On any given day, there are hundreds of moving parts involved in ground handling operations, all working together in tandem.
Ensuring success in ground handling operations is no small task. With managing staff, GSE movement, efficiencies, and adapting to daily challenges and unexpected delays, successful strategic planning is paramount for successful ground handling operations that remain on-budget.
We’ve come up with some tips and insights for your 2019 ground handling operations strategic plan to help you operate successfully, efficiently, cut unnecessary costs, and ultimately make your life easier.
GSE fleet efficiency
If you’re planning to maximize your cost-savings, upgrading to an efficient fleet is a strategy you can get on board with.
Opting for electric-powered or diesel-powered ground support equipment can reap huge cost-savings by itself. Coupled with fleet management and telematics, those cost-savings increase significantly.
For example, in one month’s use, dashboard analytics from the Avro Tracker fleet technology showed that a client who switched to more efficient equipment utilizing Avro Tracker telematics reduced fuel consumption by over 50%. Year over year, this adds up to tens of thousands of dollars. You can integrate this saved dollar amount year over year into your strategy spend into other items to achieve your strategic goals.
In addition, preventing unnecessary idling time of combustion engines by using electric-powered ground support equipment or fleet management telematics is a great way to align and eliminate C02 emissions if your strategy includes environmentally-friendly objectives.
Fleet telematics
Fleet management involves a set of connected technologies – known as telematics. Together, they provide the operational intel and proprietary data to know exactly what’s happening with an airport ground support fleet, at any point in time.
Fleet telematics is important for your 2019 ground handling operations strategy because it can help you to:
- Maximize efficiency by identifying cost-savings and streamlining operations
- Minimize downtime by avoiding unscheduled repairs and tracking fleet utilization
- Ensure safety by monitoring operator behavior and meeting regulatory compliance
Big picture overview with dashboard analytics
A big picture overview is essential for smooth ground handling operations. Not only can fleet telematics like the Avro Tracker give you a big daily picture overview with its dashboard picture, it can give you a monthly overview so you can see how your trends and usage are fitting into your strategic goals.
With this big picture information, you can make decisions about your future ground handling operations to better align them with your business goals, if needed. Some of these “big picture” items in the dashboard analytics include:
- Fleet movement and condition
- Vehicle operator behavior and safety
- Hours of use and preventative maintenance
Even better, Avro Tracker can help you make better business decisions by giving you monthly analytics and insight into your operations, which can help you to make better business decisions and plan for the future.
Equip your operators for success
Strategies extend far beyond beyond plans and your ground support equipment fleet. A big part of what makes GSE operations seamless is the staff you have handling your operations.
Fleet telematics like the Avro Tracker allow you to really understand the behavior of your workforce.
The digital information provided by fleet telematics provides an accurate view of each operator’s driving record – through time logs, speed records, and impact reports.
This gives management the ability to easily identify areas in need of improvement, or operators in need of additional training. This helps raise safety standards, while protecting the moral and safety of everyone.
You can also incorporate these operator behavior analytics into your employees’ performance review. For example, you may wish to incorporate a reward system for safe operating behavior. This creates a further incentive for your staff to employ your strategic goals.
In this way, fleet telematics allow you to train and groom your operating staff to comply with, embody and help meet your strategic business goals.
Strategic planning for ground handling operations is a daunting task. However, by utilizing an efficient fleet and integrating the latest connected technologies – including those for equipment tracking and fleet management systems – you can streamline operations, keep pace in a growing market, stay profitable, and ultimately, be successful.
Avro GSE is part of the Saskarc family of companies. Since establishment in 1991, Saskarc Industries has forged a solid reputation as an industry leading modular metal fabricator and site equipment supplier in Western Canada.
We keep your GSE equipment and overall aircraft operations working efficiently and help our customers avoid downtime caused by old, outdated or malfunctioning GSE. We help customers modernize their fleet with advanced technology to maximize reliability, operational efficiency, and overall safety.
We provide GSE equipment service that is proactive, cost effective and designed for rapid problem response and resolution.
