Fleet management is tough for anyone – but could you imagine operating a fleet of 300,000 trucks? The Army and Marine Corps have an inventory of over 300,000 trucks. Military vehicle fleet management is an incredibly tough challenge. They are trying to decide which fleet vehicles to keep, and how they will go about fixing or replacing damaged and outdated fleet vehicles.
Over the past several years the military has done a decent job of forecasting the quantities and types of fleet vehicles they will need. But fleet management forecasts with this size and type of fleet is never going to be perfect. Forecasts of future buys have been difficult due to internal disagreements over how to modernize the fleet of more than 150,000 Army and 25,000 Marine Corps Humvees. Because of their sheer numbers and the potential costs of acquiring new vehicles to replace old ones, Humvees are creating a challenging fix-or-buy-new dilemma for decision makers.
Humvees make up the biggest portion of the tactical wheeled vehicle fleet. In deliberations over how to modernize the fleet, the $36 billion already poured into MRAPs is the elephant in the room. That equates to almost half the value of the entire $70 billion Army fleet of 266,000 trucks.
Military fleet management is carefully weighing their options. Many industry insiders are speculating that the big costs won’t actually be in purchasing new trucks but rather in fleet repairs and upgrades. One thing everyone seems to agree on is that any type of fleet modernization strategy, will revolve around light trucks.
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