Safety has always come first in the fleet industry. However, the coronavirus outbreak has encouraged fleet leaders to put safety culture at the forefront of their list of priorities. Organizations with a great safety record do so with a culture of safety-present as policy. Many fleet organizations have had to enact stricter safety protocols to prevent pathogen spread in fleet…
Managing complexity makes the challenge of accountability more dramatic. Overseeing a fleet of more than 2,400 units and seven maintenance locations, with an operating budget of more than $16 million, including fuel cost is impressive. Add to this hard winters with major precipitation serviced by snow plows, sweepers, salt spreaders, and other heavy-duty equipment that cannot be out of commission…
People who live by the power of positive thinking may be great assets for a team, but it’s not the most important professional attribute for your risk manager. Effective risk management requires that an organization identify, then separate manageable and unmanageable risks. Fleet risk-management decisions rely on a wide range of stakeholders including department heads, mechanics, human resources and top…
“This is not a secret and by no means are we trying to keep it that way,” says NAFA Member Jeffrey A. Hawthorne, CAFM, B.S.B.A. He is the Division Manager for Fleet Management for Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office (PBSO), in Florida. His fleet tied for the top spot in the 100 Best Fleets rankings for 2020 announced in April,…
We caught up with 2020 FLEXY Award Winner Steve Larsen, Director of Procurement and Fuel at Ruan Transportation Management Systems to discuss crisis management. Everyone working at Ruan has been charged with helping minimize the impact on operations that the coronavirus has caused. As many reports and first-person accounts can affirm, many stores are faced with shortages due to supply…
2020 FLEXY winner George Hrichak shares strategies for success. This is not the way George Hrichak imagined he’d be celebrating his 2020 Fleet Excellence Award (FLEXY) win, with most of the United States in a virtual standstill because of Covid-19. “My family is following the precautions everyone else is, washing hands, using hand sanitizers, social distancing, that type of thing.”…
The national coronavirus crisis is affecting fleets in unique ways, principally from being labeled essential to being temporarily shut down. FLEXY winner Brad Smith, Fleet Maintenance Supervisor for Poudre Fire Authority in Fort Collins, CO manages an absolutely essential fleet. NAFA caught up with Brad, winner for Excellence in Public Fleet or Mobility Management, to dig deeper into the challenges…
When fleet operatives prepare for a natural emergency, they require an action plan to remain operational and safe during extreme circumstances. Fleet professionals today face an assortment of natural disasters, both external––such as tornadoes and floods, and internal––such as viruses and mass shootings. The NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) reports that there were 14 weather and climate disaster events…
Workplace relationships can be the most difficult kind. They are as close as family ties, and frequently, one will see their co-workers more than spouses, children, and so on. The key differences are that your livelihood depends on your ability to work and interact with your colleagues, and the quality of your organization’s efforts can suffer greatly if you don’t….
Experts have never disputed the efficiency derived from diesel fuel or the additional number of miles-per-tank that “burning oil” offered. What was always a sticking point was the long-held perception of diesel as a dirty fuel belching out dark soot — a stigmatization that caught hold in the U.S. during the 1970s oil crisis. U.S. consumers moved to diesel technology…