Culver City Named Best Fleet of 2013 - Copy

For nearly a decade, Culver City’s fleet has strived for excellence. And all of the hard work finally paid off when Culver City was named No. 1 in the 100 Best Fleets program in 2013.

Consistently ranked in the Top 20 since 2005, Culver City fleet finally reached the top of the Best Fleets program and was honored at the 2013 Government Fleet Expo and Conference (GFX) in San Antonio on June 12. The annual award recognizes 100 fleets that use innovative ideas and then ranks the Top 20.

The Culver City fleet has focused on reassessing replacement cycles, measuring goals and aiming for constant improvement.

Culver City has a series of other undertakings that showcase it is truly a leader in the fleet industry, including being an early adopter of compressed natural gas (CNG) for its City fleet. In addition to using CNG for its vehicles, the whole fleet was also ahead of the curve in the shop. The city completed WiFi installation at the fleet facility and budgeted to purchase six tablets for its technicians. The lightweight tablets will be able to access the fleet’s maintenance software and auto repair software, which allow technicians to easily get into the fleet management system.

Benchmark Goals

Benchmarking for success has turned into one of the fleet’s most ambitious projects and brings the staff together toward their continuous goal improvement. By quantifying fleet stats, Culver City has been able to work toward this improvement.

The benchmarks are based on nine factors:

• Comeback percentage
• Warranty repair percentage
• Average time to perform repairs
• Failed parts percentage by work order
• Work order turnaround date
• Downtime rates
• Direct bill by employees
• Preventive maintenance adherence
• Repairs

The city’s police, sanitations, bus maintenance, and general service teams each have their own benchmarking numbers, but all of the numbers affect the overall stats. Culver City has found that the competition and encouragement from each team has improved numbers as well.

Replacement Program Defers Costs

Another successful initiative for the Culver City fleet has been the redesign of its equipment replacement program. The updated policies and instructions have created a measurable, point-based vehicle-asset replacement scorecard.

This scorecard has eight qualifiers to define replacement:

• Age
• Mileage
• Repair history
• Current condition
• Forecasted repair costs
• Depreciation
• Amortization
• Market value

Fleet staff members conduct the vehicle evaluations, then meet with the user department to review the list and further discuss whether the units will be replaced, which has simplified the entire process.