Calendar deadlines
Coupons and checks fixed on a date, while the vehicle that works twice as hard reaches the threshold in half the time.
Solution — Fleet management
Fleet administration software that does not ask you to enter what the vehicle already knows.
Deadlines, maintenance, assignments, documents and costs per vehicle in a single system. The difference isn't in the list of functions: it's that the starting numbers — kilometres, consumption, usage — come from the vehicle instead of from a hand-filled sheet.
- Expiration on real useThe threshold is the one crossed by the vehicle, not the one marked on the calendar.
- Cost per vehicle measuredConsumption and kilometres of the vehicle, fuel and Telepass invoices acquired and distributed.
The point
The management system knows how much it cost. The vehicle knows why. They almost never speak to each other.
Those who manage a fleet usually have two archives that do not meet: on the one hand deadlines, invoices and documents in sheets and folders; on the other, the data that the vehicles produce every day. The cost of this separation isn't double dialing, it's that each number arrives when the decision has already been made.
Costs that are reconstructed by hand
The invoices arrive by supplier, not by vehicle, and someone does the breakdown at the end of the quarter.
Documents you are looking for
Booklet, assignment and history of a vehicle are in three different places, and can be found when needed immediately.
kilometres declared
The distances come from the driver rather than from the vehicle, and no one has any way of verifying them.
Implicit assignments
Who has that vehicle is known by heart until the person who knows is on vacation.
Two truths about the same vehicle
The paper says one thing, the vehicle another, and reconciliation is a job that no one has a job.
The difference
Where the data comes from decides how much the management system is worth
Almost all fleet management software does the same things. Change the starting point, and the starting point changes everything else.
The management system that starts from the sheet
kilometres, use and condition of the vehicle are entered by a person. The system accepts them because it has no way of verifying them. It works until someone updates, and the day they stop the system doesn't notice: it continues to show numbers, they're just not true anymore.
The management system that starts from the invoice
He knows precisely how much has been spent, because he reads accounting documents. However, he doesn't know how that vehicle was used: if he consumed more because he worked harder or because there was something wrong, the invoice doesn't say it.
The starting point of Zenit
The vehicle. Mileage, consumption, time with the engine running and use come from the vehicle while it works. The costs are placed on top - fuel and Telepass invoices acquired and broken down by vehicle - and the result is a cost that can be read next to the work that the vehicle did to produce it.
- The distances are not declared: they are read
- The cost per vehicle is measured by its actual use, not derived by dividing a total
- A deadline is triggered when the vehicle has crossed the threshold, not when the calendar says so
Because it's not a difference in convenience
Data entered by hand is true on the day it is entered. A fact read by the vehicle is true now. On a small fleet the difference is absorbed; beyond a certain size it decides whether the control really exists or is an archive of good intentions.
What it covers
The management control areas, fed by vehicle data
Each area below is available today. What is not there is not written: a function that was promised and not present is discovered in the demo, and at that point the problem is not the demo.
Deadlines
Checks and obligations linked to the actual kilometres and use of the vehicle, not to a fixed date.
Maintenance
Scheduled interventions on actual use, with the history of what was done on which vehicle.
Vehicle assignment
Who has which vehicle and since when, with the history of previous assignments.
Documents and booklet
Vehicle documentation where needed, linked to the vehicle instead of to a folder.
Costs per vehicle
Fuel and Telepass invoices acquired, broken down and analyzed for each vehicle.
Consumption and mileage
kilometres, consumption and time with the engine running read from the vehicle, not declared.
coverage
What Zenit doesn't do, said here instead of in the demo
A list of what's missing is more useful than a list of what's there, because that's the part that's usually discovered late.
We do not issue fuel cards or electronic toll devices
Zenit does not issue fuel cards or Telepass, and does not act as an intermediary to obtain them. The cards and devices remain those that the company already has, with the suppliers it has already chosen. What Zenit does with those services is one and the same thing: it acquires the invoices, breaks them down by vehicle and analyzes them alongside real consumption.
We do not manage vehicle bookings
There is no booking form for shared vehicles or company pools. The assignment says who has which vehicle, not who books it for Thursday.
We do not administer rental and leasing contracts
Rental companies are among the sectors that Zenit serves, but the management of the contract - rents, contractual deadlines, returns - remains with the system that the company uses for that.
