NAFA Announces Endorsement Of Utilimarc Fleet Benchmarking Products

Benchmarking, the process of comparing one's business processes and performance metrics to industry bests and/or best practices from other industries, has become a necessary part of effective fleet management. Likely, it will only grow more important in the future as automotive and fuel technologies change and rapidly advance.

NAFA announced on January 30 its endorsement of the fleet benchmarking products of Utilimarc, a national consulting group based in Saint Louis Park, MN. Utilimarc offers internal and external fleet benchmarking, electronic reporting, and electronic analytical tools for large diverse fleets nationwide. The endorsement offers NAFA Members the security of knowing that their fleet Association has reviewed Utilimarc’s benchmarking products.

"NAFA has a need to provide access to benchmarking data for its members," said Phillip E. Russo, CAE, NAFA's Executive Director. "To date, we have accomplished this via surveys, but fleet managers are requesting more specific and complex data." Russo said that NAFA was satisfied by the in-depth data and services Utilimarc offered.

The Association put Utilimarc’s product through a comprehensive review process and is confident that Utilimarc’s methodologies meet all the criteria and guidelines set by NAFA to provide good benchmarking data and help achieve fleet operational excellence.

Benchmarking has been shown to maximize revenue while reducing costs, both in leading the way to best practices within an industry and through the data-driven analysis of one's own organization, thereby shining the light on aspects that require attention.

According to a survey commissioned by The Global Benchmarking Network in 2008, with response from 450 organizations from over forty countries, Performance Benchmarking was used by forty-nine percent and Best Practice Benchmarking by thirty-nine percent. The tools that are likely to increase in popularity the most over the next three years are Performance Benchmarking, Informal Benchmarking, SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses/Limitations, Opportunities, and Threats), and Best Practice Benchmarking. Over sixty percent of organizations that are not currently using these tools indicated they are likely to use them in the next three years.

Utilimarc's service was created to help fleet managers develop performance awareness and validate effectiveness. By providing electronic online formats, information can be made available to fleet professionals around-the-clock.

Some of the highlighted features of the Utilimarc system include the ability to compare fleet performance internally between departments or agencies, or externally to a user's peers. With this, the product provides the means to measure needed fleet data such as equipment age, mechanic wages, vehicle utilization, and so on.

Another feature being touted in the service includes the ability to generate electronic reports such as cost per mile, underutilized equipment, and operating costs. Through electronic analysis, fleet managers have the capacity to develop an ideal lifecycle model.

Fleet professionals who become a client of the service are provided a tutorial on how to access the data immediately. Clients are also assigned a personal analyst, who can assist in extracting the data remotely.

More information regarding Utilimarc can be found at the company's website: www.utilimarc.com

NAFA Fleet Management Association
125 Village Blvd., Suite 200
Princeton, NJ 08540

Telephone: 609.720.0882 Fax: 609.452.8004