Argility’s fleet management solution transforms fleet maintenance, inventory management for major mining/logistics entity

Creating a tailored solution to address business challenges.

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FleetDomain was approached by a major player in South Africa’s mining/logistics arena. The company was seeking a trustworthy, highly experienced supplier capable of helping it to enhance its operational efficiencies. Moreover, it required a supplier with a proven track record. FleetDomain’s successful more than two decades-long market record and software developed and managed by a team of fleet professionals made it the preferred supplier for this local mining logistics giant.

The highly skilled and experienced FleetDomain team listened with care to the mining logistics company’s requirements and tailored a solution that addressed the organisation’s business challenges.

This major SA mining logistics company supplies products to all power stations located in the Mpumalanga region. The group supplies products to mainly inland clients and industrial companies on the Witwatersrand, but also supplies users as far away as Lesotho and the Cape, as well as small independent buyers.

Business challenge: The customer – a key player in the mining logistics sector, faced significant operational inefficiencies due to its manual processes for fleet maintenance and stock control. Specifically:

• Lack of maintenance cost transparency: There was no reliable method to determine the maintenance cost per vehicle. This made budgeting, cost analysis and profitability assessments difficult.
• No spare parts tracking: The absence of a system to track spare parts led to poor inventory control, frequent stock outs or overstocking, and inaccurate maintenance records.
• Manual operations: The reliance on spreadsheets and manual tracking introduced human errors, delayed reporting and reactive rather than proactive maintenance planning.

FleetDomain’s Job Costing and Stock Modules were deployed to meet the substantial challenges the company was facing with legacy manual systems. These solutions can be tailored to synchronise with the customer’s operational procedures.

FleetDomain’s solutions delivered the following capabilities:

• Automated Job Costing: FleetDomain’s system was configured to automatically capture and allocate all maintenance-related expenses – including parts, labour and external services – directly to the respective vehicle.
• Inventory Control via Stock Module: All spare parts were catalogued, and stock movements (issues, receipts, adjustments) were logged in real-time. The system provided real-time stock levels and reorder alerts.
• Integrated Reporting: Maintenance and stock data were consolidated into actionable reports, giving management clear visibility into vehicle operating costs and parts usage.

Since implementing FleetDomain’s modules, the customer has seen major improvements in operational efficiency and cost visibility. The deployment of FleetDomains Job Costing and Stock Modules led to a significant improvement in decision-making, due in large part to the greatly enhanced detailed reports produced by the automated systems. The company now has the ability to record a maintenance history on all vehicles and mining equipment. Repairs to the latter are costly and whereas previously no system of prognosis for possible problems arising was in place, implementation of the automated systems provided the business with the ability to plan.

Automation of vehicle costing was also exponentially improved over the previous manual systems.

• Accurate maintenance costing: The company now has a clear and accurate understanding of maintenance costs on a per-vehicle basis, aiding in better decision-making and life cycle cost analysis.
• Effective spare parts management: Automation has provided the ability to accurately track spare parts, reducing losses and improving service turnaround time. This, of course, also provided greater and more accurate forecasting because the ‘right’ stock can be held through decreasing the storage of non-essential parts.

Essentially, prior to the deployment of FleetDomain’s Job Costing and Stock Modules, the company did not have a stock control system and had no system of visibility of stock, where it is, what it is and what it can used for. It can now automatically monitor consumables and know precisely what it has in stock, and what has been used for repairs.

Through the spares management system, orders can be attributed to specific departments, vehicles and the staff member responsible for the orders. In this way, the automated systems have also provided complete control over third-party sub-contractors visiting the site to effect repairs.

• Enhanced accountability and planning: The system enforces discipline in work order processing and ensures historical records are available for auditing and forecasting.

Enhancing operational efficiencies through automated stock control and asset tracking for any business is essential if costs are to be lowered through streamlining processes and maximising the use of resources. Detailed reports lead to better decision-making.

Essentially, all of this also speaks to increased profitability and the ultimate sustainability of a business.