The City of Melville in Perth’s southern suburbs is undertaking a nine-step process to improve the safety and performance of its fleet operations.
The council has formed a Continual Improvement Team to oversee the process made up of personnel from the fleet, human resources, works, waste and parks departments.
The process is essentially a nine-step Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) procedure, which involves reviewing the current situation, identifying opportunities for improvements, developing and trialling plans, and analysing those initial results. If the trials are successful, the plans can be escalated to full-scale operation. If not, new plans can be trialled.
Melville’s Fleet Coordinator Paul Wylde is the chairperson of the team. He says they quickly identified several areas that could impact and assist in lowering the amount of traffic infringements from speeding and reduce insurance claims from accidents.
“For instance, we identified a range of opportunities to reduce the number of waste truck accidents,” he says. “We decided to install reversing sensors, similar to parking sensors in some cars, in about 30 per cent of the waste fleet.
“We have a lot of reversing problems with the trucks. For example, a couple of months ago, one of the drivers backed into the front of another truck. The damage cost $72,000 to repair.
“The driver had 15 years’ experience and had been at this yard for nine years. The truck was also fitted with a reversing camera and mirrors. But accidents can still happen.
“We had a near-identical situation in 2010 that cost close to $80,000 because the whole cab had to be rebuilt.”
Wylde says previous years’ incident reporting contains many instances of trucks and vehicles damaging other council and private assets, such as walls, fences and light fixtures. These, either through insurance or below excess claims, end up being very expensive. There are other issues that have been identified, such as tree branches that cause obstructions, a lack of awareness of obstacles and training for drivers.
The team is about 80 per cent through the process and has got a range of results from its trials. For instance, Wylde says the results of the reversing sensor trials have been mixed, so there is no definitive proof they will improve operations.
“However, the trials to reduce speeding infringements have been very successful,” he adds. “Previously, whenever an infringement notice arrived, we would identify the driver, who would then have to fill out a form and return it. We were averaging about 10-12 notices per month.
“We now require drivers to fill out an incident form that is recorded in the safety minutes. Since then, infringements have dropped 90 per cent almost overnight.”
The final stages of the process involve presenting the findings in an accessible and acceptable way for staff, management and the council itself.