Page 14 - Sept-Oct2023 Vol 41 No 3

STATEWIDE
National Fleet Awards Earned in 2023

NAFA’s 100 Best Fleets in association for individuals who Government Fleet’s 50
manage the vehicular fleet and mobility
the Americas responsibilities for their employers. Leading Fleets
The purpose of the Best Fleets
National Association of Fleet program is to help foster pride in the Additionally this spring, Government
Administrators’ (NAFA) 100 Best Fleets industry, build recognition within the Fleet announced their top 50 Leading
in the Americas program recognizes national fleet, increase community Fleets. It recognized the award recipients
peak-performing public and commercial levels of productivity and operational at the Government Fleet Expo and
fleet operations. This annual program effectiveness, and encourage more Conference (GFX), sponsored by Ford
identifies and encourages the ever- individuals to consider fleet operations as Pro, coproduced with the American
increasing levels of performance a career choice. Public Works Association.
improvement and innovation within the The 100 Best Fleets in the Americas Fleets are judged on showing leadership
fleet industry. contest is open to any fleet in North, with staff, customers, and within the
Several Tennessee entities were ranked Central, or South America. Application community; staying efficient and
in the 2023 Top 100. They are: #18–City into the contest is free and is an entirely competitive; overcoming challenges;
of Germantown; #81–City of Knoxville, online process. Applications for the 2024 and having a vision and direction for the
and #90–Knoxville Utilities Board. contest will open in late 2023. operation. City of Knoxville Fleet Services
NAFA is the world’s largest membership placed in the Top 50 group.

City of Knoxville Fleet • Achieved status as a certified warranty center for people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Services - Top 100 Best for Fiat-Chrysler, Pierce, E-one & Ferrara To help compensate, the City now allows
up to $1000 per year in reimbursements to
products. Performing our own warranty
work and recalls reduces downtime and technicians for the expense of purchasing
Fleets in the Americas maintenance/repair costs for Police Chargers, tools and safety-toe boots.
• City of Knoxville Fleet Services employs 54 select Fire Apparatus’ and other units. We also • Incorporated modern diagnostic systems
people and serves Police, Fire, Public Works, obtained John Deere diagnostic software to and procedures set forth by equipment
and other departments, totaling over 1600 better maintain ROW equipment. manufacturers to guide our technicians.
pieces of equipment. • Improved heavy shop production by: 1) Integrated our fuel management system with
• Created an Apprentice Mechanic program implementing a new repair order process to our fleet management system to accurately
for disadvantaged students by way of a better organize and track work orders while track hours and mileage so preventive
partnership agreement with the American Job increasing transparency and productivity; maintenance can be more accurately and
Center and the Tennessee College of Applied 2) creating prioritization/triage guidance on efficiently scheduled.
Technology (TCAT). The program provides all equipment; 3) Empowering customers to • We have a replacement fund in place for
added capacity to Fleet Services at no cost proactively schedule preventive maintenance. vehicle and equipment purchases. As a result,
to the City while benefitting the community • Created and facilitated an Incident the average age of our fleet is 6.8 years.
and helping Fleet to overcome longstanding Review Committee. The Committee issued We regularly evaluate the life cycle of our
recruiting challenges. Eleven local students comprehensive reports on street sweeping equipment for cost effectiveness. We work
were hired as Apprentices since the start of the best practices, mowing best practices, closely with all of the departments as well as
program. and Right-of-Way mowing Tractor safety. our own personnel to right size equipment.
• The City adopted a new Green Fleet Policy It also conducted an in-depth analysis on • We perform oil analysis on every oil drain
to purchase more EVs, hybrids and bi-fuel incident reporting procedures and developed to monitor internal wear and find potential
propane vehicles and explore the use of clean recommendations to clarify the City’s problems before they become a major
burning Renewable propane. The City acquired incident reporting policy and procedures for failure. We simultaneously integrated DPF
its first propane light vehicles in 2020 - five equipment-involved incidents. maintenance and cleaning into our PM
Dodge Durangos. An additional 26 were • Developed and implemented a comprehensive schedules to reduce downtime. We work with
ordered in 2021. The EV fleet also grew from model for analyzing employee productivity, parts vendors to get the best price on all fast
2 to 8 in 2021. We are currently bidding out an availability, vehicle/equipment repair needs, moving parts and contract with vendors for
additional 22 EVs. service benchmarks, vehicle equivalency bulk items, such as petroleum products and
• We developed and implemented a units, and other data driven standards that filters.
comprehensive Fleet Employee Handbook of are utilized in making staffing/resource • All five Fire Shop technicians are EVT certified;
policies and procedures addressing a wide allocation decisions. three are master certified. 21 of 28 technicians
range of topics pertaining to employee safety, • Increased personal tool allotment funding. are ASE certified; 12 are Master certified. Six
employee policy directives, and workplace The requirement for technicians to supply of nine parts and service staff are ASE certified.
procedures. their own tools is a barrier to employment
14 TPW September/October 2023