“Cars and trucks are making the deliveries the only difference is trucks can deliver things like engines, exhaust systems, rack and pinions, and transmissions.”Īlthough maintenance is handled by a fleet management company, Gaudet works directly with OEMs for procurement.Įarlier, AutoZone utilized just one OEM to procure assets, but the changes in overall portfolio expanded this to more than one. They’d put it on the seat next to them,” Gaudet explained. “Most of the time people weren’t actually utilizing the truck bed to carry what they’re bringing to our customers.
Gaudet elaborated on the necessity of focusing the roles of its various assets. “We try to optimize the vehicle for its specific function in the company,” said Gaudet.
AUTO ZONE PARTS DELIVERYH DRIVER
In addition, the smaller trucks weren’t as driver friendly as the smaller vehicles we use now.”ĪutoZone transitioned to a fleet that consists primarily of small cars, pickup trucks, cargo vans, and passenger vehicles. The majority of its fleet is comprised of cars and light-duty trucks used to deliver parts from stores directly to customers. The acquisition costs were higher, the gas mileage was lower, and maintenance was higher, which didn’t get offset by higher resell values. “When you reviewed total cost of ownership, it made no sense to have an entire fleet of trucks. Most of the deliveries are hot-shot (on-demand) that have a few smaller items,” said Gaudet. “Switching to smaller vehicles was a no-brainer.
Recent rightsizing has also played a major role in how AutoZone’s fleet operates.ĪutoZone found that it could accomplish the same tasks its fleet was conducting with smaller vehicles. However, vehicle wraps still appear on the company’s tractor-trailer units in AutoZone’s supply chain and the company’s maintenance vehicles. This decision reduced accident claims by millions of dollars, according to Gaudet. This focus on personal use follows suit with a major company change that was made 10 years ago: the decision to remove branding from its fleet in 2008.
AUTO ZONE PARTS DELIVERYH DRIVERS
This gives the driver a real-time opportunity to fix the behavior before it hits the exception report so the drivers start to correct the behavior to keep off the reporting,” he said. “The in-cab coaching provides immediate alerts to things like speeding, harsh braking, etc. Improvements in safety from this came in the form of in-cab coaching, as well as an increased focus on safety from senior management. “The reporting is used to keep the topic top of mind as the store managers can use the reporting to identify and coach on specific driving behaviors.” “We have our own business intelligence product that allows us to publish reporting to all levels of management,” added Gaudet. When the data is tracked and observed, Gaudet said that the aforementioned exception reporting is shared with field management to identify and correct bad driving behaviors. “We have the ability to monitor miles driven, when driving is happening, if driving is for business purposes, the style of driving (speed, aggressive starts, harsh braking), vehicle idling, etc.” “AutoZone has a few fleet policies around personal use which help control costs, but we also utilize a lot of exception reporting to identify outliers,” said Gaudet.
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