SAP Fleet Management: two new innovations

The SAP fleet management project we started this summer is moving forward nicely, and we've continued to innovate our fleet management solution for companies on SAP in two notable ways.

First, we've enhanced the fuel management interface with improved navigation for correcting odometer reads. It's now even easier to make and verify odometer corrections, which help determine when to bring vehicles in for service. We've also built standard reports that enable fleet managers to track vehicle usage along a time continuum to detect underuse or misuse based on miles driven, miles per gallon, and fuel consumption.

Second, we've automated the process for setting up new vehicles in SAP. Rather than enter each fleet unit individually in the SAP GUI, which is time-consuming and error-prone, we've added an "easy button" to the HPC Fleet Panel (shown above) that uploads multiple vehicles' master data from a single spreadsheet. This process not only creates many new vehicles in minutes, but also creates the appropriate measurement points and measurement documents automatically. Following that step, our fleet solution for SAP automatically assigns the correct maintenance plan and schedules the notification for the first service. This greatly streamlines the work involved in getting new fleet units into your SAP ERP the right way, the first time.

To learn more about how the HPC fleet template for SAP can benefit your organization, please contact us.

SAP Fleet Management for utilities

We're starting another SAP Fleet Management implementation for a utility company this month, based on the HPC Fleet Template and our proven best practices for preventive maintenance schedules, notifications, and fleet costing at utilities on SAP.

This latest project will consolidate several legacy fleet systems into SAP using standard SAP Plant Maintenance and Materials Management functionality—plus HPC America's "fleet dashboard" that provides easy, user-friendly access to common fleet management tasks in SAP for mechanics, fleet managers, and other administrators.

The HPC Fleet Dashboard provides quick access to the daily functions required to maintain vehicles in SAP from purchase through retirement. 

SAP Fleet Management and Fuel Fraud

Our recent work integrating SAP Fleet Management with fuel consumption data has raised the issue of identifying potential fuel fraud. Large fleets face the risk of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in unauthorized fueling, so distinguishing fraudulent and legitimate consumption is critical.

When a fleet is vulnerable to siphoning, side fueling, cloned fuel cards, and other shady behavior, Fleet Managers should of course watch out for unusual purchases such as multiple pump transactions in quick succession, irregular fueling locations, and purchase quantities that exceed a unit's actual tank capacity. Some of these occurrences may have perfectly acceptable explanations and reasonably easy fixes—for example, a driver who fills up his truck and the equipment it's towing with the same gas card, contrary to policy of using cards unique to each asset.

But other situations require a bit more detective work when reviewing mileage and odometer readings in SAP. Dramatically lower fuel economy could be due to hauling something heavy—or an indicator that fuel purchased with the company's card may be going into another vehicle. A new odometer read that's lower than the prior read could simply be an inadvertent transposition error—or a bungled attempt to hide an unauthorized fuel purchase. The HPC Fleet Management template for SAP pinpoints these anomalies, such that Fleet Managers can interpret the data within the full context of their departments: who's driving, which vehicle, where and for what work? And in our experience, that's key: while the data in SAP is foundational, results come from the analysis of it and a real understanding of staff behavior.