£1,000 a month savings – lower fuel costs and reduced administration.
DMN Road Services, the Midlands traffic management specialists, has installed on-premises diesel dispensing facilities, enabling the firm to reduce fleet operating costs by purchasing fuel in bulk and reducing the time taken for administration of fuel card receipts.
Based on a 17,500 litres tank, the fuelling point incorporates a Merridale compact diesel dispensing pump with integrated monitoring and back-office reports software supplied by MIS Fuel Monitoring of Wolverhampton.
Previously DMN Road Services operated with fuel cards, enabling its drivers to obtain fuel from a retail forecourt close to its depot in Tanworth In Arden, Solihull.
DMN Road Services plan and implement traffic management solutions for road works and construction. Operations involve the temporary traffic lights, contra-flows, and diversions both on motorways and town centres.
“We are a national company and our client base includes local authorities, term maintenance providers, large utility / infrastructure companies and civil engineering contractors,” explains, transport manager, Damien Mountjoy.
The DMN fleet comprises 40 vans, 11 HGVs and a number of company cars. All the vehicles operate within the immediate area and return to the depot at the end of each shift, making depot fuelling a logical step to take.
“The Merridale fuel management system is doing what we expect it to do – it is absolutely brilliant,” says Damien Mountjoy. “The reporting software helps me with the tracking of the vehicles, fuel costs and everything else. It is doing exactly what it says on the tin, basically.”
“Previously managing fuel records was a time consuming chore. We are now spending an average of £40 – £45,000 per month on fuel. This would involve a regular stream of receipts, which we had to reconcile against the monthly invoice for each vehicle, before keying this into our accounts package . Now I have all the information on my computer and I know exactly when a particular vehicle was refuelled, how many times in the week and it gives me a total as well.”
“In terms of productivity, this investment in the Merridale fuel management system has saved about eight hours a week of administration time, allowing me to focus on more profitable activities.”
“The Merridale system was recommended by the tank manufacturer and it was delivered to our depot as a self contained package. Being a single site operation and with fairly simple requirements we chose the new ‘entry level’ Merridale FuelSite software and this is providing all the essential information we need.
“The tank is equipped with electronic fuel contents gauging and this allows us to set a minimum stock level for re-ordering. Currently we are buying about 9000ltrs a week but if we need more I can ask our supplier to top it up.
“Obviously, as we are buying in bulk we can negotiate better price breaks so we are saving on the cost of fuel obtained at the retail forecourts and our drivers do not have to waste time queuing up for service. As a rough estimate I would say that now we have switched to looking after the fuelling and monitoring ourselves, we are probably saving around £1000 a week.”
