Centralized Fleet Automated Management System (CFAMS)

NCMS Project #: 140420

Problem: DoD owns, operates and maintains thousands of industrial fleet vehicles, performing a wide range of critical logistics support tasks.  Typically there is a significant amount of over maintenance of these vehicles because maintenance schedules are based on straight calendar time or on hour meters rather than on actual motion time where most wear and tear occurs.  Furthermore, since there is no positive control over the vehicle or its location at any given time, vehicle fleet size at various sites tends to average 15-25% higher than required for day-to-day tasks.  Lastly, given that industrial fleet vehicles tend to be a non-controlled asset with no key control or operator accountability.  All of these factors ultimately cause reduced operational readiness of the fleet, as well as lost productivity contributing to reduced throughput of critical supplies and military equipment to the warfighter.

This project will include a pilot test that will be conducted at Sierra Army Depot.  It will include a wireless fleet management hardware and software solution, identified as Centralized Fleet Automated Management System (CFAMS) supplied by I.D. Systems, Inc.

Benefit: Based on I.D. Systems’ considerable experience with industrial vehicle system implementations at Fortune 100 manufacturing and retail customer sites, including U.S. Postal Processing Centers and U. S. Navy Shipyards, the expected 50 vehicle site return on investment (ROI) for the system implementation should include[1]:

  • Preventative maintenance/repair cost reductions (labor and material) of $17,700 per year.
  • Operator productivity increase (using a variety of quantifiable metrics) of 15 – 25%.
  • Decline in damage to vehicles, cargo and facility or $12,500 per year.
  • Anticipated opportunity to reduce fleet size (primarily fork trucks) by 10 – 20% through improved vehicle locating and fleet management/optimization tools.
  • Vehicle lease reduction $63,000 – $90,000.
  • Additional maintenance/repair $7,300 – $10,500.
  • Fuel/energy savings $14,350 – $20,500.
  • Labor cost reduction $131,040 – $187,200.
  • Increase in fleet operation readiness/availability by 10 – 15%.
  • Total savings identified $245,950 – $338,400.
  • Project ROI of 11-14 months.
  • Total projected savings for the entire fleet are estimated to be from $4,920 – $6,760 per vehicle/per year or $738,000 – $1,014,000 per year.

[1]  Provided client actively manages the system, to include scheduling maintenance based on motion hours.

Solution/Approach: I.D Systems will deploy the Universal Vehicle Asset Communicator (UVAC) to allow an ID badge to provide access control to the selected 50 vehicles as defined by Sierra Army Depot being the most critical material handling equipment (MHE).

Impact on Warfighter: Increase vehicle readiness for all Material Handling Equipment at Sierra and ultimately could be fully deployed to all Army Depots as well as other military services.

DOD Participation:

  • U.S. Army (Sierra)
  • U.S. Army (Anniston)
  • U.S. Army (Red River)
  • U.S. Army (Tobyhanna)
  • TACOM (Rock Island)
  • AMC G-6

Industry Participation:

  • I.D. Systems, Inc.
  • Ford Motor Company
  • NCMS

Final Report