De-centralising a transport operation January 2001

Pat Loughlin is Head Of Transport with Eircom and has responsibility for the largest fleet of vehicles in the country. Last year the company de-centralised the transport operation to a transport shared service centre in Castlebar, Co. Mayo. Pat spoke about the move, and gave Irish Trucker an overview of operations.

The move to Castlebar represented a new departure for Eircom in terms of transport operations. The new operational structure created at the former international telephone exchange is "special" according to Pat. "From a transport point of view, it is without contradiction, a state of the art facility. Not only have we invested in the best transport management systems available, we have backed that up with a small dedicated team of transport management specialists"

Pat revealed the reasons why Castlebar was chosen as the location to re-organise the transport function. "We had an operator exchange in Castlebar which as a result of changing customer demands and technology developments became surplus to our requirements. This gave us an opportunity to re-deploy an existing staff which had considerable customer service experience. Following an extensive training programme the staff of this exchange, became the core of our new operation, supported by an existing of professional area fleet managers in the field."

Apart from centralising the transport operation, other cost savings accrued from the move to Castlebar. Pat elaborated:"in the old Telecom days the management of the fleet was district based. Our accountant, transport finance manager, and administration manger and our two team leaders are in Castlebar with a staff of 18. This has resulted in considerable cost savings for the organisation."

The Eircom fleet consists of over 5,000 vehicles making it the largest fleet in the country by a distance. "We have everything from the small half tonne vans right up to the 17.5 tonners. We have 765 small vans, 3,265 medium "transit size" vans, 450 cars and 518 H.G.V's which include specialised vehicles for cabling and poling."

The company in its former guise as Telecom Eireann began an extensive mechanisation programme in the early 1990's. Productivity in tandem with mechanisation ensued. "We started on a huge mechanisation programme in 1992 and it has been steadily going forward ever since. Since then we have been achieving incremental improvements on an ongoing basis."

The "utility truck", carrying pole, cable and augur is now commonplace on Irish roads and represents one of the work horses of the fleet. However its introduction in 1993 brought about a huge change in work practices. "The first utility trucks were commissioned in 1993. Large volumes of these trucks came on stream between 1993 and 1996. The new two man utility truck increased productivity over the old five man gang truck it replaced," Pat explained.

Pat is justifiably proud of the company's new "poling trucks" which has again increased productivity. "Our poling vehicles are completely new. These trucks are unique to eircom - built to our specifications. As we get suggestions from the users we would modify them. We listen very much to the operators and to and to their supervisors. As far as we are concerned, they are our customers and we provide within reason exactly what the customer wants to do the job."

Before a vehicle comes into service it has to be specially commissioned and kitted out to a very high standard. Pat elaborated on the process. "Our transport support manager draws up the specifications for the vehicle. This is in consultation with the users to find out exactly what they require. He would then specify the vehicle taking into consideration all the safety requirements under the Health and Safety regulations for lifting equipment etc. He would draw up a very detailed specification for the vehicle. From that it would go out to tender."

In the competitive world of telecomm-unications the company is continually striving to cut costs and increase efficiencies. Consequently the fleet numbers have increased. "There is a push to get people into single units, where we used have two people going round in vans. There is a push in productivity and that has expanded the fleet over the last two years. In that period we have had a substantial increase in the numbers in the fleet."

Pat, however, feels that fleet numbers have reached their peak. "Internally we have reached a plateau. However we are now providing our transport management services to a number of external customers."

To keep the fleet running smoothly Eircom rely on a blend of "in house" and sub-contract maintenance. "We have two company garages in Dublin. The rest of the maintenance is sub contracted out and is managed by the Transport Fleet Manager and the Area Fleet Managers who are positioned in the different areas. We wouldn't want it any other way. We find it more cost effective to out source the work," Pat elaborated.

Prior to the Eircom takeover the company had a 10 year replacement policy for the fleet. However, Pat revealed that policy is currently under review. "In the old regime we had a policy whereby we replaced vehicles every 10 years or every 100,000 miles for normal vehicles. For the specialised fleet they could be a little bit older because they are low mileage vehicles. We are now costing the replacement of vehicles in the fleet after five years."

The winds of change is certainly blowing through the corridors of Eircom. Pat and the transport team are rising to the challenge.