Key to Data Driven Fleet Management

Tim Gramling, Public Works Director, Author

AN IMPORTANT KEY TO DATA DRIVEN FLEET MANAGEMENT By City of Independence

Background:

In February of 2017, the City of Independence, Missouri, adopted a Strategic Plan. One of its objectives was to identify and capture sustainable funding sources by exploring consolidations, technology improvements and other operating efficiencies in order to eliminate redundancies and address structural imbalance in the City’s General Fund. From Mayor and City Council to front-line employees, citizens and community partners, the Plan represents the City’s commitment to a unified vision.

Abstract:

For decades the City of Independence has experienced silos of operations and management among its various departments that have led to extreme levels of inefficiency, redundancy and waste in its management of its fleet. In 2017, City leadership and their constituents decided they needed a plan to set the City on a path to correct this and explore ways to streamline its operations and increase efficiencies. The first step was the implementation of the Strategic Plan, through which 74 objectives were established and are currently driving the City’s priorities. One of those objectives is the very essence of employing more data driven technologies and methods into the City’s operations.

In October 2017, the Public Works Department was tasked with exploring the need to totally centralize its Fleet Management of all its Departments. Public Works currently manages the Fleet for only General Fund departments including Police, Fire, Street Maintenance, Parks & Recreation and Community Development. The Departments of Water Pollution Control, Power and Light and the Water Department each handle the maintenance and repair of their respective equipment and vehicles. Procurement of equipment and vehicles are partially handled by each department and partially handled by Finance with Public Works, who only weigh superficially for matters of color. There are no real consistencies among the departments as to disposition of units being replaced or units being purchased from a standardization standpoint. There is also no consistency for funding, therefore, many of the General Funds departments are left to fend for themselves while the utility departments replace units with no real plan or method to determine what should be replaced and when.

At the writing of this abstract, the Independence Public Works Department is just beginning to embark upon the implementation of a software technology developed by Longobart-Ross Consulting called PROFIT$. It is designed to capture data already being tracked for a majority of the City’s fleet and use that data to develop a prioritized arrangement of every unit in the City. Effective equipment replacement equates to far more than having a report that shows what assets needs to replaced. With data-driven reports, the Public Works Department will be able to demonstrate to City management, as well as user departments, the importance of replacing your assets at the optimal time and have a variety of reports that provide the fund amounts needed for replacement today, tomorrow and in the future.

Public works is leading the effort as the governing department in-charge of Fleet Management. It is our hope to present at a 2019 conference. Our presentation will focus on why the technology was chosen, implemented and will be used to be a catalyst to making the Strategic Plan into real and long-lasting results for Independence, Missouri.