Utility work definitely doesn’t follow a predictable calendar.
While some aspects of planned maintenance and routine business and home consumer servicing visits may be predictable, the rest often is not. At any point you know that your team may need to deal with flooded substations, fallen wires, burst pipes, storm damage or a surge in emergency calls requiring immediate response. Doing this effectively means everyone needs to rely on your fleet of vehicles, not just as a static resource, but as a critical and responsive part of your operational capability.
The challenge is that demand for vehicles doesn’t simply fluctuate. It can spike dramatically (at any time), and this can come without warning. A vehicle fleet that works perfectly under normal conditions can quickly become a bottleneck when disruption hits.
While utility workers and their contractors cannot control the amount of unplanned work, most fleet models are developed using average data (and are only successful when demand is consistent).
That’s why utilities operations require a model that can adapt to both steady-state demand and any sudden surges, something closer to a scalable or “elastic” capability rather than a fixed asset base.
Balancing different vehicle fleet requirements
Your vehicle fleet needs to support two types of demand:
- Planned Work (service visits, scheduled network maintenance, new installations, safety inspections etc.)
- Reactive Work (faults, leaks, outages, weather events etc.)
Planned work is generally more predictable, but when emergencies arise, demand can increase rapidly and with minimal notice. Typically, vehicle fleets are sized to meet the demands of the “average” day.
There is an unfortunate trade-off between the effectiveness of a vehicle fleet and its readiness to respond to emergency situations.
Vehicle fleets can sometimes either be too large (with excess vehicles to provide coverage for possible emergency responses) and utilise those vehicles inefficiently during lower volume days, or too small (with limited flexibility to add vehicles quickly) and may need to rent vehicles or contract with third party suppliers to ensure adequate coverage.
When emergency response needs arise, vehicles are often rented from third-party suppliers who charge premium rates and whose specifications and availability may vary significantly.
As a result of these limitations, operational issues develop beyond the confines of fleet management. These issues become apparent as slower response times, missed or delayed appointments and increased pressure on field engineers and schedulers. As these delays accumulate, utilities companies are increasingly at risk for violating Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and potentially damaging their reputation with residential and commercial customers alike.
Ultimately, the inability to provide sufficient resources (i.e. vehicles) to meet increasing demand is more than a service delivery problem. It’s a measure of operational performance overall.
Utilities companies are judged on how effectively they respond to crisis situations. In addition to training and resource allocation, the readiness of vehicles directly impacts the overall response to emergencies.
Building an elastic vehicle fleet model for utilities operations
In light of the inherent variability in the nature of utilities work, a more flexible approach to fleet management would clearly benefit many utilities companies.
Instead of thinking about vehicle fleet as simply a fixed asset base, an organisation could consider a multi-layered approach. A company’s “core” fleet is likely to consist of the vehicles used to support the daily, predictable workload. However, you also have the option of accessing “additional” capacity to supplement the “core” fleet when demand increases. This type of flexible approach to fleet management is referred to as an “elastic” fleet. It enables utilities companies to limit their total asset base while ensuring that they can expand and contract in response to changes in operational demand.
This concept is illustrated by a fleet solution for utilities.
How Manimal fits in
Manimal understands the operational realities of utilities work and provides a solution for utilities companies that want to access vehicles that are standardised, consistent and scalable. Our utility fleet vehicle solutions enable utilities companies to scale their fleets up quickly to meet peak demand during outage and storm-related events. We also provide rapid vehicle replacement to minimise downtime and deliver vehicles that are standardised across multiple locations.
By adopting a more flexible and elastic approach to vehicle fleet management with Manimal, utilities companies can move away from reactive, short-term fixes and toward a more controlled, resilient operating model. We remove the uncertainty of sourcing vehicles at short notice from multiple suppliers, replacing it with a reliable and scalable solution that adapts as your demand changes.
For utilities companies operating across multiple regions, an elastic vehicle fleet approach provides a practical way to increase capacity when it’s needed most, without the cost and inefficiency of over-investing in permanent fleet.
Talk to Manimal about an elastic fleet model for your utilities business today.