Leadership in Fleet Operations: A Competitive Advantage

North America relies heavily on the transportation industry and the spectrum of skilled workers to that serve it well. To keep the industry moving in a post COVID-19 environment, transportation and logistics professionals have had to re-assess every aspect of their business practices. Our team fits into this framework, and we took a new approach.

As a result of our assessment, we created a simple, realistic plan to expand our impact. Focused, engaged leadership was the lifeblood of the plan. A study of history tells us that leadership is the critical path to improving outcomes—regardless of the circumstances. We felt there was a great opportunity for change considering the transportation industry’s dizzying constraints. The motivation behind our approach suggests that there are always ways to deliver value. Here is what my team and I learned in the process:

• Like many of our industry counterparts, our fleet leaders found new ways to help their respective teams succeed. The outcomes included incorporation of recent technologies, renewed maintenance fundamentals, and more consistent communications/ feedback for employees. These leadership practices were often small and mundane to some, but we believed in their purpose. Over time, incremental improvements accumulated in a positive way. We wanted our team and customers to know “someone still cares.”

• We placed an intentional focus on people and teams. My good friends in military Special Operations emphasize that “humans are more important than hardware.” Our team adopted this idea, and we recognize people are more important than machines. With less than twenty professionals in our fleet operation, every role is critical, and the return on our efforts must be accurate. Therefore, we focused on the daily process of how leadership could influence our technical skill and results. Machines help us accomplish our goals, but people will always the common, most powerful denominator.

• We made a deliberate leadership decision to set high expectations, communicate them, and to review our progress. Specifically, we emphasized three main areas of fleet operations to communicate and measure:

Safety: As mentioned above, people are our most important resource. Knowing that, we adhere to sound safety behaviors. These behaviors include, but are not limited to great situational awareness, wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), well-lit, clean workspaces, and hazard free facilities. We operate in high-speed, hightraffic, and heavy industrial settings. Keeping our team safe is a cultural norm.

Focused, engaged leadership was the lifeblood of the plan. A study of history tells us that leadership is the critical path to improving outcomes—regardless of the circumstances

Preventive Maintenance (PM): A robust Preventive Maintenance program enabled us to avoid costly downtime, correct discrepancies quickly, and to care for the equipment entrusted to us. A good PM program is sustainable, predictable, and a great indicator a fleet’s overall readiness. An “ounce of prevention” never goes out of style.

Sound Administration: We renewed our efforts to document and record our work. Repair Orders capture the great accomplishments of our team. The work may in fact be accomplished, but without a documented record of completion, we have no way to confirm throughput, capacities, inventory levels, and costs. Matching maintenance actions with good administration helped us measure our progress and plan effectively.

• We chose to focus on the “long game.” This shift enabled us to look beyond the daily grind and think about a better, more capable future. Although we have been plagued by uncertainty in recent months, we intended to bridge the gap between what we need now (which may be necessary) and what we will need in the future (which may be unclear). Today, we execute plans with a long- term vision and do our best to avoid the short-term temptations of busyness and haste. We accept short term realities, but we look upward and outward toward a better future—and the possibility of a more effective, healthier fleet.

• We collaborated closely with our best partners. Like any great partnership, relationships are strengthened in times of adversity. Great partners (customers and vendors alike) find ways to help one another in difficult times. On the flip side, a sober evaluation of underperforming partnerships may call for a change. Both practices are essential and serve as a way for all parties to make meaningful headway.

These leadership practices were instituted by choice and necessity. They have become part of our organizational rhythm for the past eighteen months. They are coded them into our team’s DNA. These practices are critical for our fleet operation. We are not blind to the difficult realities of the logistics business—especially in today’s environment of scarcity. However, we keep an eye on the future, knowing that the leadership decisions of today will have an impact on our fleet tomorrow. Regardless of state of the economy or the transportation industry, we know that humans are always more important than hardware. Technical proficiency helps, but leadership is the key to serving customers more effectively and the linchpin that separates the average from the excellent. And who knows, maybe some microchips will show up along the way.

Andrew (Drew) Thompson is the Director of Fleet Management for Ben E. Keith Beverages in Texas. He is a retired US Marine with experience in the aviation, rail, and trucking industries.