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Q&A: Transforming Canada's largest fleet department

By intouch * posted 04-12-2018 14:56

  

As General Manager of Fleet Services with the City of Toronto, Lloyd Brierley was given the unenviable task of transforming operations for Canada’s largest municipal fleet department.


Lloyd_Brierley.jpgWe spoke to Brierley ahead of his keynote presentation at the 2019 IPWEA Australasian Fleet Conference, where he’ll tell delegates how the transformation was achieved.
 
inspire: How large is City of Toronto’s fleet? What kind of fleet assets does it include?

Brierley: The City of Toronto’s fleet is comprised of approximately 13,000 assets spread across the city’s divisions and agencies. The city-wide fleet is still somewhat fragmented, so the Fleet Services Division is primarily responsible for the management of the city’s 5500 corporate vehicles and equipment and 11,000 vehicle and equipment operators. Fleet Services provides varying degrees of support for the remaining assets that can include fuel management, capital budget management and procurement, fleet safety, training and compliance oversight, as well as corporate reporting and issues management.

inspire: What challenges does the fleet department face?

Brierley: As with any large organisation, Fleet Services faces numerous challenges. Toronto has outpaced national growth averages for the past five years and the demand for housing and office space has never been higher. As one might expect, this has driven up property values as well as housing and rental costs. When combined with the massive outflux of baby boomers, a global decline of enrollment in skilled trades and available staff, coupled with the rapid increases in technology and an intensified need for efficiencies, it has made attracting and retaining staff with the requisite skills and experience extremely challenging.

Add to this some of the following challenges:

• A large number of makes, models and asset types that have made our fleet one of, if not the most, unintentionally complex municipal fleet operations in North America. As one might expect, this wide variance of asset types can make procurement, maintenance and fleet management difficult and costly.

• This is combined with almost 10 years of successive fiscal restraint and cutbacks that includes resources. Some of the resultant challenges include: a shortage of required staffing, finances, tools, training and IT systems, as well as the facilities and infrastructure that are needed to keep up with fleet industry changes. At the same time, demand has increased.

inspire: What are some of the changes or actions that have been taken to address those challenges?

Brierley: Numerous approaches have been taken and examples exist, but most are comprised of the following three focus areas or pillars:

Operational optimisation has been inward focused in both approach and outcome. We’ve put in place solutions that produce alternate methods to meet business requirements or drive efficiencies, without fundamentally changing our current mode of business.

Organisational transformation involves focusing more on technological or socio-technical innovation that improves the quality and/or value for people inside or outside the organisation. Although still primarily inward focused, with this approach we usually work up and down the value chain while collaborating closely with our stakeholders.

Systems building is the most dynamic process of the three. Through this approach, fleet staff, and occasionally unrelated organisations, work together to create positive, lasting impacts. As cliché as it is, systems building often requires some outside-the-box thinking (or at least outside-the-box for the legacy organisation), but when a symbiotic relationship can be developed, benefits are an easily embraced derivative.

inspire: What lessons do you think can be taken away from the Toronto fleet department’s transformation?

Brierley: Every area has its own regional nuances, challenges and priorities. Regardless of where you are on the planet, I feel that many of the challenges faced and solutions developed in the fleet industry are somewhat universal and transferrable. It’s my hope that some of the lessons learned, successes and innovation in Toronto will serve as takeaways or inspiration that can be useful for others.

inspire: What are you most looking forward to about the 2019 IPWEA Australasian Fleet Conference?

Brierley: I truly enjoy what I do and being given the opportunity to attend the IPWEA Fleet Conference means being able to share and assist others. It also means being able to speak with some brilliant Australasian minds in the fleet industry so that I may learn from them as well. These knowledge sharing opportunities are immensely valuable, as that is what helps us to become better together and drive the industry forward with new ideas and solutions to challenges, which is something I truly enjoy.

If you want to hear how Lloyd Brierley transformed Toronto's fleet operations, secure your place at the Australian Fleet Conference, 25-27 March 2019, at the Royal International Convention Centre, Brisbane. 

This story was first published in the November/December edition of inspire magazine. Read the original and more here. 
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