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FLEET MANAGEMENT

THE IDEAL SHOP

Ask five fleet managers what the ideal maintenance shop would
look like and you'll get five very different answers. What they'll
have in common, however, will be safer and more ergonomic
working conditions for technicians, improved productivity at lower
cost, and more “green” initiatives. But there will be tremendous
variation in how fleets accomplish these objectives.

To begin with, the overall structure of a maintenance operation

must match the carrier's operation. While TL and LTL carriers
can't rely on a centralized shop to take care of units scattered
across the country, it's the perfect setup for municipal fleets, with
equipment typically clustered within a small area or region.

Palm Beach County, FL, for example, recently completed a massive

central shop with 78 bays grouped in three spokes and connected
by a central hub that houses parts storage and administrative
offices. Everything's rated to withstand 150-mph hurricane-force
winds.

Yet that set-up could be anathema to an OTR carrier like West

Chester, PA-based A. Duie Pyle. “We cannot operate efficiently
with one large centrally located shop,” says James “Jim” Miske,
director of fleet maintenance. “Our guarantee of service to our
customers requires a well-designed and well-equipped shop in
each terminal. With multiple customer service locations
throughout the Northeast, we must have the technical support
based in each terminal.”

Drive-through shops are favored by many tractor-trailer fleets,

while pull-in structures work better for mixed-vehicle operations
and fleets based in colder climates. “In the South, we like to use
drive-through shop designs; they give us a way to provide extra
ventilation to disperse the heat,” says Mike Burger, vp-
maintenance for LTL carrier Saia Inc. “Up North, however, they
are not practical since you want to retain heat.”
Charles “Chuck” Carew, maintenance coordinator for central
Florida at Cemex, a concrete and materials hauler, says: “We use
pull-in bays…because we don't have many tractor-trailers in our
fleet. We also use high-volume fans to help cool the shop in the
summer.”

But most fleets agree that there's no fast or easy way to make their
ideal shop become a reality. “It took two years of planning — from
initial needs assessment to meetings with shop supervisors,
technicians and finally the architects — before the design drawings
for our new shop were done and we could send the project out to
contractors for bids,” explains Douglas Weichman, director of the
fleet management division for Palm Beach County.

“We analyzed every detail, including things such as how many

electrical outlets per bay and which way we wanted interior doors
to open, because our whole focus was to make the shop as efficient
as possible,” he says. “We didn't want technicians wandering
around the parking lot looking for the next truck in line for repairs.
We didn't want awnings on our shop, as they could be ripped off by
hurricanes. We had to analyze everything, from the weather to our
productivity goals, to get the shop ideal for us.”

BEGIN WITH THE BASICS

For Darry Stuart, a former fleet manager and past general
chairman of the Technology & Maintenance Council, creating the
ideal shop begins with establishing the physical layout that will
best fit a fleet's needs. “It's all about the real estate. You need to
make it wide enough and long enough — as a minimum, 25-ft.-
wide bays, with extra space between them and plenty of room for
storing parts, tools and other materials,” he says. “Fleets get so
focused on fitting trucks and tools into their shops that they forget
about adding space for vehicle maneuvering, extra storage and
technician work areas. Build it high, too, so it can be easily
converted into a warehouse in the future. That will make it a more
valuable structure.”

Lighting is also very critical. “Get as much natural light as you can
through the ceiling — via skylights, for example — and through the
doors,” Stuart says. “Paint the walls white to reflect that natural
light and help keep the interior brighter.”
Everything in the shop should be directed at maximizing
technician productivity. “Think of a technician's time as costing
you a dollar a minute,” he says. “Build workbenches between the
bay doors — cantilevered off the wall between each bay — and
equip them with a vise grip or grinder. That way a technician won't
have to waste 20 minutes, thus costing you $20, looking for…tools
or work space.”

Stuart also believes the ideal shop must be designed for

cleanliness, with a brightly painted floor and shovels, brooms and
mops located at each bay. “Keeping the floor clean makes the
facility safer by reducing slips and falls.”

“Plans should require that maximum efficiencies be built into the

layout and be the driving force of the design,” says Palm Beach
County's Weichman. “This will allow the work force to be more
productive.” For that reason, fleet managers should make sure
their maintenance shops will be able to handle future needs.

“Pay close attention to things like heating, air conditioning and

electrical systems. Make sure you have enough electrical panels,
circuits and capacity for devices that you may need in the future,”
he says.

STAFFING & SKILLS

How many technicians does a fleet's “ideal shop” require? That
depends on the fleet, as does the skill sets required. For A. Duie
Pyle's Miske, the size and age of the fleet is more important than
the size of the shop or shop bays. “This can be a constantly moving
target depending on operating conditions and specific retention
goals for a vehicle,” he says. Miske points out that since 2004,
fleets have been evaluating retention goals more often due to the
“required emissions controls and associated costs to purchase and
maintain this equipment.”

According Palm Beach County's Weichman, who wrote a section

about shop creation criteria in the new Fleet Management
Operating Guide put out by the National Assn. of Fleet
Administrators, a rule of thumb is 1.5 or 2 bays per technician.
“This allows for vehicles waiting for parts once repairs have started
and working two vehicles by one technician,” he says. “To have the
vehicle removed from a bay if the vehicle is waiting on parts is a
waste of time. An efficient shop would have minimum time spent
by a technician on vehicle movement rather then working on it.”

For current and future estimates of how many repair bays or

technicians are needed, fleets can use either maintenance repair
units (MRU) or technicians-per-vehicle ratios, says Weichman.
MRUs are more accurate, he points out, because they take into
consideration the number of technician-hours a particular type of
equipment might need. Basing the estimate purely on the number
of vehicles in the fleet will provide a ballpark estimate.

