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Mercury is a consulting firm whose number one goal
is to provide high-value services to public and private fleet
maintenance management operations - regardless of size. We believe that
the large number of fleet management 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 fleet
industry can offer the wide array of consulting services and business
solutions that we provide.
Mercury is committed to providing fleet
consulting services whose value far exceeds their costs, because we
understand that the decision to engage a consulting
firm is a momentous one for many organizations. In fact, many fleet
management operations often contract with a
consulting firm only after all other possible avenues for solving a
problem or answering a question have been exhausted. We recognize that
many fleet operations spend years trying to secure funds and management
approval to hire a
consulting firm, and that, once secured, the engagement must generate a
significant "return on investment." To this end, we are prepared to
address every facet of our clients' fleet 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 fleet 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 fleet is
directly attributed to fuel and fuel management services. It is also an area of fleet
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 the on-going pressures to
reduce emissions. Thus, for many organizations 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 both the short and long term. The fleet
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 and services available to
drivers.
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
and Inventory
Management |
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A significant portion of a fleet operation's
annual expenditures can be accounted for in parts management.
This cost can vary significantly from one fleet operation to the
next depending on the composition, age, and application of
equipment in a fleet. 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, vehicle and equipment
replacement schedules, poor vendor performance, cumbersome procurement
procedures, insufficient warehousing space, inadequate staffing
levels, antiquated information systems and technology, 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 consulting professionals and previous
fleet managers we recognize these challenges. We have assisted
numerous fleet operations overcome these issues, because we
possess the industry experience and knowledge
of best practices in parts management to draw upon. We understand the
issues that affect the availability of inventory, part
turn - over, fill - rates, 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 member in our firm previously served as a procurement
officer 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 Inventory Availability and Stocking Level Review |
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Parts and Inventory Management Reengineering |
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Parts and Inventory Management Reviews |
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Procurement Procedures Assessments |
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Vendor and Contractor Performance Reviews |
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Parts Warehouse Design |
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Fleet Replacement
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The replacement of vehicles and equipment in a
timely manner is a problem for many fleet operations. The decision
to replacement equipment is often driven by the fiscal health of the
organization, breakdown or failure of the asset, or some other
unpredictable factor. However, a proper fleet replacement program
can provide both fleet reliability and fiscal stability for a fleet
operation and to the general organization.
Our principal consultants have been providing
fleet replacement planning services for decades, which is why dozens
of fleet operations have contracted with us over the years. Whether
you utilize ad hoc appropriations, lease-purchase, debt financing,
or a hybrid approach our fleet consulting team can assist you in
developing a long-term replacement strategy. Moreover, as part of
our fleet 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 fleet replacement consulting services include:
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Fleet Replacement Fund Development |
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Fleet Replacement Funding Strategies |
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Fleet Replacement Planning |
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Fleet Replacement Life Cycles |
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Lease Versus Buy Analysis |
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General Fleet Operations |
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Our general fleet operations consulting
services is one of our most frequently contracted groups of services.
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
consulting services. Moreover, virtually no other firm in the fleet
industry can provide our wide array of general fleet consulting
services.
Some of our general fleet consulting services include:
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Business Process Reengineering |
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Fleet 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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Benchmarking Studies |
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Performance Measurement Solutions |
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Outsourcing and Privatization Consulting Services |
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Outsourcing or privatization is a process that most people view as
an all or nothing process. In some cases this is true. However, we
also find operations that are very efficient at specific services,
such as preventive maintenance. In such an instance an appropriate
approach may be to outsource part of an operation. Nonetheless, the
choice of 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 worked with many years
with internally serviced and outsourced fleet operations, negotiated
several outsourced maintenance contracts for clients, and provided
managed competition services.
Some of our outsourcing and privatization consulting services include:
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Managed Competition Facilitation |
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Outsourcing and Privatization Contract Negotiations |
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Outsourcing and Privatization Feasibility Reviews |
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Fleet Management Information Services
(FMIS) |
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One of the most significant changes
in the fleet industry has been a veritable explosion of quantitative
data. The sources of these data are multitude: fleet management
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 fleet and the fleet operations has placed significant
pressure on fleet 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 fleet managers has been and will continue to
be the struggle to keep these entities sufficiently informed in a
timely manner. Some of the best fleet 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 fleet 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 fleet consulting
services and business solutions Mercury is uniquely qualified to
assist fleet organizations with their information technology needs -
from A to Z. Our fleet consulting professionals have assisted
several clients in the selection, implementation, and maintenance of
new / replacement fleet information systems. We have also
reengineered local and wide-area networks, implemented firewalls and
security solutions, and provided ad hoc reporting solutions and
fleet information systems.
Learn more about our fleet technology solutions.
In addition to offering local services to fleet
organizations, we also provide applications hosting services. Our
hosting service allows a fleet operation to implement leading edge
business tools (e.g. fleet 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 fleet information services include:
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Ad Hoc Report Training |
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Application Training |
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Applied Fleet 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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Fleet Information System Implementation |
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Fleet Information System RFP Development |
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Fleet 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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