“Don’t send any work out, we'll lose our jobs.” What a load of rubbish. 

If your repair ‘turn around times’ are being extended because you don’t want to send work to external suppliers, then you’re at risk of being outsourced.

It’s time to wake up.

Your clients don’t care who does the repairs, they want their fleet assets returned as quickly as possible, so they can get back to work. 

Guess what?

Your client’s areas are at risk of being outsourced as well, so best you get their assets serviced and repaired in a timely manner, so they can continue working.

Are you starting to see a trend?

You should be, and if you’re not seeing the trend, then you’re probably in the wrong business.

Gone are the days of parking fleet assets up in the yard until you can get to them for service and repair.

The biggest mistake I see is fleet workshops viewing operational staff as fellow workers.

Forget it – they are your clients, and if they don’t get the required service they need internally, then they will seek it externally. 

Make no mistake, we are in a competitive environment. If we don’t start paying attention, we will be out of work. Simple as that! 

To stop our Anonymous Fleet Manager (AFM) blowing a gasket, we created Internal Combustion, a monthly column for fleet-related rants that lets him blow off some steam. Got a fleet gripe you'd like to get his opinion on? Email emily.ditchburn@ipwea.org and she'll pass it on to AFM – when he's in a good enough mood, that is.