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Our number one goal as a vehicle maintenance consulting firm
is to provide high-value services to organizations and vehicle
operations, both big and small, in the public and private sectors. We
believe that the large number of vehicle maintenance
operations that have engaged our services over the past 20 years is the
best testament to our ability to achieve this goal. Moreover, virtually
no other firm in the vehicle industry can offer the wide array of
consulting services.
Moreover, we are committed to providing vehicle
maintenance consulting services whose value far exceeds their costs, because we
understand that the decision to engage a vehicle maintenance consulting
firm is a momentous one for many organizations. In fact, many vehicle
management operations often contract with a
consultant only after all other possible avenues for solving a
problem or answering a question have been exhausted. We recognize that
many vehicle operations spend years trying to secure funds to hire a
consulting firm, and that, once secured, such funds must generate a
significant "return on investment." To this end, we are prepared to
address every facet of our clients' vehicle operations, not just
the most obvious or easily understood practices. We also utilize
structured, time-tested methodologies and analytical tools that save us
time and our clients' money while producing understandable, defensible
findings, practical recommendations, and realistic solutions.
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Some of the vehicle consulting services that we
provide include:
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Fuel
Management |
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Nearly 50% of the annual
cost of operating and maintaining a typical vehicle is
directly attributed to fuel and fuel management. It is also an area of
vehicle
management that has become extremely complicated, because of
legislation and policies at local, state, and federal government
levels, global economics, vast changes in technology, increased
availability of alternative fuel types, new multi-fuel enabled
and hybrid vehicles and equipment, and on-going pressures to
reduce emissions. Thus, for many people fuel management is a
black box of complex issues, which require large sums of
funding.
Minor improvements in a fuel management program, however, can
yield significant savings in the short and long term. The
vehicle
consulting professionals at Mercury understand the issues
surrounding fuel management and have extensive, first-hand
experience producing solutions to these problems for clients. In
fact, some of our fuel management consulting services have saved
clients millions of dollars, while at the same expanding the
availability of fuel site locations.
Some of our fuel management consulting services include: |
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Alternative Fuel Program Development |
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Alternative Fuel Program Reviews |
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Bulk Fuel Site Design and Engineering |
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Commercial Fuel Program Development |
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Emission Reduction Planning |
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Fuel Management Program Development |
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Fuel Management Program Review |
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Fuel Tax Reimbursement Optimization |
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Fuel Site Consolidation Reviews |
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Fuel Site Mapping and Location Services |
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Parts
Management |
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A significant portion of a vehicle maintenance operation's
annual expenditures can be accounted for in parts management.
This cost can vary significantly from one vehicle operation to the
next depending on the composition, age, and application of
vehicle in a vehicle. However, the primary goal of every parts
operation is to maintain a sufficient inventory in order to fill
a high percentage of part requests immediately while sustaining
a high part turn-over rate. This can be a difficult task, due to
the logistics with seasonal parts, vehicles and equipment
replacements, poor vendor performance, cumbersome procurement
procedures, insufficient warehousing space, inadequate staffing
levels, an antiquated information system, and a wide array of other
factors. Hence, efforts to reduce a parts operation's costs and
maintain an inventory to sustain an acceptable fill-rate
can often time seem to be diametrically opposed.
As previous vehicle managers and as professional
consultants we have a lot of industry experience and knowledge
of the best practices in parts management. We understand the
issues that affect the availability of inventory, part
turn-over, stocking levels, reordering points, minimum and
maximum levels, and the spectrum of other elements that
influence a parts operation. We also understand matters
associated with procurement policies and procedures. In fact, a
principal consultant in our firm previously served as a procurement
agent
for a local government in Florida for several years.
Some of our parts management consulting services include: |
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Electronic Procurement Strategies |
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Parts Availability and Stocking Level Review |
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Parts Management Reengineering |
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Parts Management Reviews |
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Procurement Procedures Assessments |
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Vendor / Contractor Performance Reviews |
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Parts Warehouse Design |
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Vehicle Replacement
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The replacement of vehicles and vehicle in a
timely manner is a problem for many vehicle operations. The decision
to replacement vehicle is often driven by the fiscal health of the
organization, breakdown or failure of the vehicle, or some other
unpredictable factor. However, a proper vehicle replacement program
can provide both vehicle reliability and fiscal stability for a
vehicle
operation and to the general organization.
Our consultants have been providing
vehicle replacement planning services for decades, which is why dozens
of vehicle operations have contracted with us over the years. Whether
you utilize ad hoc appropriations, lease-purchase, debt financing,
or a hybrid approach our vehicle consultant team can assist you in
developing a long-term replacement strategy. Moreover, as part of
our vehicle replacement planning services we will model several
funding and purchasing approaches so that you have the quantitative
information to justify the final funding approach.
