Fleet Financials, March/April 2018

Over the last 10 years AutoZone has made some major changes in terms of how it has managed its fleet These changes were made concurrent with trending industry movements and helped the continued effort to establish the companys significance in the automotive industry AutoZone maintains a global fleet size of about 16000 light duty vehicles and has to ensure that all operations are running smoothly What the companys fleet focuses on in terms of cost control driver safety procurement and more has helped ensure overall efficiencies Cost Control Considering the size of the fleet looking at ways to reduce costs is a major focus for AutoZone Clay Gaudet fleet manager for AutoZone said there are numerous ways the company controls costs which includes changing vehicle sizes employing technology such as telematics leveraging the OEMs focusing on driver safety and sticking to a cost of ownership model Another methodology that AutoZone credits to greatly curbing fleet costs involves policies that surround personal use of company vehicles AutoZone has a few fleet policies around personal use which help control costs but we also utilize a lot of exception reporting to identify outliers said Gaudet We have the ability to monitor miles driven when driving is happening if driving is for business purposes the style of driving speed aggressive starts harsh braking vehicle idling etc When the data is tracked and observed Gaudet said that the aforementioned exception reporting is shared with field management to identify and correct bad driving behaviors We have our own business intelligence product that allows us to publish reporting to all levels of management added Gaudet The reporting is used to keep the topic top of mind as the store managers can use the reporting to identify and coach on specific driving behaviors Improvements in safety from this came in the form of in cab coaching as well as an increased focus on safety from senior management The in cab coaching provides immediate alerts to things like speeding harsh braking etc This gives the driver a real time opportunity to fix the behavior before it hits the exception report so the drivers start to correct the behavior to keep off the reporting he said This focus on personal use follows suit with a major company change that was made 10 years ago the decision to remove branding from its fleet in 2008 This decision reduced accident claims by millions of dollars according to Gaudet However vehicle wraps still appear on the companys tractor trailer units in AutoZones supply chain and the companys maintenance vehicles AT A GLANCE AutoZone has revamped the way its fleet operates over the last several years u The companys fleet has moved away from strictly pickups to a more varied portfolio that includes small cars and cargo vans u The company has focused on personal use policies as a means to control costs HOW AUTOZONES FLEET TOOK INDUSTRY CHANGES IN STRIDE AutoZone has reshaped the structure of its fleet by establishing a more varied asset portfolio and new policies BY ANDY LUNDIN 10 FLEET FINANCIALS MARCH APRIL 2018