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Issued: March 2001

SUMMARY

This report presents the results of our audit of the Fleet Services Division's Maintenance and Repair (M&R) program. The M&R program provides scheduled maintenance (including preventive maintenance) and unscheduled repairs for City vehicles. This audit resulted from an FY 99 risk assessment of City programs conducted by our office that identified the program as high-risk because of its potential to affect both a significant component of the City's infrastructure and a significant portion of service delivery.

Our four audit objectives were to determine: (1) if Fleet management had access to, was utilizing, and was reporting appropriate information to develop and sustain an M&R operation comparable to industry standards; (2) if deficiencies in Fleet's M&R asset safeguard controls identified in previous OCA audits had been corrected; (3) the degree to which Fleet met, exceeded, or fell short of industry standards for M&R performance for public service fleets; and (4) whether unaddressed issues relating to Fleet's human resources (HR) practices, policies, and procedures contributed to Fleet's performance below industry standards on Fleet M&R key performance indicators.

Overall, we found that excessive turnover in key management positions, including that of the Fleet Officer, over a prolonged period of time has left Fleet with management systems that are too weak to support service delivery at or above industry standards. Instability in these positions played a significant causal role in the findings related to all four objectives.

With regard to information management, performance measures relevant to the essential goals of Fleet management are needed to properly reflect Fleet service efforts and accomplishments. Key performance indicators (KPIs) are also needed to demonstrate performance in areas of interest to decision makers, such as preventive maintenance, scheduled maintenance, and unscheduled repairs. Other measures needed by Fleet’s management to control costs and achieve desired service delivery levels include turnaround time, percentage of billable hours, inventory shrinkage, and inventory turnover. Fleet also needs to improve the reliability of the data it uses internally and reports to customers and stakeholders.

In several key areas, Fleet does not have adequate management information system (MIS) controls in place to reduce the risk of reporting inaccurate or unreliable data to its various data end-users. Fleet needs to improve MIS application controls related to GEMS data entry, database maintenance, and data quality assurance to help safeguard against reporting unreliable data. Moreover, Fleet’s MIS reports do not meet all reporting needs of Fleet and its M&R customers. Based on interviews and surveys of representative Fleet customer program managers and fleet liaisons, Fleet needs to provide additional MIS data reports to its customers, including detailed vehicle M&R life histories, itemized parts and labor cost data by work order, and daily down reports before the opening of the business day.

In previous OCA audits of Fleet, we found significant deficiencies regarding the safeguarding of assets, namely parts. Fleet’s M&R inventory shrinkage (or loss) has been historically high. The current Fleet management team has focused on improving inventory management over the last several months. And, while there are still some areas in which controls need strengthening, Fleet has made significant progress in this area. We found that Fleet service delivery levels need improvement in a number of key areas. Fleet has been struggling to accomplish prompt completion of PM, to lower M&R turnaround time for vehicles, and to increase billable hours. We found that Fleet is performing below national standards for economy of service and has been challenged to get customer departments to cooperate. Fleet service delivery levels need improvement in a number of key areas. In general, Fleet needs to improve its performance in terms of fleet availability, reliability, economy, environmental responsibility, and customer service management. Among the causes for a low PM compliance rate is high PM turnaround time. Just as important, however, is an absence of adequate management controls in line departments to ensure vehicle PM compliance.

Finally, we assessed Fleet at high risk for being unable to recruit and retain appropriately skilled technical personnel. Fleet’s current salary structure is not competitive. And, Fleet’s job classification structure does not provide for compensating the kinds of enhanced job skills needed in maintaining and repairing today’s more electronically sophisticated vehicles. Furthermore, Fleet appears to be carrying a large number of vacancies in its mechanic positions.

For information on implementation of the recommendations issued in this report, contact Jennifer Walls at (512) 974-1795 in the Fleet Services Department. As of October 2003, the department is developing a web site. Check back periodically for a link to that web site.

Click here to go to our audit request form to request a hard copy of this report (Report No. S99130)

Click here to download the full text of the Fleet Maintenance and Repair Program: Selected Performance and Management Control Issues audit (Size: 1478 KB) in Adobe Acrobat. You will need Adobe's Acrobat Reader to view these files.

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