Make Your Fleet More Accountable

By Mike Antich

   How do you prove you are doing a good job? You may think you manage a well-run fleet, but do you have the metrics to substantiate this assertion? If your fleet organization can’t quantify its performance to management and politicians, they, most likely, will not appreciate the value of the services provided. This lack of understanding is often at the root of inquiries that put fleet managers in defensive positions attempting to justify their performance. Fleet managers should not assume management understands their business and knows you are doing a good job. If you want to demonstrate you are competitive, they must develop performance measures that are available for review by all.

Develop Metrics to Measure Your Performance

   Metrics is the process of developing objective sets of data to measure how your fleet is doing relative to goals. However, selecting the right metrics to monitor and identify the underlying root causes of poor performance in your fleet may not be as easy as you think. You could measure anything and everything. But if you are tracking metrics just to maintain data, you are measuring the wrong things. To be truly effective, the metrics you develop and track need to be part of the everyday management of the fleet. First, and foremost, a good metric is measurable. The most powerful metrics are those that directly measure desired outcomes such as cost reduction, performance improvement, service consistency, or anything that has numbers associated with it or which can be quantified. Other examples of fleet metrics include monitoring vehicle utilization, maintenance expenses, vehicle downtime, or analysis of fuel efficiency by vehicle and user group.

   With this data in hand, you can compare current fleet performance against historical data to set achievable performance goals. Metrics analysis will identify inefficiencies and allow you to focus on these specific areas. Whether or not your initiatives are successful in rectifying these inefficiencies will be borne out in subsequent metrics. It is important to realize that only by putting this data into practice, can you develop performance metrics to optimize fleet resources. But don’t get stuck in your ways. Do not hesitate to discard metrics that you find you are not using on a day-to-day basis. Focus attention on areas that make a difference in daily fleet operation. Good metrics evolve, and by continually measuring the same metrics, you may be missing new opportunities to improve. It is also important to have an open-book policy and share data with management and internal customers. From the perspective of management, this will validate that you are getting optimum performance from the fleet. Fleet managers can also increase fleet operation accountability and performance by organizing fleet user committees to address the operational issues that arise between fleet operations and internal customers.

Operating Under a Service Level Agreement

   A service level agreement is a formal, intra-agency agreement between fleet operations and user groups. This agreement defines the fleet services to be produced and the cost of these services. Most importantly, a service level agreement explains the mutual responsibilities of the parties involved. Service level agreements are often used in conjunction with fleet chargeback systems.

   Those fleets that employ service level agreements usually have multiple agreements with different user departments. Service level agreements are most commonly made with fire, solid waste, police, and public works or street maintenance departments.

   The first step in implementing a service agreement is identifying end-user issues. You need to document downtime, cost issues, and customer-perceived lack of performance. However, service level agreements should be re-evaluated every budget preparation season. They should be viewed as living documents that evolve over time. A common mistake made in developing a service agreement is when the fleet manager over-promises to the customer department. Another mistake is not involving your staff in developing service level agreements. A fleet manager should involve his or her staff in service level agreement negotiations throughout the entire process up to the creation of the final document. Many service level agreements fail because the fleet manager didn’t involve the day-to-day supervisory management staff that has to meet these performance standards. Sometimes, downtime standards are guaranteed to the customer department that the shop simply can’t deliver.

Accountability Makes You a Better Manager

   When you start measuring your fleet performance, set realistic goals for improvement. When you achieve your goals, raise the bar and keep measuring. Maintaining an efficient fleet is not a goal, but a journey. You need to keep feeding the metrics back into your processes to continually improve your fleet’s performance. Metrics can modify behavior. Push your metrics to your internal customers to show them how they can contribute to improving fleet efficiency and make it more cost-effective.

   You are what you measure. A fleet manager should embrace increased accountability because it will make you a better fleet manager.

   Let me know what you think.

mike.antich@bobit.com