FLEET intouch caught up with Toribio Noel Ilao, Director Bureau of Equipment with the Philippines Department of Public Works and Highways. Noel will be sharing his experience and knowledge at this year’s IPWEA Australasian Fleet Conference.

It was great to have this opportunity to hear from Noel on the challenges of moving fleet practices forward in a challenging environment. 

FI: What is the current make-up of your fleet?

Noel: The Department of Public Works and Highways has two fleet categories: land-based and water-based fleet. The current size of the land-based fleet is over 6400 units, which are deployed around the country, and for the water-based fleet 92 units as of 2018. The current fleet is still expanding.

FI: What challenges does the Philippines’ unique geography create for you and your fleet and how has the Bureau approached these challenges?

Noel: There are key challenges in our Fleet Management Program aside from geography such as a unique management strategy, impact of climate change, national politics and security, and availability of resources.

Our people and units are distributed around the country in major islands, which are part of the 7100 islands. Having a fleet management program for each regional office and district engineering office requires a unique approach and strategy. Although there is a standard, there are unique identifiable policies and procedures applicable only for these areas.  On top of being a support to maintenance of national roads and bridges, the Bureau of Equipment and our counterparts in the regional office's Equipment Management Division, and district engineering office's Equipment Services Units, are the first responders to any type of calamities. Mandates and policies entrust to form part of the Quick Response Organisation, complimented with the right crew and size of equipment requirements.

In approaching these strategies, key things we considered are having a plan – short, medium and long-term, including capability development program, management buy-in and commitment of all stakeholders and accepting changes.

FI: What would you say have been some of the Bureau’s significant improvements to date?

Noel: In 2011 to the present, the Bureau adopted asset life-cycle management, with risk management as a model in managing our entire fleet. Most of our policies and procedures are anchored in this model. In fact, in 2015, the Bureau adopted the ISO 55001:2014 (asset management) in our fleet management program; in 2013, as part of DPWH, we were ISO 9001:2008 (quality management) certified and in 2015, we successfully transitioned to ISO 9001:2015. Right now, we are preparing for ISO 45001:2018 certification (OH&S). There are several best practices and organisational models we adopted that are helping the Bureau in our journey to excellence.

FI: How do you approach the concept of reliability centered maintenance (RCM)?

Noel: In order to improve and sustain our annual target for availability and utilisation, we are now piloting RCM in the DPWH central office motorpool. We started the training and capability development of concerned personnel in 2016 and continuing to this date. In our work management program, we already included failure codes and causes as part of the history of maintenance, and we have institutionalised the RCM program policy, use of failure codes, causes and mechanism. We acquired shop equipment to support our reliability program, having our equipment operators and mechanics nationally certified in batches. 

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

Noel: To learn and expand further on our knowledge base, and – if possible – to benchmark.

FI: Why will your presentation be unmissable for participants?

Noel: Participants will see a different approach in Fleet Management and can take some simple ideas which they can use in their respective organizations, especially the application of RCM in Fleet Management, especially that this will be coming from a developing country in Asia. I’m looking forward to sharing our learning and experience to the conference participants.

Register for the 2019 IPWEA Australasian Fleet Conference here.