Episode 064: Q&A with Steve Saltzgiver

Welcome to the Fleet Success Show, a podcast dedicated to talking about the fundamentals, standards, and best practices that empower today's fleets to achieve fleet success. Let's get into the show.

Welcome back for another episode of the Fleet Success Show. As if it wasn't obviously apparent by the tone and pitch of my voice, Josh will not be hosting this week. I'm Kyra Nelson. I'm the show's producer and normally happily sit behind the mixer. However, Josh and Jeff are both out of the Valley enjoying a reprieve from the Phoenix heat, and so that just leaves Steve Salzgiver and I here running the show. Steve, how are you today?

I'm doing great. Great to be back on the podcast. Been a few weeks for me.

Well, we are very grateful and honored that you could take time out of your busy travel schedule to pop on with us. For today's episode, we pulled a few questions from the NAFA communities board, and I'm going to be posing these very relevant questions to Steve and his hundreds of years of fleet experience. All right, starting off, question 1: What are the standard expectation percentages for downtime?

Well, obviously downtime, especially in today's environment, uh, is one of the most important metrics that we should be looking at, uh, with all the supply chain issues and everything else going on out there. Downtime's becoming more and more critical. So one of the things I always tell people is, uh, the most important metrics are your metrics. So your expectations really should apply specifically to you. But if you're looking at an industry acceptable metric, probably should be less than 5%. And if you think about the converse of that metric, which would be uptime or reliability of your fleet, that means your fleet would be up 95+ percent of the time. And the reason that's important, because— is because if you don't have your vehicles on the road, and they're not reliable, then you're not taking care of your customers, obviously. So that's, that's really what you should shoot for. Now, I know that kind of can be a challenge right now, particularly with the lack of parts, lack of mechanics, the time the OEMs and the dealers now take trying to fix your vehicles. So what I always advise people is to start somewhere. You know, if your downtime right now is, I don't know, 15%, then start there and set goals to continuously improve that. Keep in mind that the more downtime you have, the higher spare count you're going to have because you've got to offset that, have vehicles to put in service where you have unreliable vehicles. So, so start there and then put together some targets, some what I call SMART goal targets that will help you drive down your percentage of downtime per vehicle. So really continuous improvement is really the key there, and it really is more applicable to your fleet. Your internal goals and metrics are really the most important.

Great, thanks Steve. Question 2, what's the process for staffing a spec writer to prepare fleet-related specifications?

You know, this is not a real common question, but it should be in fleet. Most of the fleets that I personally manage, we had a spec writer in a couple of them, and I saw the value of doing that. I actually put together at one of the biggest beverage companies in the world, a whole asset management team that did nothing but write specifications. And then when I was with a big garbage company there in Arizona where RTA is based, did the same thing. Specifications are critical to your operation, obviously, because you have to have the right vehicle in the driver's hand to do the specific mission or job that they've been assigned to. So if I were to write or put together a staffing specification to prepare for a spec writer, what I would do is I would look at obviously a fleet background. If they have an engineering background or some type of automotive engineering background, that would really be desirable. I think you need someone with some really good customer service skills that can work with people, someone that can go out in the field and meet with people one-on-one or in groups and be able to understand the exact job that the vehicle or the asset is going to be accomplishing so that you can write all those detailed specifications around that mission. Someone that can lead a team, a leader, because you're going to be working with diverse individuals, say, You know, I used to put together a spec committee every year, and we would do an annual spec committee. And when we did that, what we did was bring all these different people together, like the vendors that were going to be participating in the specifications, so a couple of the users, some department heads, people like that that would be on that committee. And we would come to a consensus on what we actually needed in each type of vehicle that we were going to go out and purchase. And spec. I think a person should have some kind of analytical skills to be able to review costs and certainly operational data. And then I think purchasing experience is helpful. You should know what RFPs are, which are requests for proposals, or RFIs, requests for information, things like that, because you're going to be doing a lot of interaction between yourself and some of the manufacturers to understand you know, the specs that drive their products. And then finally, good writing skills are, are a must because you're going to have to assemble those specifications and those parameters and get them in some type of a document or some kind of a format where you can actually go out to bid with different manufacturers to get competitive pricing. And then finally, uh, good Excel skills I think are a must because you're going to have to do a dotted analysis when when it comes to getting back the results on those specifications that you put out there. So that's kind of a high-level list. I'm sure there's some other things that you might need in this position, but I think that's something where I would start.

