Robert: Interested in hearing your opinions or approaches to handling small plant equipment (whipper snippers, chainsaws, pumps and the like) regarding Fleet/Asset management. What are your policies/procedures? What are your opinions on lifecycle replacement/budgeting?
Thomas: All our small plant/outdoor power equipment e.g., Quick Cuts, Mowers, Chainsaws etc. are on a 6-month inspection and/or maintenance schedule. Refer to the 'Managing the risk of plant in the workplace QLD code of practice 2013' section 3.6 Inspecting plant Regulation section 213: A person with management or control of plant at a workplace must ensure that maintenance, inspection, and if necessary, testing, of plant is carried out by a competent person in accordance with manufacturer's recommendations, or if those aren't available, in accordance with recommendations of a competent person. If it is not reasonably practicable to comply with the manufacturer's recommendations or the recommendations of a competent person, the inspection and testing must occur annually.
Paul: We have taken a holistic approach and replace individual items of small plant every two years. So, every year we replace 120 items as we have split the items into two-year groups. For finance, we don't include them in the asset base and have them as stocktake items only, even though they are listed as an asset for maintenance and repairs. Benefits include:
1. Almost zero down time and maintenance.
2. Don't have heavy duty mechanics fixing a blower (concentrate more on heavy items e.g., waste trucks)
3. Resale values are about 60% of original cost for battery units 80%
4. Staff using modern equipment and don't waste time on jobs with faulty items.
5. We only buy [a specific brand of] equipment and have negotiated very competitive pricing from their dealership
6. We have just this year moved chainsaws to a three-year cycle due to utilisation.
Andrew: We have a dedicated minor plant workshop, and each asset is serviced every six months or by OEM requirements. A condition assessment is performed and recorded at every pm service. We also have a minor plant hire store for short term hire requirements. Minor plant assets are replaced depending on their utilisation and the type of work performed. We fit all minor plant assets with an hour meter and record this in our fleet system as well as the 'operational duty' of the assets.
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