FLEET SUMMARIES
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E success of many owner-drivers in the road transport industry has resulted primarily from their practical engineering knowledge keeping them on the road, and, equally if not more important, personal knowledge of exactly what their customers need. And to a large degree this applies to the small C licence operator.
Paper work tends to be looked upon as non-productive and something to be postponed if not avoided altogether. But as explained in this series recently there are statutory requirements to keep records of drivers' hours of work and journeys made.
Equally, though not a statutory requirement, there is the need for every professional operator, whether passenger or goods, to be kept informed as to the current profitability of the traffic he is moving and the overall picture as to the viability of the undertaking relative to long term projects such as vehicle replacement and possible company expansion.
While profitability may not directly be the concern of the C licence operator, the efficiency which leads to such profitability should be. Accordingly, both the professional operator and ancillary user need an up-to-date yardstick by which to measure current efficiency, which in turn is dependent upon paper work. The crux of the exercise is to provide the essentials by which current efficiency can be judged without over-elaborating the process so that keeping records, charts and indicator boards become almost a showpiece.
Vehicle weekly record
Having described the layout of a daily log sheet suitably amended to include information additional to the minimum statutory requirements, a vehicle weekly record was then described recently in this series. It contained both engineering and traffic details and it was emphasized that while engineering records can be readily standardized because of the basic similarity of chassis specification and its subsequent maintenance, traffic records fell into a different category.
Indeed, the success of the road transport industry has been its flexibility not only to provide a door to door service at the customer's convenience but also to provide both the size and type of vehicle appropriate to every load which trade and industry has to offer. Accordingly, the records needed to cover such movement of traffic must themselves be flexible. For this reason standard traffic records, outside large organizations, do not normally have general application. A solution to this difficulty is for recorrunended traffic records to be themselves sufficiently flexible to allow modification to the individual operator's needs. In the weekly records just referred to suitable columns were provided on which to record collections and deliveries. It was then in the adjoining columns (in this instance headed Tonnage Delivered) that modification and elaboration could be introduced. Obviously where bulk liquids were being moved gallonage would be recorded instead, while the number of sacks or containers, pallets, and so on, might be appropriate on other occasions.
Analysis of traffic moved
Both the professional and C licence operators might find it convenient at this initial stage to commence analysis of traffic moved. While admittedly the vehicle weekly record is completed by the driver and therefore should be kept as simple as possible, by virtue of the fact that the driver himself makes the collection and deliveries, the information then recorded is done so first hand.
Although seemingly a small point, largely taken for granted, it nevertheless needs restating from time to time. No matter how elaborate the records and accounts which may be submitted to a board of directors, and ultimately to the shareholders, they must largely stem from simple but basic records such as these, if they are still to be related to reality. Here again thi§ needs to be stated at a time when a mass of data is beginning to appear from transport and allied surveys from which the experienced operator can only too readily deduce that the compilers have seldom if ever been engaged in the practicalities of transport operation.
According to the individual requirements of each operator the analysis of traffic moved as shown on the vehicle weekly record then needs to be summarized and totalled on a fleet basis where the operator has expanded sufficiently to justify this.
Simplicity in the keeping of operational records is facilitated by there being a logical sequence from the first record—the daily log sheet—to whatever is considered adequate as the final analysis. Such sequence is itself facilitated by ensuring, as far as possible, that the arrangement of information follows the same pattern of columns when it is transferred from one record to the next and this applies in devising the lorry fleet summary.
Fleet numbering It is necessary here to digress a moment to the subject of fleet numbering. Although in a small fleet registration numbers may suffice for the purpose of identification this soon becomes an unwieldy method as the fleet grows. Unfortunately the next .step is often to give a fleet number of, say, one or two digits on a purely chronological basis as successive vehicles are acquired.
But while one or two digits are simpler to record than the complete index mark and registration number such a method of fleet numbering still serves no purpose other than identification. Even the last number allocated does not necessarily indicate the true size of the fleet as soon as some of the vehicles bearing the earlier numbers are replaced.
More useful method A more logical and useful method is to allocate groups of numbers to types of vehicles, that is platform, box van, tipper, and so on and within each group—for example 100 to 199 being platform vehicles—to introduce sub-groups, say, 100 to 110 indicating that they are 5-tonners and so on.
If such a fleet numbering system applies then having checked the vehicle weekly records, putting them into numerical order, fleet number wise, will also automatically group them as to type and size. A further point is that if the record system as a whole is duplicated or otherwise prepared on internal office equipment then the actual fleet numbers can be listed on the lorry fleet summary. It is then known that when vehicle replacements occur this list can be readily revised as the next batch of summaries are duplicated.
Vertical columns A suggested layout for a lorry fleet summary, with latitude for amendment by individual operators would contain around 11 vertical columns. The first one of these would be headed Fleet Number followed by a second column which might be necessary if the fleet included staff cars or other vehicles to which fleet numbers were not normally allocated when reversion to "registration number" would apply.
Then would follow three or more columns according to requirements identical in sequence with those appearing on the vehicle weekly record. On the fleet summary would be entered the weekly totals of traffic carried by each vehicle, allocated as to type of traffic, customer, or department in the case of a C licence operator. The actual amounts recorded would be the weight, gallonage, or number of packages, etc., as the circumstances required.
Returned empties are both a major problem and vital necessity for many transport operators and the customers they serve. Pallet are likewise becoming more common in use as are containers, though expansion is more likely to be evolutionary than revolutionary. In all cases, however, record needs to be kept of their movements in addition to, and independent of, the commodities moved in them. Accordingly, the necessary column or columns could be suitably headed following the column in which traffic movement is recorded.
Then follow columns provided for the entry of the engineering records, namely the weekly vehicle totals for mileage, petrol, derv, lubrication oil etc. Two or more spare columns are always a useful provision on any original record form to allow for subsequent development or additions without having to recast the whole form.
Horizontal lines
The number of horizontal lines will be dependent on the number of vehicles in the fleet and here again an ample reserve should be left for additions as they are purchased. Finally the total for all the several columns will provide an up-to-date record of the fleet's activity for the week in question.
A corresponding form, similar in layout, but headed HalfYearly Summary could be devised to serve two purposes. The only variations as compared with the Fleet Summary sheet would be that columns one and two, instead of being headed Fleet Number and Registration Number, will now have the horizontal lines numbered from one to 26 (the weeks in a half-year) in the first vertical column. Space to record the appropriate weekending date is provided in the second column.
With the rest of the summary remaining the same, one use of the sheet is to facilitate the transfer of the weekly totals as shown at the bottom of the fleet summary so as ultimately to provide a half-yearly summary for the whole fleet. A refinement is to keep a running total on the same sheet when entering each new set of weekly totals.
The second use is to do likewise but in respect of each individual vehicle where it is considered worthwhile to build up an accumulative and current record of the use to which each vehicle in the fleet is being put.