use of fuel-friendly aerodynamics can significantly lessen fuel consumption. 4. Optimise vehicle performance. Regular vehicle inspection to ensure that engines are tuned and tyres are at the proper pressure also helps lower fuel consumption. 5. Challenge carrier fuel surcharges. Ensure that carrier fuel price charges stem directly from their increased fuel costs. Make them produce the details that justify the proposed increases. 6. Collaborate with your carriers and customers. Increased fuel costs present an excellent opportunity to work together to identify practices, policies and operational conditions that decrease fuel consumption. Source input from both carriers and customers on how your business can reduce fuel consumption and the impact of increased fuel costs. Low cost, big returns: 7. Network optimisation. Over time, logistics networks become suboptimal due to, for example, customers coming and going, buying patterns changing and new product offerings. Network optimisation can take the changes and rebalance the logistics network to reduce fuel consumption. Focus network optimisation on service policies, operational strategies and other ‘soft’ considerations as opposed to bricks and mortar to deliver results more quickly — then go back and look at the ‘hard’ stuff for even greater benefits. 8. Customer stratification. This is a form of customer service policy evaluation but is more significant in that it can change logistics strategies. For example, using hybrid route planning to combine static and dynamic deliveries based on customer value and cost is a strategy that will reduce fuel consumption. 9. Rebid carrier contracts with a focus on fuel cost reduction. Softness in various modes of transportation and geographies presents an opportunity to rebid contracts. Existing contracts may not have given as much consideration to fuel costs because they were written when fuel costs were much lower, but now significantly penalise the organisation given today’s much higher prices for fuel. 10. Implement optimised transportation or route planning solutions. Still too few companies use optimisation technologies. It doesn’t take much complexity to go beyond what the human mind can process, and the savings in distance travelled and fuel costs can be quite large. In addition, evaluate existing legacy solution capabilities versus more modern systems. Not only are they less capable, but also legacy technologies are harder to use, meaning manual workarounds that are not as effective at reducing fuel costs. 11. Customer/sales steering to drive delivery density. Customers and sales reps can make delivery appointment requests that make the fleet less efficient and use more fuel. Provide customers with delivery appointment options that increase delivery density, which reduces distance travelled per stop and lowers fuel costs. 12. Dynamic delivery pricing. Not all customer deliveries cost the same. Instead, provide customers with unique delivery fees at the point of purchase to better capture the real cost of the delivery. Customers will determine whether they want to take premium delivery times or choose a lower cost option. Many customers will go for the latter; this approach will make the delivery operation more productive, driving down fuel costs, driver hours and more. 13. Eco-friendly deliveries. More and more customers want to choose delivery options that help the environment. Eco-friendly deliveries reduce carbon footprints and result in lower fuel consumption. It’s a win-win-win option. Customers are happy, the environment benefits, and the seller has lower fuel and other delivery costs. 14. Telematics. Telematics solutions are essential to improving driver and vehicle performance. They monitor the health of the vehicle as well as driving behaviour. Telematics allow fleet operations to be more proactive in catching declining vehicle performance and facilitating driver coaching to help eliminate behaviour that leads to unnecessary spikes in fuel consumption. All these methods will cut fuel costs today and well into the future. But don’t just take our word for it. To find out how much money you can save your company each year by decreasing distance travelled, minimising idling and reducing fuel usage, take a look on Descartes’ Fuel Savings and Carbon Emissions Calculator: bit.ly/fuel_savings_calculator www.descartes.com
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