Automotive Fleet, January 2021

AUTOMOTIVE FLEET I JANUARY 2021 32 WAYS FLEETS IMPROVED OPERATIONS WITH SEVERAL OF LAST YEARS 2020 FLEET VISIONARIES DETAILED DURING A VIRTUAL WEBINAR WHERE THEIR FLEETS HAVE SEEN RECENT SUCCESS TOUCHING ON THE THEMES OF SUSTAINABILITY EFFECTIVE VEHICLE CYCLING MAINTENANCE AND SAFETY BY ANDY LUNDIN On Dec 9 2020 Automotive Fleet in partnership with Merchants Fleet hosted a webinar featuring several 2020 Fleet Visionary Award honorees who shared their innovative fleet management strategies and best practices A Fleet Visionary is any fleet professional who has brought a new perspective to running a commercial fleet with the result that the fleet is more operationally efficient cost effective safer or any combination of these by introducing new methods efficiencies and or technologies Merchants Fleet is the exclusive sponsor of the award The webinar featured David Farber fleet administrator Dish Network Russ Wilson fleet operations manager Kadrmas Lee Jackson KLJ Stephanie Connor program manager vehicle administration FedEx Office and Aleece Beaulieu senior program manager transportation Genentech who was last years 2020 Fleet Visionary of the Year It was moderated by Diana Holland VP strategic pursuits Merchants Fleet The webinar was divided into several major talking points to which the Visionaries were able to share areas of success in their operations SUSTAINABILITY Beaulieu of Genentech which has a fleet of roughly 1500 vehicles opened the discussions with a focus on her companys efforts in sustainability and becoming a member of the EV100 by The Climate Group As part of EV100 we have committed to do the following by 2030 convert our sales fleet of over 1300 passenger vehicles to all electric or plug in hybrid electrify the majority of our commuter bus fleet transition at least 50 of our 30 plus medium duty site fleet vehicles to EV or plug in hybrid and to continue to expand the charging infrastructure so that employees can use electric vehicles to commute to work if theyre not using our commuter program Beaulieu said After the companys most recent ordering period Beaulieu said that Genentechs fleet has roughly 15 of its fleet running with PHEVs 10 are diesel vehicles and roughly 50 are hybrids More recently we rolled out a full solution to provide employees driving fleet EVs with level two charger installs providing reimbursement for at home electricity used to fuel that company car and functionality in our expense report system to accurately report EV expenses she said One of her challenges to introducing more sustainable products into the fleet was getting buy in from company drivers Based on where you are in the U S EVs may not be as widely adopted So we started with PHEVs and getting drivers comfortable with the technology building trust she said And its a good stepping stone so that employees are more excited to order a full electric vehicle next time theyre allowed to order EFFECTIVE VEHICLE CYCLING Following this Wilson of KLJ discussed his fleets vehicle cycling program specifically how modernizing cycling strategies improved their maintenance strategy Wilson manages 275 transportation assets across an eight state region with KLJ He championed introducing a different lease model and shorter vehicle cycle for the companys long term fleet which previously was functioning on an ineffective replacement plan and operating vehicles until roughly the 250000 mile mark There were a number of assumptions that were being made and most were really not based on good or recent data Wilson said At the same time we had been also supplementing our fleet with a considerable number of rental vehicles and expensing personal mileage to try to make up the difference in need versus what we had in assets purchased Wilson and KLJ introduced a new maintenance program with the help of their FMC to ultimately establish a thorough vehicle cycling program after doing a thorough lifecycle costs analysis for the fleet based on maintenance intervals and data provided From this KLJ transitioned to more of an open end leasing model for preserving company capital BEST PRACTICES INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS BEAULIEU GENENTECH HOLLAND MERCHANTS FLEET WILSON KLJ