Steven Colliver (pictured far left), Fleet Manager at Dubbo City Council recently came back from IPWEA’s US/Canada Fleet Study Tour. He shares his insights with PWPro.
Q. Why did you want to attend the study tour? 
We were very keen to get over there and see how our American counterparts work, see what we could learn from them and what they could learn from us in terms of our practices. Basically, to see where Australian fleet practices sit within the world.
Q. The American Public Works Association Congress was the first stop on the tour, what were your key takeaways from the event?
We certainly got a fair bit out of it. It was probably a good gauge to see where we sat and if the Americans and Canadians are world measure, we’re certainly well classed in terms of our fleet management practices in Australia.
Q. On the trip, you visited councils in Toronto, Hamilton, Niagara, Columbus and Orlando, what did you learn from these visits?
If we had to measure ourselves against the Americans and Canadians, I think we are certainly up there. And, based on our visits, in many cases, I think we are ahead of them in some of our fleet management practices.
They seem to carry a lot of redundant items like their garbage trucks. At one Council, for every five garbage trucks they had one spare. That would certainly not happen in Australia. We are very good at maximizing our fleet and maintaining our high utilisation items.
One of the things they do better than us is managing part inventories, which we tend to contract out. They don’t contract out a lot of stuff. They tend to control their work internally. I’m not sure that it’s always to the maximum benefit of the fleet operation. I’m not sure that they consider that.
Niagara Region in particular, is a very good council. I would align them to our councils here. They understand their costs and maintain their plant well, they turn their plant over where a lot of the other guys run it into the ground and carry many redundant items to cover for the breakdown component of their frontline items.
Some of the councils also measure their workshop performance very well, which is something I will certainly change here at Dubbo.
Q. You visited Paccar Kenworth, Parker Hannifin, Cummins and Caterpillar, what were your highlights from the factory tour element?
Apart from the sheer size of these things, their quality assurance and work practices [at Caterpillar’s headquarters in Peoria] are exceptional. The pride that they take in their work is probably one of the biggest attributes we can take away. I would like to transfer some of that into our culture.
Photo (left to right): Steven Colliver (Dubbo City Council), Andrew Railz (Bundaberg Regional Council), Ross Moody (IPWEA), Paul Glennon (Bland Shire Council), Tony Hingerty (Temora Shire Council), Jon Bannister (Blacktown City Council) and Bryan Burton (City of Columbus, Indiana).
Lessons learned from the study tour will be discussed at the
November fleet workshops.