If you're putting together a new fuel program for your fuel management program, on-site fueling might be an approach to consider.

In case you're not familiar with mobile fleet fueling, on-site fueling, mobile refueling, wet hosing or many of the other names it goes by, let me explain: when you fleet of trucks are parked off hours, a fuel truck drives onto your location and fuels your fleet right where they're parked. 

This practice has become more popular each year.  Why?  Because it's efficient.  You company can save a lot of money on driver costs by not having to pay them to fuel their truck.  Remember, time is money.  Look at the numbers:

• Time to top for re-fuel a truck: minimum 20 minutes.
• Value of Driver & Truck: at least $65 per hour.
• Stop to re-fuel 3 times a week: 1 hour per week, or $65.
• Time lost annually to re-fueling: 50 hours.
• Monetary cost to time lost: $3,250 a truck.

Now, multiply that by the number of trucks in your fleet and you can see how quickly it adds up.

There are some things you'll need to do before starting an on-site fuelling program for your fleet.

1. Choose a vendor and check their references carefully.
2. Make sure they have insurance for fuel spills and name you as an additional insured.
3. A company that has technology for fleet fueling, such as bar code readers, will tend to be a better choice than a company that writes gallons down by pen and paper.

Numbers 4 and 5 are two important factors where fuel managers often make mistakes.

4. Price: the main fleet fuel price you should ask for is OPIS Daily Contract average, and then your fuel company's margin. If you don't have that, you're probably paying too much.
5. Audits: as the fleet manager or fuel manager, you do this heavy lifting for your fuel management program and then you get to this critical part and the ball gets dropped. It's called a fuel audit. To do this you need to check each invoice to make sure your price matched against the price against OPIS that you put in place.

Here is what often happens - no one checks the pricing. Your fuel company raises their margin because you don't have a contract and you're not auditing your fuel invoices. Before you know it, your margin has gone up 15 cents a gallon. You have line item charges for obscure charges like an environmental fee, a delivery fee, and invoice fees. These charges rack up an additional $5 to $25 per invoice and most fleet managers don't even realize they shouldn't be charged for them in the first place. Don't be fooled.

Mobile fueling is a great way for your fleet to save money on labor costs, out of route miles and can possibly even save you on number of trucks you have in your fleet operation.

If you follow the steps listed above, you should be in good shape.