Why we write it
Because a page that promises everything brings demo requests from those looking for something else, and that conversation ends badly for both. We'd rather lose contact now than everyone's time later.
What changes
The value is not having the data. It is that they arrive before the decision.
No savings numbers are declared on this page: we do not yet have verifiable data to cite, and citing generic ones would be worse than remaining silent.
Less reconciliation
Only one version of kilometres and consumption, that of the vehicle.
Interventions at the right time
Neither early on a little-used vehicle nor late on one that works twice as hard.
Attributable cost
The expense is read per vehicle, so it can be compared between vehicles and over time.
Less dependence on people
The information is in the system, not in the memory of those who have always managed it.
The metrics
Three numbers that the system calculates, explained in full
None of these numbers are stated here, because none of these numbers exist in the abstract: they are calculated on the fleet that generates them. However, the mechanism can be completely explained, and it is what allows us to understand if the number that comes out means something.
Cost per vehicle
How much did it cost to keep a single vehicle on the road in a period, alongside the work that vehicle did in the same period. It's not the fleet total divided by the number of vehicles: that's an average, and an average hides exactly the vehicle you'd like to find.
- What it measures: the expense attributable to that vehicle, not its share of the total.
- From which data: the fuel and Telepass invoices acquired and broken down by vehicle, plus the kilometres and engine hours read by the vehicle while it is working.
- How to read it: comparing vehicles of the same class and the same use. The comparison between an urban van and a road tractor says nothing.
- What decision enables: which vehicle to replace first, and whether replacing it is better than keeping it for another year.
Deviation between real consumption and expected consumption
The difference between how much a vehicle consumed and how much it should have consumed for the work it did. It is the metric that distinguishes a vehicle that consumes more because it works more from a vehicle that simply consumes more - a distinction that an invoice alone cannot make.
- What it measures: the part of consumption that the work done does not explain.
- Data source: fuel consumption and mileage read from the vehicle, compared with its own history and similar vehicles in the fleet.
- How to read it: on the individual vehicle and over time. An isolated deviation is noise; a deviation that grows for three weeks is a failure that has not yet declared itself.
- What decision enables: whether to send the vehicle to the workshop before the service, or if the problem concerns how it is driven.
Distance between one intervention and the next
How much work the vehicle did between two maintenances, measured in kilometres or engine hours instead of months. It is the number that says whether the maintenance plan is calibrated on real use or on a calendar decided once and never touched again.
- What it measures: the actual interval between two interventions on the same vehicle, in the unit with which that vehicle wears out.
- From which data: the history of interventions recorded on the vehicle plus the kilometres or engine hours accumulated between one and the other.
- As it reads: against the range foreseen by the manufacturer. Constantly under means early maintenance on a rarely used vehicle; constantly above means that action is taken after the point at which it would have been needed.
- Decision supported: adjust the maintenance trigger by vehicle class instead of applying one threshold to the entire fleet.
Where it comes in
Due dates and costs look different depending on how the vehicle is used and who reads the figures
Each line below leads to a page that goes into detail. They are links, not a list of words: if an industry or role doesn't add anything to this page, it doesn't appear.
Industries
What triggers a deadline changes with the work of the vehicle.
Transport and logistics
Inspections, tachographs and driving licenses expire at different rates: the calendar is the company's most fragile document.
Construction and construction sites
The deadlines for construction vehicles are counted in engine hours, not in kilometres: a service with a fixed date always arrives at the wrong time.
Fleet rental
Each return is the point at which travel distances, costs and condition of the vehicle must be reconciled with what the contract provided for.
Cold chain
The maintenance of the vehicle is added to that of the refrigeration unit, which has its own schedule and often its own supplier.
Roles
The same cost per vehicle answers four different questions.
CFO
“Should next year's fleet budget be based on actual data or simply on last year's figure plus a percentage?”
Fleet Manager
“What deadline is coming upon me in the next thirty days?”
Maintenance Manager
“Which vehicles are consuming more than they should, and since when?”
Entrepreneur / CEO
“Does the fleet really cost what I think it costs?”
Frequently asked questions
Frequently asked questions about the Zenit fleet management system.
Bring your current checksheet to demo
The quickest way to understand if this page is about your fleet is to open the file with which you manage it today and look together at which columns the vehicle could fill in on its own.
- No package price listThe coverage is defined on the modules that are really needed.
- coverage declared beforeWhat Zenit doesn't do is written on this page, not postponed to the negotiation.