Some of our vehicle replacement consulting services include:
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Vehicle Replacement Fund Development |
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Vehicle Replacement Plan Review |
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Vehicle Replacement Planning |
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Vehicle Replacement Scheduling |
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Lease Versus Buy Analysis |
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General Vehicle Operations |
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Our group of vehicle maintenance consultants frequently
are contracted to provide general operation reviews.
Perhaps this is due to the value that we produce as a result
of our findings. We often hear about studies, such as a strategic
business plan, that our consulting professionals performed nearly a
decade ago are still frequently referenced and utilized in
management decisions. We believe that this is the best
testament to our ability to achieve provide high quality, valuable
consultant services. Moreover, virtually no other firm in the
vehicle
industry can provide our wide array of general vehicle consulting
services.
Some of our general vehicle maintenance consulting services include:
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Business Process Reengineering |
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Vehicle Management Training |
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Operation Best Practice Reviews |
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Operation Competitiveness Assessments |
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Organizational Realignment |
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Policy and Procedure Development |
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Staffing Level Assessments |
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Strategic Business Planning |
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Managed Competition Facilitation |
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Vendor Contract Negotiations |
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Vendor Contract Reviews |
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Industry Standards and
Benchmarking Studies |
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Performance Measurement Solutions |
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Consulting Services for Vehicle
Maintenance Outsourcing |
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Vehicle maintenance outsourcing is a process that most people view as
an all or nothing process. In some cases this is true. However, we
often find vehicle operations that are very efficient at specific services,
such as preventative maintenance. In such an instance an appropriate
solution may be a hybrid approach - outsourcing specific activities
and services of a vehicle operation. Nonetheless, the
choice of either outsourcing part or an entire operation is not an easy
one. It often times requires the review of an impartial party that
understands when an operation should be outsourced, how it should be
done, and the contractual pitfalls that can result in unforeseen
charges and financial liability.
Mercury is uniquely qualified to provide you with
outsourcing consulting services, because we have worked for many years
with both internally managed and outsourced vehicle operations,
negotiated several outsourcing maintenance contracts for clients, and provided
managed competition services.
Some of our outsourcing consulting services include:
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Managed Competition Facilitation |
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Outsourcing Contract Negotiations |
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Outsourcing Feasibility Reviews |
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Outsourcing Facilitation |
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Vehicle Maintenance Information Services
(FMIS) |
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One of the most significant changes
in the vehicle industry has been a veritable explosion of quantitative
data. The sources of these data are multitude: vehicle maintenance
information systems, fuel management systems, ERP and financial
management systems, professional association databases, the
Internet, GPS and AVL solutions, web-based reporting engines, ad hoc
report writers, and document imaging systems.
The increased availability of data
on the vehicles and the vehicle operations has placed significant
pressure on vehicle managers and staff to maintain and produce a wide
array of management information for clients, financial and auditing
departments, executives, elected officials, and the general public.
A major challenge for vehicle managers has been and will continue to
be the struggle to keep these entities sufficiently informed in a
timely manner. Some of the best vehicle managers in the industry have
addressed this requirement by implementing proactive processes and
solutions that push information to stakeholders on a regular
schedule. Push technology can automatically deliver key management
decision making information to email accounts, printers, fax
machines, pagers, PDAs, and other communication devices. An
increasing number of vehicle management organizations are using their
own web sites as a means of distributing invoices, reservation
confirmations, recall notices, and the like to their customers.
As a leading provider of vehicle consulting
services and business solutions Mercury is uniquely qualified to
assist vehicle organizations with their information technology needs -
from A to Z. Our vehicle consulting professionals have assisted
several clients in the selection, implementation, and maintenance of
new / replacement vehicle information systems. We have also
reengineered local and wide-area networks, implemented firewalls and
security solutions, and provided ad hoc reporting solutions and
vehicle information systems.
Learn more about our
vehicle technology solutions.
In addition to offering local services to
vehicle
organizations, we also provide applications hosting services. Our
hosting service allows a vehicle operation to implement leading edge
business tools (e.g. vehicle information system, ad hoc reporting,
on-line consulting, and much more) without the upfront cost and time
of implementing a system locally. Users pay a fixed monthly
subscription fee to access these resources, while we manage server
replacements, application upgrades, security and antivirus
countermeasures, and data backups.
Learn more about our hosting
solutions.
Some of our vehicle maintenance information services include:
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Ad Hoc Report Training |
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Application Training |
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Applied Vehicle Principals Training |
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Windows Training |
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Custom Report Development |
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Data Integrity Audits |
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Vehicle Information System Implementation |
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Vehicle Information System RFP Development |
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Vehicle Information System Selection |
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Thin Client Design, Implementation, and Maintenance |
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Implementation of LAN / WAN / Wireless Solutions |
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Application Hosting Services |
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E-commerce |
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