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Our number one goal as a fleet consulting firm
is to provide high-value services to organizations and fleet
operations, both big and small, in the public and private sectors. We
believe that the large number of fleet maintenance management
operations that have engaged our services over the past 20 years is the
best testament to our ability to achieve this goal. We recognize that many fleet operations spend years
trying to secure funds to hire a consulting firm, and that, once
secured, such funds must generate a significant "return on investment."
To this end, we are prepared to address every facet of our
clients' fleet operations, not just the most obvious or easily
understood practices. We also utilize structured, time-tested
methodologies and analytical tools that save us time and our clients'
money while producing understandable, defensible findings, practical
recommendations, and realistic solutions.
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Our firm is committed to providing fleet consulting
services whose value far exceeds their costs, because we understand that
the decision to engage a fleet management consulting firm is a momentous
one for many organizations. In fact, many fleet management operations
often contract with a consulting firm only after all other possible
avenues for solving a problem or answering a question have been
exhausted.
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Some of the fleet consulting services that we
provide include:
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Fuel
Management |
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Nearly 50% of the annual
cost of operating and maintaining a typical fleet is
directly attributed to fuel and fuel management. It is also an area of fleet
management that has become extremely complicated, because of
legislation and policies at local, state, and federal government
levels, global economics, vast changes in technology, increased
availability of alternative fuel types, new multi-fuel enabled
and hybrid vehicles and equipment, and on-going pressures to
reduce emissions. Thus, for many people fuel management is a
black box of complex issues, which require large sums of
funding.
Minor improvements in a fuel management program, however, can
yield significant savings in the short and long term. The fleet
consulting professionals at Mercury understand the issues
surrounding fuel management and have extensive, first-hand
experience producing solutions to these problems for clients. In
fact, some of our fuel management consulting services have saved
clients millions of dollars, while at the same expanding the
availability of fuel site locations.
Some of our fuel management consulting services include: |
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Alternative Fuel Program Development |
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Alternative Fuel Program Reviews |
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Bulk Fuel Site Design and Engineering |
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Commercial Fuel Program Development |
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Emission Reduction Planning |
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Fuel Management Program Development |
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Fuel Management Program Review |
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Fuel Tax Reimbursement Optimization |
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Fuel Site Consolidation Reviews |
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Fuel Site Mapping and Location Services |
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Parts
Management |
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A significant portion of a fleet operation's
annual expenditures can be accounted for in parts management.
This cost can vary significantly from one fleet operation to the
next depending on the composition, age, and application of
equipment in a fleet. However, the primary goal of every parts
operation is to maintain a sufficient inventory in order to fill
a high percentage of part requests immediately while sustaining
a high part turn-over rate. This can be a difficult task, due to
the logistics with seasonal parts, vehicle and equipment
replacements, poor vendor performance, cumbersome procurement
procedures, insufficient warehousing space, inadequate staffing
levels, an antiquated information system, and a wide array of other
factors. Hence, efforts to reduce a parts operation's costs and
maintain an inventory to sustain an acceptable fill-rate
can often time seem to be diametrically opposed.
As previous fleet managers and as consulting
professionals we have a lot of industry experience and knowledge
of the best practices in parts management. We understand the
issues that affect the availability of inventory, part
turn-over, stocking levels, reordering points, minimum and
maximum levels, and the spectrum of other elements that
influence a parts operation. We also understand matters
associated with procurement policies and procedures. In fact, a
principal member in our firm previously served as a procurement
agent
for a local government in Florida for several years.
Some of our parts management consulting services include: |
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Electronic Procurement Strategies |
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Parts Availability and Stocking Level Review |
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Parts Management Reengineering |
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Parts Management Reviews |
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Procurement Procedures Assessments |
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Vendor / Contractor Performance Reviews |
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Parts Warehouse Design |
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Fleet Replacement
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The replacement of vehicles and equipment in a
timely manner is a problem for many fleet operations. The decision
to replacement equipment is often driven by the fiscal health of the
organization, breakdown or failure of the asset, or some other
unpredictable factor. However, a proper fleet replacement program
can provide both fleet reliability and fiscal stability for a fleet
operation and to the general organization.
Our principal consultants have been providing
fleet replacement planning services for decades, which is why dozens
of fleet operations have contracted with us over the years. Whether
you utilize ad hoc appropriations, lease-purchase, debt financing,
or a hybrid approach our fleet consulting team can assist you in
developing a long-term replacement strategy. Moreover, as part of
our fleet replacement planning services we will model several
funding and purchasing approaches so that you have the quantitative
information to justify the final funding approach.
Some of our fleet replacement consulting services include:
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Fleet Replacement Fund Development |
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Fleet Replacement Planning |
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Fleet Replacement Scheduling |
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Lease Versus Buy Analysis |
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General Fleet Operations |
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Our group of general fleet operations consulting
services is one of our most frequently contracted groups of services.