I thought this question was very interesting. My own background is in mass communications journalism, so I basically have a writing degree. And when they teach you to write, they teach you how to write very non-industry-specific. So I found it worth noting that you said you specifically wanted someone who had a fleet background rather than someone who had a writing background Even though the position is for writing. So in your own words, the answer is not then to just go out and hire yourself a technical writer with no fleet experience. You would prefer a fleet background first and foremost.

That's a good question. I guess I probably err on the side of fleet bias for the most part, because that's obviously my background. Probably one of the things that you brought up a really good point. I know that when I've been working on specific documents in the fleet operation, technical writers are really key for this, this type of information to write policies, specifications, you know, things like that. So, so technical writing skills, I think, are huge.

All right, our next question: What fleet metrics have you been able to use to start justifying newer assets?

This is a really good question. Um, the, the person that proposed this question basically, uh, inherited or started at a new fleet that had absolutely no data. Which is always a challenge. I remember years ago when I was managing a small city in the Northeast as a consultant. They had zero data, no fleet system, no spreadsheets, nothing. I mean, I basically had to put everything together in a year and a half to try and manage that fleet. So I really understand this question, and I really feel for this person trying to do that. He did, however, say— he did, however, say that since January this year, he has been able to put together some some data to start looking at. And the key to what he's trying to do is actually— and it sounded like to me he's actually trying to come up with a replacement program for his fleet. And the reason for that, obviously, is he's probably— I have to surmise this because I don't have any more detail than what he put in the— on the communities, but he's looking to come up with a way to justify newer assets. So that, that in itself means to me that he's got an old fleet. So one of the things that I used to do all the time when I was managing an old fleet is I would try and find known metrics somewhere in the industry. And I did a lot of poring through a lot of data and a lot of websites when I was an early-on fleet manager. And some of those resources I'll share with you. One, like Automotive Fleet Magazine, magazine, which is a free publication and it's quite widely known in the fleet industry, has a lot of light-duty specifications where they gather a lot of, a lot of specs and costs from some of the fleet management companies out there. And so they put together a grid every year that you can use kind of as a guideline. So you could take— if he has data from, say, January to this year, he probably has some, something like a cost per mile that he's accumulated. So this will give you an idea or something you can compare your cost per mile to. Other, other good resources out there are the AAA Annual Vehicle Cost Guide. I use that quite a bit because it has just about every type of vehicle on that, so you can get a really good idea what those costs are. And if you're somewhere within those costs, you're probably doing okay. If you're way outside those costs, and it's, you know, it gives you some justification to start looking at purchasing newer vehicles, or at least heading down that path. Another one is, uh, ATRI. It's the American Trucking Research Institute. They put out an annual cost survey every year for Class 8 trucks, Class 7 trucks. So if you've got things like dump trucks or over-the-road trucks or things that are a lot bigger than your normal light-duty vehicles, this will give you at least a ballpark of what those costs per miles would be for those, uh, type of assets. And then finally, there is, there are programs out there that are data-centric where people are actually taking vehicles from all different walks of life. One of those is Vencentric, and they're putting a lot of vehicles in those programs, and they're actually doing lifecycle modeling. So if you wanted to purchase a program, that's one that you could purchase. Other things are, you know, obviously seek out your, Your peers in fleet management, ask them what they're doing for life cycles, particularly if they're running a fleet like you have. You know, what are their life cycle modeling? You know, what are they— how long do they keep a sedan? How long do they keep a pickup truck? You know, things like that. You know, compare your cost to their costs. You know, what are they doing? What's your cost per mile? What's your cost per month? You know, I always try to equate this. What I was going through as a young fleet manager You know, what, what is— does your fleet cost or your car cost more than a car payment? I mean, that's something to think about because put it in perspective, we all typically have cars. And if you finance a car and you're paying $800 a month for that car payment, your car should be in the neighborhood of somewhere between, you know, $800, right? Because that's basically what we're doing as far as a comparison might be. The one thing I always tell people, and this seems like a no-brainer, but all the manufacturers, the OEMs, actually have a built-in lifecycle model. It's called the warranty coverage period. So basically, I know people say, well, that's too short. They only cover my car for, you know, 5 years or 3 years, or some of the drivetrains are up to 7 years now. Well, that's a pretty good idea on how long you should keep your vehicle. Because they know how long that vehicle is going to last. So that's one of the first things you want to start looking at is, you know, what is your warranty coverage? There's an old maxim in fleet, you know, you don't want to be the guy spending the money outside the warranty. You want the next guy to spend that money. A lot of the big fleets now, over-the-road fleets like Knight Transportation, some of those in the— and Swift in the local Phoenix area They're cycling their vehicles every 3 years because that's as long as the warranty lasts, is 3 years, you know. They don't want to incur those unpredictable costs that might come along with life cycling and breakdowns. So, and then finally, if you really, if you really want to get into it, you can go out and you can hire a consultant who specializes in fleet management replacement and can actually calculate optimal replacement cycles. Some consultants can bring a wealth of data from other fleets that they have or have not had data. So that also brings credibility to your fleet operation where if you're brand new and you don't have a lot of data, some of the outside fleet consultants can come in and bring data that's relevant and timely and accurate. And they can also be a voice for you to explain to your leadership, you know, if you have 2 vehicles that are too long in the, in the lot are too old and too costly. And they can give you some really good advice to help make that decision.

