By Rob Wilson – Director IPWEA FLEET

Time to re-think what you do and how you do it

When talking to those in the fleet industry and business more generally, it’s inspiring to hear that many are taking the opportunity during the COVID-19 virus to re-think what they do and how they do it. For some the need to change is forced upon them due to tightening budgets, for others it’s about taking advantage of a willingness to accept innovation by senior management and staff – a kind of thawing of entrenched thinking. Some fleet managers have used the time with staff in isolation to refresh policies and procedures and develop strategy so that they are ready to hit the road running once we are on the other side of the virus.

Fleet management is never static, and we need to continually consider whether our practices are effective and efficient. The best way to assess your fleet management practices is to undertake a gap analysis against best practice. To assist with this analysis, IPWEA developed a Third Party Fleet Management Health Check. The Health Check is a convenient and cost-effective way to get a check up on the current state of your management arrangements compared to best practice as defined in the IPWEA Plant and Vehicle Management Manual and ISO55000 for asset management. Not only does a health check tell you where you currently stand, it identifies where you can improve. This cyclical process of review, identifying opportunities for improvement and implementing improvement is fundamental to proactive management.

Another great way to understand how you’re travelling is to compare your fleet management arrangements with other fleets. Even at an informal level this can raise questions for consideration, provide confidence relating to what you’re doing well and help identify what you might do better. This kind of informal benchmarking can take place with similar organisations, with organisations in different industries or even within your organisation across branches. Sometimes the most challenging aspect of benchmarking is getting started and there can be a tendency to take on too broad a scope and get bogged down in detail. Start by identifying an area you want to investigate. This might be for example; asset replacement cycles, Fleet Management Information Systems, maintenance arrangements etc. Then identify 10 or less factors related to the area of interest as the basis for comparison. For asset replacement this might be as simple as:

• The basis for replacement planning (time, utilisation, risk)
• Whether a formal replacement policy exists
• The asset categories used as the basis for replacement planning (passenger cars, light commercials, various categories of plant)
• The defined replacement point for each category
• The level of program delivery (how many of the identified replacements are completed)

Understanding the effectiveness and efficiency of your management systems and comparing your fleet operation to others can be a great way to drive improvement in your fleet and demonstrate a pro-active management approach.