“Once the number of technicians is established, projections can be

made concerning support staff and square footage, affecting
supervisor's offices, stockroom room size and staff, fiscal personnel
space, etc.,” he adds.

“In terms of manpower, the ideal shop would have every technician
equally trained and skilled in each area of fleet maintenance, with
the exception of major component overhaul and repair,” says
Miske. “Fleets extending the age of their equipment to points
beyond component warranty life face the need to locate, hire, train
and keep technicians with these skills.”

Saia's Burger agrees. His fleet performs most of its own

maintenance, including heavy engine work; body repairs are
outsourced, enabling the fleet to avoid the hazardous materials
rules surrounding the paint process. “It's important to have those
skills, though we don't do as much major component work as we
used to,” he says.

That's the flip side, says Miske. Not only would these same
technicians maintain that higher skill level, they also have the
ability to slide over to conduct preventative maintenance and more
routine repairs when needed. “That said, the ideal shop recognizes
the…importance of a PM check performed by attentive personnel,”
Miske says. “The ideal shop would likely devote the largest portion
of its labor to PM, which is where dependable equipment
originates.”

THE DIGITAL AGE

All maintenance shops now need computer systems to help
diagnose and repair trucks. Just how extensive those systems need
to be and what type of technology they use varies from one fleet to
another.

“We wanted real-time access to information, so we've supplied

every technician location with a Panasonic Toughbook laptop
equipped with dual-core processors,” says Jeff Bryant, vp-
maintenance for TL carrier Celadon Group. “Every decision
revolves around the technician staying on the truck, so having this
technology at hand boosts their ability to get information quickly.”

Cemex goes a step further, using the same business-grade SAP

enterprise resource planning system in its maintenance operation
as is used by the corporate office, notes Carew.

“My ideal shop would be completely paperless to the maximum

extent [possible], with electronic workstations located strategically
in each work area,” says A. Duie Pyle's Miske. “If there are multiple
technicians working in each area of the shop, there would be a
minimum of two electronic workstations providing access to
electronic repair order creation and maintenance, vehicle history
and all web-based research tools.”

Miske adds that there would be enough storage space at these

workstations to safely house a laptop at each, along with any hand-
held diagnostic tools the technician requires for all systems,
including ABS, engine and transmission troubleshooting.

Even at the municipal level, more computing power is the ideal for
maintenance shops. “We are Wi-Fi throughout the whole
compound …allowing technicians to use laptops right at the vehicle
to connect to the Internet or our server to get data from various
vehicle manufacturers, including service manuals, to make
repairs,” says Palm Beach County's Weichman.

At Saia such systems are not used as extensively. “We don't have
PCs for every technician; we have enough for them to do the job,”
says Burger. “We haven't addressed using Wi-Fi networks, though
we're moving in that direction.”
“Computers are here to stay; fleets just need to figure out whether
wireless or cable-connected systems work best for their shops,”
adds TMC's Stuart. “But you need to control computer use,
[making sure] technicians are spending time on the truck and not
on data collection. In my view, 90% of problems can be fixed with
common sense; you don't need to surf the Internet to fix
everything.”

GOING GREEN
Improving the environmental footprint of maintenance facilities is
on everyone's front burner, although the extent to which individual
fleets' greening efforts are able to go in this direction can vary
considerably depending on budgetary and other constraints.

“We have some shops equipped with waste-oil heaters, burning our
own generated waste oil,” says A. Duie Pyle's Miske. “Ideal shops
will recycle everything they generate in waste product with
certified recyclers, from batteries to tires. It's everyone's
responsibility to maintain a clean environment; and with the
number of providers, tools and services offered, there's no reason
that every maintenance facility is not doing the right thing in this
area.”

Even small changes can have a big impact. “Take lighting, for
example. You can have all the lights you want, but if the inside of
the lamp gets dirty you're getting only half the light, thus wasting
half the light bulb's energy,” says Celadon's Bryant. “Designing
lights to maximize their reflective capability can save a lot of
energy.”

“We try to be green as much as we can, yet cost dictates what we

can do,” notes Saia's Burger. “We use waste oil to heat our shops,
for example, because there's a cost savings and a green benefit.”

Some fleets, however, are approaching environmental issues on a

grand scale, redesigning shops from the ground up to be more
green from the get-go, without compromising the work they are
expected to do.
The City of Clarita, CA, has built a $32-million maintenance
complex that includes a 22,000-sq.-ft. administrative building and
a 25,000-sq.-ft. bus-repair facility whose green features save the
municipality more than $1 million annually. The shop has seven
maintenance bays, an automated bus wash/chassis wash system
that recycles wastewater, a diesel fueling station, a compressed
natural gas fueling station for public and transit use, and parking
for 110 buses and 163 cars.

The building itself is green from the foundation up, built with
straw bales, recycled wood, steel, carpeting and tile, while
complying with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) standards established by the U.S. Green Building Council.

In fact, this building's design exceeds California's energy-efficiency

standards by 40%, according to Kris Markarian, a senior engineer
at the transit authority and the project manager for maintenance
facility.

“We wanted to show that…you can build a truly green maintenance

facility of this size and scope,” she said. “It took one-and-a-half
years to design it and two years to build it. The key was to balance
things throughout — to show that there would be lower operating
costs by going green.”

Other features include an under-floor air system, water-source

heat pumps, a courtyard and native plant garden, a concrete
parking lot made with 25% fly ash paving material, and efficient
use of local, recycled materials. A huge photovoltaic array located
on top of the bus-parking pavilion not only offers shade, but also
allows the 12-acre facility to sell surplus electricity back to the local
utility.

“That [array] saves us $40,000 a year,” says Markarian. “While it

can't work for every fleet — we are based in a desert — it's an
example of how a transit operator like us can go green but stay
within budget at the same time.”