Moving Target

If you want the job done right, do it yourself. That’s the belief many recyclers have when it comes to fleet management. Some are turning to technology, such as global positioning systems (GPS) to help the process. Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

One company testing GPS technology is Tennessee Valley Recycling, Decatur, Ala. "For a small fleet owner like we are, it’s important that we use all the tools available," says Joel Denbo, chief manager of operations.

The company’s fleet of 60 vehicles operates in roughly a 100-mile radius from its Decatur yard. Denbo has GPS units on 10 of the 60 trucks.

He notes that a single dump trailer costs $150,000 and says it is only reasonable to make sure both the driver and the pickup sites are not causing downtime for the vehicle.

"It’s not strictly about the hours [of operation]," Denbo says of why he’s begun using GPS technology. "It’s to be sure you are making smart moves," he says. "Sometimes, a customer’s pickup point is not set up right."

Tennessee Valley Recycling started its GPS test in earnest in late March. "Given the cost of equipment today, maintaining employees and the squeeze of getting quality people to do the job, our impetus is to be sure we get proper production out of each unit and to be able to identify problems," he says.

At Alter Trading Corp., headquartered in St. Louis, each of its yards operates its own trucking center. David Snyder, yard manager at Alter’s Council Bluffs, Iowa, location, says the yard’s fleet consists of 16 road trucks. Vehicles in the fleet can be divided into the local haulers and the over-the-road vehicles.

Snyder has not turned to technology yet to assist with fleet management.

"I think that, for a lot of operations, those systems are good," Snyder says. However, he notes that much of the Council Bluffs yard’s driving is local, with 10 or 12 stops per day. "That would drive a GPS nuts," he says.

In addition, he is confident in the company’s drivers’ ability and honesty. "We have good drivers with authentic time, hours and stops," Snyder says.

"We probably put 40,000 miles a year on each of the trucks we use for pickups within a 100-mile radius of the yard."

The company purchases many vehicles to run through its automobile shredder, and its stock comes from far and wide. "The road trucks—the ones that go out and pick up the cars—probably run 75,000 to 80,000 a year," he adds.

Right now, the preference at Alter is to purchase trucks outright. Ten years ago, the story was different. Then, the company leased a majority of its vehicles. "Leasing can be better in some instances," Snyder says.

However, right now Alter’s accountants figure it is better to buy outright.

OmniSource, Fort Wayne, Ind., installed a vehicle management system from Networkfleet, San Diego, that combines remote diagnostic capabilities with GPS tracking and saw a return on its investment in about 10 months vs. the two years the company had anticipated.

As reported in the March issue of Recycling Today ("The Big Picture," p. 187), OmniSource uses its GPS system to monitor the company’s fleet of 212 vehicles. The company has found that it is able to avoid catastrophic vehicle failures because the technology monitors systems on the truck as well as vehicle location and time-in-motion. Problems such as major coolant leaks, oil pressure drops and the like are signaled back to OmniSource’s transportation department before the trucks breakdown far from their home base.

Maintenance is the biggest concern for Alter Trading’s Snyder, he says. The company performs maintenance the time-proven way based on miles traveled. "We try to be proactive," he says, noting that Alter also will perform maintenance on an as-needed basis.

So far, the Council Bluffs operation has not invested in the high-tech equipment some other recyclers use.

Some companies have developed in-house, custom systems that are tailored to their specific fleets and how they run their businesses. They say that while it is more involved than an off-the-shelf GPS solution, it pays back handsomely.

"I figure it’s not costing me anything at this point," says the operations manager at an Ohio Valley recycler. "It’s more than worth it for the information I get on how many miles we drive, how long it takes, road miles [and] turn-around times." The company uses the system for container tracking and has the ability to do route optimization. Down the road, the company might integrate a maintenance tracking system as well.

Like other companies in the industry, the recycler relies on weekly and monthly maintenance routines.

"I have hard information now," he adds. "There is no speculation, no relying on a driver’s memory."

Denbo says he is not so much interested in tracking the mechanical situation of the vehicles in Tennessee Valley Recycling’s fleet as he is in knowing the time-in-motion for the trucks. Although the company owns all of its vehicles, it relies on Penske to maintain its fleet of Mack, Freightliner and Sterling trucks. With a relatively new fleet (averaging 4.1 years), maintenance is kept to a minimum.

"We maintain our fleet and we know when it’s time to roll a unit out," Denbo says. His real concern is keeping vehicles moving on local runs, he says.

What causes delays and downtimes?

"In an absence of real knowledge, you have to rely on the employee to articulate the hubbub and the problems he’s facing," Denbo says. He says he would rather have some objective criteria to analyze and to relay to a customer.

One area he is especially interested in tracking is the idle time on trucks. "With GPS you can grab a printout and pinpoint locations where there are constant time constraints at a pickup point," Denbo says. The site might be older and not set up correctly for today’s technology. Or, there might be just one bay with many trucks queued for loading.

With the expense associated with operating vehicles, "you have to be able to change your cost matrix," Denbo continues. He wants to be able to tell a customer that it simply costs his company more to do business at its site.

"We know there is no way to do it any more efficiently at our end. But with a GPS printout, you can show them proof that it takes longer to do business with them and you’re not just blowing smoke."

The author is a contributing editor based in Strongsville, Ohio. He can be reached at curt@curtharler.com.