Do you know if your company is spending too little or too much on fleet maintenance? How are you monitoring fleet performance and costs? The Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEMP) and CFMA have partnered to help answer these questions by developing the Heavy Equipment Comparator.

Fleet management can be a challenging business area to manage and improve. Balancing the size and composition of your fleet with effective maintenance practices, maximizing equipment utilization, and optimizing fleet costs are key components to successful fleet management.

What Is the Heavy Equipment Comparator?

Recognizing the industry’s long-standing need for the uniformity in measuring heavy equipment maintenance performance and costs, CFMA and AEMP created the Heavy Equipment Comparator (HEC) to establish:

• Common terminology, standard terms, and definitions
• Standard calculation and formulation methods for metrics
• A common platform to benchmark peer performance and evaluate fleet and aid in decision-making
• Industry averages and Best in Class key performance indicators (KPIs) for comparison

With the Heavy Equipment Comparator, construction financial professionals, fleet managers, and management teams can optimize their fleet management practices, reduce costs, enhance equipment reliability, and unlock unparalleled operational efficiencies. CPA firms and consultants can use this data to assist clients in benchmarking and evaluating their fleet results. Software companies can create customer value by building exports and reports based upon and to support HEC KPIs.

The HEC is intended to help companies evaluate their own performance relative to that of similar companies to understand the health and effectiveness of their fleet operations and identify improvement opportunities. The data in this report represents 32 KPIs in nine categories to help measure a heavy fleet’s performance and costs through:

• Inputs: labor efficiency, inventory efficiency, and capital
• Outputs: utilization, financial and cost metrics, and reliability
• Processes: planning and scheduling, preventative maintenance, and safety

About the Survey

The metrics and definitions for this survey are organized into a comprehensive questionnaire administered by Industry Insights Inc., in conjunction with CFMA and AEMP members.

Of the 530 potential respondents to the initial survey that included both CFMA and AEMP members and non-members, 57 companies contributed data representing a statistically valid sample of the eligible survey population. Respondents were located throughout North America (Exhibit 1).

Survey Methodology & Best in Class

The survey results are organized into relevant groupings of similar companies to promote analysis from various perspectives:

• All Respondents
• Primary Industry: Highway, infrastructure, and heavy construction
• Construction Revenues: Under $100 million, $100 to $250 million, and over $250 million (Exhibit 2)
• Best in Class: A weighted scoring system was developed to identify the top 10% of performers using a selection of KPIs that are closely linked to fleet performance