Perhaps this is due to the value that we produce as a result
of our findings. We often hear about studies, such as a strategic
business plan, that our consulting professionals performed nearly a
decade ago are still frequently referenced and utilized in
management decisions. We believe that this is the best
testament to our ability to achieve provide high quality, valuable
consulting services. Moreover, virtually no other firm in the fleet
industry can provide our wide array of general fleet consulting
services.
Some of our general fleet consulting services include:
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Business Process Reengineering |
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Fleet Management Training |
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Operation Best Practice Reviews |
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Operation Competitiveness Assessments |
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Organizational Realignment |
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Policy and Procedure Development |
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Staffing Level Assessments |
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Strategic Business Planning |
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Managed Competition Facilitation |
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Vendor Contract Negotiations |
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Vendor Contract Reviews |
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Benchmarking Studies |
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Performance Measurement Solutions |
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Outsourcing Consulting Services |
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Outsourcing is a process that most people view as
an all or nothing process. In some cases this is true. However, we
also find operations that are very efficient at specific services,
such as preventive maintenance. In such an instance an appropriate
approach may be to outsource part of an operation. Nonetheless, the
choice of outsourcing part or an entire operation is not an easy
one. It often times requires the review of an impartial party that
understands when an operation should be outsourced, how it should be
done, and the contractual pitfalls that can result in unforeseen
charges and financial liability.
Mercury is uniquely qualified to provide you with
outsourcing consulting services, because we worked with many years
with internally serviced and outsourced fleet operations, negotiated
several outsourced maintenance contracts for clients, and provided
managed competition services.
Some of our outsourcing consulting services include:
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Managed Competition Facilitation |
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Outsourcing Contract Negotiations |
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Outsourcing Feasibility Reviews |
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Fleet Information Services |
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One of the most significant changes
in the fleet industry has been a veritable explosion of quantitative
data. The sources of these data are multitude: fleet management
information systems, fuel management systems, ERP and financial
management systems, professional association databases, the
Internet, GPS and AVL solutions, web-based reporting engines, ad hoc
report writers, and document imaging systems.
The increased availability of data
on the fleet and the fleet operations has placed significant
pressure on fleet managers and staff to maintain and produce a wide
array of management information for clients, financial and auditing
departments, executives, elected officials, and the general public.
A major challenge for fleet managers has been and will continue to
be the struggle to keep these entities sufficiently informed in a
timely manner. Some of the best fleet managers in the industry have
addressed this requirement by implementing proactive processes and
solutions that push information to stakeholders on a regular
schedule. Push technology can automatically deliver key management
decision making information to email accounts, printers, fax
machines, pagers, PDAs, and other communication devices. An
increasing number of fleet management organizations are using their
own web sites as a means of distributing invoices, reservation
confirmations, recall notices, and the like to their customers.
As a leading provider of fleet consulting
services and business solutions Mercury is uniquely qualified to
assist fleet organizations with their information technology needs -
from A to Z. Our fleet consulting professionals have assisted
several clients in the selection, implementation, and maintenance of
new / replacement fleet information systems. We have also
reengineered local and wide-area networks, implemented firewalls and
security solutions, and provided ad hoc reporting solutions and
fleet information systems.
Learn more about our fleet technology solutions.
In addition to offering local services to fleet
organizations, we also provide applications hosting services. Our
hosting service allows a fleet operation to implement leading edge
business tools (e.g. fleet information system, ad hoc reporting,
on-line consulting, and much more) without the upfront cost and time
of implementing a system locally. Users pay a fixed monthly
subscription fee to access these resources, while we manage server
replacements, application upgrades, security and antivirus
countermeasures, and data backups.
Learn more about our hosting
solutions.
Some of our fleet information services include:
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Application Hosting - Multiple Fleet Systems Available |
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Ad Hoc Report Training |
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Application Training |
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Applied Fleet Principals Training |
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Windows Training |
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Custom Report Development |
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Data Integrity Audits |
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Fleet Information System Implementation |
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Fleet Information System RFP Development |
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Fleet Information System Selection |
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Thin Client Design, Implementation, and Maintenance |
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Implementation of LAN / WAN / Wireless Solutions |
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Application Hosting Services |
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System and
Technology Audits |
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Security Topology Review |
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ERP Interface Design and Development |
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Fit - Gap Analysis ( e.g. ERP vs fleet information systems ) |
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E-commerce |
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Fuel System Implementation and Integration |
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Fuel and Fleet System Troubleshooting |
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Fuel Interface Design |
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Electronic Equipment Repair Manual Integration |
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Electronic Equipment Repair Manual Hosting |
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Automated Vehicle Location ( AVL ) solutions |
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