In a couple of weeks, I am giving a speech on Blocking & Tackling your fuel management program. When you say blocking and tackling it sounds so hard, it reminds you of watching a football game with the big lineman down in the trenches.

Believe it or not, it is that hard. If you want to really save money on your fuel program, first thing you need to do is have the proper fuel planning. How are we going to fuel? Where are we going to fuel? Who is going to do the fueling? What is our process for buying fleet fuel? When is our fuel buying and fuel management going to take place?

There is a list a mile long that goes along with those questions that we will talk about in coming articles.

The most important thing to remember is a fuel management program is basically a living breathing animal. If you're setting your fuel planning and forgetting about it, you're losing money everyday. A solid fuel management program needs to be managed all the time. Negotiations, fuel audits, supplier audits, tax reviews, and drivers following directions on where to fuel. What's the cost for fuel additive, how about DEF? A successful fuel management program is like a successful football coach. You have a fuel game plan and every week that plan needs to be revised. In football, a team's opponent changes weekly; in fuel what's changing is the fuel environment: bulk fuel cost, over the road fuel cost, transaction providers, fleet fuel companies. Your routes change and therefore you must change.

Are you doing these things for your fuel management program today? If not, you need to be. What's your company going to do when prices go back up over $4 a gallon for diesel? Fuel planning isn't going to get any easier. Over the next several weeks, I'll help you get to a place that will provide you with some education to better buy your company's fleet fuel.