Wyandotte County and Kansas City

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City uses Fleetio to keep their focus on fleet, not process, as well as improve their communication across the organization.

Company Objectives

• Find a solution designed specifically for fleet

• Reduce downtime by streamlining communication

• Increase access to fleet data on the go

The fleet services division of the Unified Government runs an operation of over 1,300 fleet assets, that ranges from sedans and heavy duty trucks to commercial construction equipment and other miscellaneous specialty vehicles. They also oversee the purchase and disposal of all units and handle the maintenance on those units throughout their lifespans, including upfits. After years of struggling against a software that wasn’t intended for fleet use, the Unified Government was able to use Fleetio to improve their access to their team and their fleet’s data, no matter where they are in Wyandotte County.

1. Switch to a platform designed for a high-volume fleet

Jeff Miles knew pretty immediately that something needed to change on the software front when he first became the fleet manager for the Unified Government.

“I figured out really quickly that that software we were using, it was really designed for other assets within a municipality, and they were trying to mold it to a fleet department,” he says. “Just to be honest with you, it looked like a train wreck.”

Not only was the fleet hobbled by a platform that wasn’t designed to fit its industry, let alone its needs, managing all the different systems that ran the fleet was consuming time and resources from all sides of the operation that had little to do with the day-to-day tasks of running a fleet.

“When you have to have two internal employees on three different lines dealing with your fuel software, fleet software and internal IT department, getting them to communicate with one another, that tells you you need a new solution,” says Operations Superintendent Samantha Saysoff.

Switching to Fleetio allowed the Unified Government to stop jumping technological hurdles and spend more of their time focusing on their actual job descriptions. The user-friendly interface and the dashboards designed for fleet data meant quick onboarding and easy adoption across the board, regardless of any individual’s software proficiency.

“When we landed on Fleetio, that’s what it reminded us of – it felt like I had landed on a social media site, or Amazon, to where it’s really helping guide [employees] to the answers that they need,” Jeff says.

2. Get everyone on the same page to get vehicles back out on the road faster

Communication goes a long way in a fleet, and the Unified Government was coming up short on a couple fronts, the biggest of which was difficulty in communicating around maintenance issues. For Randy Hand, lead fleet technician, the ability to send messages on the platform was vital in keeping everyone in the loop around work orders.

“I use Fleetio to communicate with the guys so that the employees, the mechanics and the team members know everything that’s going on,” Randy says. “Fleetio helps us get those vehicles back out on the road quickly.”

Lead Fleet Mechanic Eric Yeager saw another benefit – Fleetio became a great equalizer in making sure that everyone was being heard in the process of running the fleet, in the maintenance process and beyond.

“When I first got here, the system was in the dinosaur ages,” Eric says. “Before, we were like, ‘Are we heard?’ But now, everyone has an input. Everyone’s voice matters.”

3. Maintain better fleet data visibility

As the operations superintendent, it’s Samantha’s job to make sure that everything is flowing smoothly throughout the fleet, and Fleetio gives her immediate insight into all the moving parts of the fleet services division.

“My dashboard is kind of my baby I check on every single morning,” she says. “So, every day I check my inventory value that’s on my dashboard and then a lot of times, I will check our work orders right after that, go over to our pending approval I review a lot of the work orders alongside the lead technicians and I make sure that our notes are taken, parts are charged out, time is charged.”

“Fleetio GO – excellent,” Randy says. “I can be at home and I can work on tickets. I was in a meeting and we were discussing a unit, I was able to pull it up on my phone and tell them everything about that unit.”