Chris Dhu was earlier this year promoted to group head of assets, engineering, risk and compliance at Essential Energy, after managing a major asset management project as fleet manager at the distribution network provider.
With a fleet of some 3,500 assets travelling around 40 million kilometres a year, road and off-road travel, is one of the biggest risks facing the business.
Dhu talked about how he set about devising an asset management strategy after joining Essential in 2017 and what it looks like for the business when it’s delivered in his presentation at the IPWEA Fleet Conference in Brisbane earlier this year. (Dhu was also recently named a board member of AfMA, the Australasian Fleet Management Association).
Essential Energy is a distribution network service provider, essentially looking after of poles and wires for regional and remote New South Wales, including planning for future energy needs.
“Exposure to energy or electricity, and land transportation are by far and away our two biggest risks,” said Dhu, recalling the early days of planning. “I saw the fleet as a significant asset class, that is a massive enabler of our business. We need our fleet and it needs to be reliable. It’s really, really important.”
The fleet had been managed as a tool of trade and Dhu set about transforming the management of it in terms of seeing it as a strategic asset, crucial to the benefit of the business.
Dhu said asset management, unlike how some people think of it is not aimed so much at budget management, but more at the health of the business and its people.
“A lot of our gear is insulated and it is quite heavy,” said Dhu. “Quite often when we depart a depot, particularly in a disaster response, we’re a little unsure of what we need to do, so quite often, we have to carry a lot of equipment and mass becomes a really big issue for us.”
One story Dhu said he likes to tell to relay how changing things could help, involves seeing seven light vehicles leave the depot on a long-range mission in remote NSW to recover burned and fallen poles and wires. The reason given was they were needed to carry the mass of equipment required.
“Seven drivers were exposed to Australia’s biggest workplace risk [the road}. That could have been done with two trucks,” said Dhu.
Under an asset management strategy, assets able to carry more mass would be brought into the fleet to better serve the purpose of the business and improve safety.
Similarly a crane isn’t purchased to replace one being retired before asking fundamental questions of what the asset will be used for: for example, that it will have to lift three times 23 metres 60 days a year.
The transformation program Dhu managed was structured into three separate projects — fleet portfolio strategy, mobile asset management and an IVMS, or in-vehicle monitoring system.
Traditional fleet management practices, such as regulatory advice, transaction management were functioning well enough but the various asset classes needed proper lifecycle management, and the practice of replacing like for like without reassessing the demands on the business needed to end.
Cut to the chase some six years later and many things have changed: among them a rigorous factory acceptance test has been introduced where assets are tested to ensure they are fit to deliver on what’s going to be required of them in the field.
“This involves working with service partners to make sure that it was built to spec,” said Dhu, and further testing is done when it reaches the work site.
“If we don’t do the operational ready phase, then we enter into service somewhat half cooked, and then we have problems throughout its lifecycle. One minute at the start will always save 10 at the end,” said Dhu.
A system for assessing lifecycle of individual assets was introduced so that some assets can be retired earlier, or have their life extended.
“And we can assess regulatory requirements, performance requirements, cost requirements and risk requirements, we’re able to do that which allows us to responsibly manage our fleet and has been incredibly handy through the years of COVID and recent supply chain shortages.”
From the outset Dhu identified that safety needed to be improved. He said the IVMS was introduced to monitor vehicles and cut driver risk.
“We’ve got high risk activities that our fleet undertakes. We not only have to move and establish a worksite, but we also have to fulfil the duties required to maintain what is a complex network. And then we have to get everyone safely home at the end of the day,” said Dhu.
In the end, fleet incidents have halved and fleet assets are kept for 25 percent less time despite no increase in costs.
