The life-blood of South Africa's economy, the road transport industry, is slowly haemorrhaging under the weakness of old age. In 1996, all trucks over 3,5 ton gross vehicle mass (GVM) had reached an average age of 10,5 years. By 1997, this had become 11,1 years and by January 1999 this stood at 11,9 years. The disastrous decline in sales of new trucks in 1999 means that we will start the new millennium with a geriatric national fleet. Dave Scott, technical correspondent for FleetWatch, reckons one of the reasons for this decline is the lack of understanding of fleet management as opposed to transport management. With a plethora of fleet management systems being offered to the market, it is very necessary to understand the difference between the two.
In a nutshell, road transport only survived because it is operationally competent while suffering from strategic incompetence. Those transport operations that are both operationally and strategically incompetent have gone, or are being wiped out every day.
What is fleet management?
Fleet management has to do with the strategic decisions that impact upon the company fleet asset base. Strategic thinking is the process of planning what the fleet will consist of - how and where it will operate - to meet a future business environment in chosen market segments and geographic markets.
Fleet management is the stuff of board level agendas. It would typically be involved in some of the following questions:
Is road transport a core activity of the business?
Does our organisation have a policy of contracting our services? If so, should we consider contracting out our transport operation? Is the fleet strategy expressed in terms of policy documents that are subject to regular review? Are we taking advantage of the changes in Road Traffic legislation, while incorporating this into the latest wave of vehicle technology to enhance productivity. Is our transport operation complimentary to our corporate image? Can our fleet stand upon to scrutiny in terms of environmental and road safety issues? Are we making the right long term choices concerning new vehicles and equipment flooding the South African market? Would we use our transport operations as an opportunity to empower employees in an owner-driver scheme?
Many advertising claims offering a total fleet management solution are, in reality, just transport operating systems that cannot possibly answer the strategic question of fleet management. Much of road transport bumbles along that is the yardstick for planned maintenance. It is the strategic intent of the fleet that drives the operating systems - not the other way around.
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