If you’re being asked to drive more uptime and operational productivity in your facility—and who isn’t feeling this pressure these days? — you’ll be happy to learn about some overlooked areas of improvement right under your nose. Just three manageable—but meaningful — changes to your fleet management program can supercharge your warehouse productivity.

If it feels like fleet management is a battle between corporate management and facilities, that’s because it often is. But it doesn’t need to be.

In fact, both groups can “win”—and when that happens, so does the overall company.

What if I told you there’s a relatively simple and affordable way to dramatically increase productivity and uptime in your warehouse? In fact, you may already have it in place—but if your company is like most, you’re probably underutilizing it.

It’s a Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS).

If your company is like most companies, you’re spending significant—and unnecessary—money on rental equipment. And that cost is flying under the radar.

While practically every facility needs rental equipment occasionally, rentals should be a short-term solution. But, once rentals are on site, they often get lost in the mix. The supply chain crisis only compounded this issue, since rentals spiked as companies waited months for equipment.

The fleet management playbook for on-road trucks and commercial vehicles has evolved a great deal over the past 25 years. It’s truly inspiring to see the strides made in terms of operational productivity, safety, and sustainability.

However, there’s another fleet, equally important in terms of keeping businesses running, that has not made the same advancements. Forklift fleet management remains largely stuck in the past.

Smart homes. Smartphones. Smart…warehouses? In a time when the term “smart” is bolted onto nearly every aspect of our lives, it can be difficult to pin down what this ubiquitous term actually means. As TFS knows from experience, however, accelerating or enhancing warehouse operations rarely begins with flicking a switch.

TFS employees visit thousands of facilities each year. That’s how we know that even the most respected names in manufacturing and distribution—Fortune 500 companies with huge budgets—are struggling.