We actually recorded a podcast a couple episodes ago about when to hire a consultant, when's a good time, when's not a good time. So feel free to check that one out too.

You know, I always put, obviously I was a consultant, but before I was a consultant, I was a fleet manager and I always put in a budget. For consulting. It's good to hire— they're just like, think of them as a temporary employee for one project. You wouldn't hire a full-time person for one project, but you could hire a consultant for one project. That's kind of how I used to look at it.

And we are on to our final question today, Steve. How do you prepare to select the best fleet management software that'll work for your organization?

You know, that's one of the things that, uh, this actually comes up a lot on NFA communities. And so we watch that, obviously. Um, when we're not on the Fleet Success Podcast, we all work for RTA Fleet Management, which is a fleet software. Um, what I would always say is, um, these are the questions I would ask, you know, what are you looking for your fleet system to accomplish? You know, I mean, everything. If you've got a fleet that outsources most of your maintenance, you may not need maintenance tracking piece to that software. Obviously, you probably want to track assets, you want to track fuel, you want to track maintenance repair costs internally or externally. You may or may not want to track employees or drivers. If you got an internal fleet or fleet shop, you might want to part— track parts and tires, things like that. So really think about what you want to track. And then make that the basis of what you're going to do as you're going through that process to start putting together what are the must-haves that you feel are most important. You know, I, I've seen specifications and requirements for fleet systems that are 100 pages long. So I mean, these can be quite detailed. And I've actually worked with people as a consultant to put together technical requirements for fleet systems. So that's where I would start is I would look at that. I would then, you know, talk to some of my peers, my, you know, those in other fleets that may manage similar assets that you manage and ask them what fleet system they're using. You know, what do they like about their fleet system? What do they dislike about their fleet system? You know, one of the questions that always comes up no matter where you're at is, you know, how is the support of that system? Um, there's nothing worse than having a fleet system, having a problem, getting on the phone and can't get a hold of anybody. So I think that's where I just start. That's one of the critical, uh, must-haves that you should be looking at is do they answer their calls live? Do you have to leave a message? Do you have to go through a phone tree, you know, to try and get somebody? Because usually when you have a problem with your fleet system You don't want to wait a week to get the answer. So that's, that's something critical. Other things out there, how do other users rate the software? There's a lot of sites out there on the web, things like G2, Capterra, Software Advice, where a lot of the software users will actually go out there and rate these systems. And they'll give you good feedback. They'll tell you what they like, what they don't like about the system, the pros and cons about these systems. So those are the kind of things that you might want to go out there and do a little bit of homework and start gathering that data. Other things like, you know, when you start interfacing with some of the fleet systems, I would advise everybody to start going through some demos. You know, ask them to provide maybe an hour or a 2-hour demo for you, carve out some time to go through where you can do a question and answer period. You can have your team look at it so they can see exactly what that software does doesn't do. Those kind of things are important. Ask them questions like, you know, how timely are their updates? You know, do they do an update every couple of, couple of months? Do they do an update once a year? Things like that. That kind of gives you an idea