Whether the driver is rate-capping or council amalgamations, organisations are continually under pressure to provide increased efficiency – and it is unlikely plant and vehicle fleets are exempt.
IPWEA’s
Plant and Vehicle Management Workshops are intensive one-day sessions, designed to provide organisations with step-by-step tools to improve their plant and vehicle management practice, while providing an update on the latest technology in various fields of plant and vehicle management plus professional development and networking.
The workshops will be held in Sydney on 17 May, Melbourne on 19 May and Perth on 20 May. All three sessions will feature an Ask Your Fleet Mates open forum to discuss local issues, information on managing external plant hire, the future of parts management and an update on standards and compliance for vehicle loading cranes.
The Melbourne and Perth workshops will cover strategies to manage cost pressures in fleet.
The Sydney workshop will cover how to prepare for council amalgamations, and touch on
drones, their use and associated issues.
Strategies to manage cost pressures in fleet
4C Management Solutions Director and IPWEA fleet panelist Robert Wilson says managing costs in fleet is not about cutting necessary services but finding more efficient ways of doing business.
“Often a good place to start is understanding the current budget and the cost drivers associated with it,” he says. “Take fuel for example: Consider what drives fuel costs. It could be usage, the fuel economy of the asset, the price paid for fuel or driver attitude.
“Similarly, understand what drives maintenance costs; is it the age of the fleet, fleet assets that are not fit-for-purpose or poor maintenance practice?”
Wilson says the better a fleet manager can understand how the costs of operating the fleet are generated, the better they are positioned to drill down and identify strategies to reduce cost.
Investing in technology is one way to do this.
“GPS systems and telematics enable better monitoring of the fleet and for decisions to be made about usage, allocation and specification requirements,” Wilson says.
Although the best way to reduce fleet costs is to dispose of any unnecessary assets, there are risks to cutting costs if decisions are made for the wrong reasons.
“Maintenance budgets may be seen as low-hanging fruit, but if necessary maintenance is not performed the fleet operator runs the risk of increased costs of repairs in the medium term and possible legal action if poor maintenance leads to injury of employees or other road users,” Wilson warns. “The key is to target opportunities to reduce costs without creating negative outcomes.”
Uniqco Group of Companies Managing Director Grant Andrews, who will be presenting at the workshops, says retaining fleet and plant for the optimal number of years while minimising downtime is essential.
“The most expensive component of your fleet is depreciation,” Andrews says. “If you can keep your fleet for longer it’s often a proactive way of saving money.
“However, you can’t hold on to it for too long, because then your maintenance costs and your downtime go up, and that has a massive impact on delivering your programs. You might have to hire equipment, or you might have to bring in a contractor.
“There needs to be a balance between the two.”
Council amalgamations and fleet
Although one goal of council amalgamations is to increase efficiencies, Andrews says the very nature of fleet and plant means this can sometimes be difficult.
“Geographically, it’s sometimes easier to keep two depots, because of the distances involved in responding to potential problems within the fleet,” he explains.
“The logistics of, say, moving plant to the other side of a mountain range for servicing are just ridiculous. You need to be sympathetic to the geography of the area.”
Andrews recommends bringing in a third party to oversee and mediate what can be a difficult transition.
“The two councils will probably have a different concept of how to manage fleet,” he says. “That needs to be put on the table straight away, so they can agree on how they’re going to manage their fleet in the future. One council may say the best time to change their fleet is every three years, and the other says every five years – that conversation can get very emotional.”
Bundaberg Regional Council Fleet Services Manager Andrew Railz, who will be a workshop panelist, recalls the challenges that resulted from an amalgamation of Bundaberg City, Burnett Shire, Kolan Shire and Isis Shire councils in 2008.
“None of the previous four councils had a dedicated fleet manager in place and fleet was managed by the district engineer,” Railz says.
After the amalgamation, Railz says a number of issues quickly became evident. Firstly, there was no uniform procedure for tasks such as reporting defects, or calculating and applying plant hire rates. Each workshop had its own maintenance practices – for example, a different brand of oil was being used at each location.
With no dedicated fleet management software in place across the workshops, no reliable data was available. Additionally, with no common method for numbering fleet assets, multiple assets with the same plant number were identified.
While the challenges the face fleet managers during an amalgamation are real, Andrews says it is also an opportunity to go back to the drawing board and update potentially outdated fleet and plant programs and practices.
“It’s an opportunity to start with a clean slate for all organisations,” he says.