How UOVO Handles Coast-to-Coast Operations with Fleetio

Key takeaways from this blog

1. Fleet management principles are (largely) universal: No matter their industry or the number of assets they oversee, fleet managers prioritize PM, budget and safety.

2. A centralized platform can unify your locations: The right fleet management solution for your organization allows you to monitor every vehicle you own, wherever it may be.

3. It helps to have a chain of command: If your operations span multiple locations, having a hierarchy of location-specific and all-encompassing managers.

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From retail to oil and gas, the principles of fleet management largely remain the same across industries. No matter their mission, vehicle-dependent organizations strive to keep their assets in good shape, their finances in the black and their drivers safe. And to achieve those goals, it's universally beneficial to have a reliable means of tracking your fleet's maintenance needs and expenses.

Denise Estepp, National Fleet Compliance and Maintenance Manager at UOVO, understands these commonalities from firsthand experience. Throughout her career in fleet management, she's traversed numerous industries and worked for organizations big and small. But for the past seven years or so, she's found that one fleet management solution meets the needs of every fleet she's led.

Here's what led to Denise discovering Fleetio and, subsequently, how UOVO leverages Fleetio to manage operations across 13 locations.

Different fleets, common challenges

Denise got her start in the fleet industry when she was hired as a bookkeeper for a wood waste recycling company. She was brought on in advance of a Department of Transportation (DOT) audit, but because the work piqued her interest, she stuck around. From there, she expanded her fleet knowledge by taking on various roles at small organizations before eventually landing at Walmart's headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas.

For seven years, Denise worked as a fleet manager for the largest retail chain in the US. In that role, she oversaw a gargantuan network of distribution centers, a staggeringly large fleet and thousands of drivers. Orchestrating such a huge operation was a major step up from her past experiences, and doing so helped Denise really sharpen her fleet management skillset.

But despite the massive difference in scale, Denise recognized that, at her earliest roles and Walmart, the fundamentals of fleet management overlapped. At the end of the day, effective stewardship of a collection of vehicles boils down to staying on top of preventive maintenance (PM) through diligent recordkeeping. Whether you're in charge of five vehicles or 5,000, that recipe for success still applies.

UOVO's need for a centralized solution

Fast forward to today and Denise is National Fleet Compliance and Maintenance Manager at UOVO, a provider of transportation, storage and maintenance services for precious art, wine and fashion collections. Partly via acquisition, the company has grown to 16 locations supported by a fleet of about 60 vehicles (of every truck classification).

In terms of hierarchy, each UOVO base of operation is individually overseen by a location manager responsible for the vehicles stationed there. Denise watches over UOVO's fleet as a whole by ensuring that things are on the up and up from California to New York and every location in between.

It's integral to have a number one position that is nationally focused, instead of 13 location managers trying to bubble up information to an operations manager (who isn't focused on fleet)... I'm the face and the voice of the fleet overall. Denise Estepp, National Fleet Compliance and Maintenance Manager at UOVO

Given the expansiveness of UOVO's operations (and the value of the items the company stewards), it's vital that Denise has full visibility over her fleet at all times. Fortunately, her go-to system of record provides exactly that.

How Fleetio supports multi-site fleet management

Thanks to Fleetio, Denise is able to monitor the health of UOVO's vehicles at the macro and micro level. From a single, centralized platform (that integrates with Motive, the company's telematics provider), she's able to instantly check if any vehicle is in need of attention.

[Fleetio] gives me an overall look at what the whole fleet is doing. I can also narrow it by the department and speak to that specific location's manager... I often run reports for things like renewals or inspections or overdue maintenance. Denise Estepp, National Fleet Compliance and Maintenance Manager at UOVO

Based on the information she sees in Fleetio, Denise coordinates her communications with UOVO's location managers. If she spots that one branch is falling behind on their PM, she'll reach out to that location's manager to find out what's going on. Or if a particular defect is being reported in DVIRs across the country, she'll put out a nationwide bulletin to all location managers with instructions on how to correct the matter. This setup enables Denise to provide effective guidance for every situation and to every UOVO location.

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UOVO is the fourth fleet Denise has onboarded to Fleetio since she first discovered it about seven years ago, a loyalty that is reinforced as we continue to enhance Fleetio's ability to alleviate the universal challenges her fleets face.