Fifteen things you can do today about the cost of fuel

Fifteen things you can do today about the cost of fuel
Or
Are you running your business like fuel still costs $0.60 cents a gallon?

1. Track the consumption of fuel per machine or truck. Every gallon used should be should be accounted for, by machine, job or project. You would not normally say to an employee; “Here is $90.00 in cash. Spend it and by way, you do not have to report back to me what you spent it on. So why is fuel any different?

2. All fuel storage tanks must be metered and the meter is calibrated. The data you will be getting is critical business information. You do not want to be running you business on bad information

3. Record the hour meter or Odometer information with every fueling. Without this information you will not be able to created critical calculations that will affect your company’s profitability.

4. Balance the “Cash Drawer”, with every storage tank fill. Every day, every bank teller balances his/her cash drawer all over the world. Your fuel tank has money in fuel coming in and going out. This needs to be accounted for and balanced. If you are out of balance, you will not keep your job very long at the bank.

5. Require fueling records to be turned in to the office. They should be turned in at least as often as time cards are turned in.

6. Calculate fuel burn in gallons or liters per hour for machinery with every fill. For trucks you will want to add in additions to hours, mileage or kilometers. Generally, for light trucks we don’t track hours)

7. Track and document work package level fuel consumption. You will be surprised and how this number changes from work item to work item or project to project. (If you are not breaking out work packages in your estimating detail, you are not estimating, your guessing.)

8. Replace broken hour meters and odometers, immediately. How can you track oil changes and services if you are “flying blind”?

9. Account for all hours on all machines. If you don’t have a problem with off-hours or off-job use of you machines, I don’t’ either. But, I do have a problem if you don’t know for sure how many hours and what those hours actually cost you.

10. Calculate your cost per hour for fuel per work item. Fuel is your largest machine operating cost item. If you don’t know how much consumption a work item take and what fuel cost, you cannot do this calculation. How do you know if your estimating is correct?

11. Don’t use average fuel consumption data. Averages are for people who don’t have a clue what their fuel really cost them. You need to know; the highest consumption level, the lowest and at what consumption rate this work package was estimated. Only real world measurements give you the first two of these.

12. Consider buying a hedge position in the Heating Oil market. Many fuel and heating oil supplier can help you with this.

13. Investigate and consider Idle Reduction Technology. This small device shuts down diesel engines when in an idle mode for a certain time. It does not allow the engine to cool to below a set point so that restarting is always easy. (You can contact us for more information.)

14. Investigate state-of-the-art fuel tracking and dispensing systems. These systems will help solve accuracy and recording issues. Make sure they will meet all of your recording requirements before investing! (You can contact us for more information.)

15. Use a customized database program (like DecisiveCost) to track and calculate all this information. Paper forms just get filed away. You need actionable business information! Spreadsheets are a nightmare to update, proof and do not begin to produce meaningful reports that a custom solution produces.

Do Something Today! “Lead, follow or get out of the way” as someone said.

Dedicated to your success,

Dan Rooks
President
Decisive Systems, Inc. "The Owning and Operating Cost People"In the U.S.
Call 800-232-5767 International 941-926-9260
drooks@decisivecost.com http://www.decisivecost.com/

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