on how active they are in the fleet community and how— because the fleet community is constantly moving. You know, there's, there's things happening every week. Basically that you need to have different, you know, like right now a real hot topic obviously is electric vehicles. Are they updating their software to accommodate electric vehicles? You know, things like that. And then ask them questions like, you know, how amenable are you to making customer custom changes? You know, if I have something that I really need in my software, what's it going to take? Are you going to charge me a huge fee? Is it something that you have a set fee for? Those kinds of things are always a good, good thing. And then when you get ready, begin to schedule those demos and take a lot of notes, you know, and have a team involved to do some assessment of those systems. Because I think it's always helpful to compare the systems. Every system has their pluses and their negatives, you know, and so you want to be able to have a good list when you start to build your detailed specifications so that you can put together at some point an RFP for a competitive bid. And then obviously I'm big into consulting, you know, so if you have the budget and even if you don't, I would advise you to think about hiring a non-biased consultant with the knowledge about fleet software to help you put together some specifications. They may be able to bring you information and anecdotal feedback from people that had other systems. You know, if you had questions about systems, they might be able to tell you all, you know, what providers or people they've worked with said about those systems, similar to some of the software reviews we talked about earlier. And then many providers will set you up with a demo system to use and test. You know, they'll kind of give you the, the, uh, they call that, you know, what they call that, giving you the, like, the baby to play with, or to, uh, feed for a while. Um, so just have them set up a little sandbox for you and let them— let go ahead and start using it, you know, put together like a little test, test fleet and actually start using their software, you know. I mean, the one thing I would tell you is, uh, you know, this is a careful, methodical, and patient process, you know. Don't make this decision, uh, you know, too, too quickly and too willy-nilly because you'll— you're going to be stuck with the software you choose for chances are, you know, years to come. So you want to make sure you get the right software. And then finally, I would ask, you know, how flexible is the software? How do they interface with their programs like fuel programs, GPS programs, financial systems? Do they have built-in application programming interfaces or APIs, or do they have to build APIs, and then do they charge you extra for those APIs. So lots of questions. If you don't know a lot about software and you don't know a lot about the inner workings of software, that will take you right back to the consultant of, uh, that I mentioned earlier. I think that's always wise to do. So a couple of things to think about. Hopefully that helps, you know, give you some food for thought as you're going through that process.

Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I know every time you talk fleet, I learn something new. So thank you always for your knowledge and expertise. If you guys have any questions of your own, we do these style podcasts every now and then. Send us an email at podcast@rtafleet.com and we jump on here and we riff a little bit on your questions. Feel free to also email us if you want a copy of the Fleet Success Playbook. We're on the second run already of those, but fear not, we will not run out. As always, go follow us on all the social medias— Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace. Just kidding, we don't have a MySpace. And head over to fleetsuccesssummit.com for info on the 2023 Fleet Success Summit, which will be at the Luxor in Las Vegas. More details to come, but just watch the website for that. Until next time, thanks everyone.

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