The day-long session featured a keynote presentation offered by Colin Dover, senior director of SAP’s Platform and Analytics Center for Excellence, who discussed the latest innovations in fleet-related technology and how the latest advances will affect fleets working in the energy, gas and oil sectors specifically. Additional sessions on energy fleet benchmarking, alternative fuels, maintenance, cost reduction strategies, and licensing and compliance were also featured.

The fleet benchmarking session followed the morning keynote and highlighted an analysis of data gathered by a pre-forum survey that was sent to all invitees. An analysis of the responses revealed that the biggest challenge facing energy fleets is reducing maintenance costs. Other top concerns included managing fuel spend, the development and enforcement of a driver policy, data integrity and reporting issues, and fleet right-sizing.

‘There are issues and concerns that are unique to energy fleets. For example, 47% of all of our survey respondents said that more than half of their fleet is upfit vehicles,’ said Suzanne Wilson, marketing research manager for ARI. ‘This presents specific maintenance and lifecycle issues that affect total cost of ownership. Some issues, however, are universal, such as fuel spend, violations management and the development and enforcement of effective driver’s policies.’

The day also included four breakout sessions and opportunities for networking among attendees. David Mann, the director of fleet for Knight Oil Tools, noted that hearing the experiences of other fleet managers and having a chance to discuss how others approached different challenges was invaluable. ‘I discovered that regardless of fleet size, some issues and concerns are universal among fleet managers, and having a forum like this to be able to learn from each other is incredibly useful.’

Yvette Gentry, fleet manager for TETRA Technologies, added: ‘I find the most value in ARI’s Energy Fleet Forum primarily because it’s the one event that has many of the other fleet managers in the energy sector in one place and it’s a good place to benchmark and discuss issues one-on-one. This event allows me to truly network with others in my industry and exchange contact information so we can communicate beyond the event to ask each other questions and exchange ideas.’