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Originally hailing from South Africa, David Jacobs migrated to New Zealand in 2000 and is now Manager of Fleet Assets at Wellington City Council.

How did you come to be working in Fleet Management?

My initial training was in civil engineering in South Africa, where I graduated as a Civil Engineering Technologist (Water Engineering) where after I was registered as a Professional Civil Engineering Technologist with the Engineering Council of South Africa. 

I arrived in New Zealand in 2000, joined IPENZ, completed an MBA at Victoria University and through various roles at Wellington City Council, oversaw the implementation of a fleet management contract.  There have been lots of opportunities in my role here to craft and develop my passion for fleet asset management. 

What are the biggest challenges facing fleet managers in New Zealand at the moment (and how do you think they can be overcome)?

There are many challenges facing practising fleet managers. These include vehicle safety; peak oil and climate challenge; the challenging fiscal global environment; regulatory compliance and so on. 

With that said, what I find challenging is the ever-changing technology of the fleet, be it mechanical, safety features, structural, electrical, on-board electronics, etc. The ever-increasing pace of technological obsolescence is staggering with the possible and higher-than-normal cost of repair threatening to shorten the asset’s economical life. And we are not even talking about alternative propulsion technology, such as electric or hybrid vehicles.

The challenge is fiscally managing the extended ownership life of a fleet asset to where realised cost savings can be derived through maximising opportunity costs once the fleet asset is fully depreciated and where the cost of capital from the borrowings has been paid. This was something I learnt from a finance colleague in my early days of managing the Council’s fleet. Where it pays to do so, we sweat the asset. 

Overcoming the challenge involves having good whole-of-life financial and non-financial history on the asset, high standards in the duty of care towards the asset and using avoidable extended warranties. This all makes the optimised decision-making on whether to sweat the asset or to retire an under-performing asset sooner than originally planned a lot easier.

Since New Zealand recently became IPWEA's newest Division, what IPWEA resources or tools have you found most valuable?

There’s no doubt, one of the most valuable tools I have picked up on is the IPWEA Plant and Vehicle Management Manual and some associated readings such as the IPWEA Condition Assessment and Asset Performance Guidelines.  These all marry very neatly with the Council’s fleet asset management plan that was founded on principles from the International Infrastructure Management Manual.  

Also of value with the new association with IPWEA is the access I have to the online fleet forums with peers from across the ditch and hopefully soon with fleet management peers on this side of the ditch.

Can you provide an example of a unique or innovative fleet management practice/solution at Wellington City Council that other councils might learn from? 

Yes definitely, this will be the advanced use of fleet tracking technology to optimise fleet utilisation. By jointly developing this tool with the Council’s incumbent fleet tracking management service provider, SmarTrak, we have reduced the overall size of our light fleet. This has been achieved through applying and analysing time stamp positional GPS-derived attributes in the nifty graphical display of a 24-hour dimensional x-axis showing usage profile versus any selected period of time. This coupled with automated analysis provides very useful benchmarking utilisation measures whether it is working hours or non-working hours.

This tool has contributed, along with other associated initiatives, to the 16 per cent reduction in the size of the council’s light fleet since the 2010–11 financial year with more to come and with no disruption to business.

Anything else you'd like to add? 

With the Council’s inaugural fleet management plan underpinned by a senior fleet management steering group, we now have an effective tool and mandate to provide the strategy and vision to drive (excuse the pun) desired outcomes, including whole-of-life control and fiscal management of our fleet. Transparency and dynamic fleet decision-making is now a lot easier for the Council and we’re saving money. 

While we are not perfect and still have things we want to do, we have made some significant improvements in the way our fleet is managed.