Fleet Maintenance - 36

MANAGEMENT

How fleets
can benefit
from having
a SAMP
A strategic asset management
plan is an enterprise-level
policy that dictates how the
organization treats its assets.

There is a group of decisions that shop
managers make that should be decided by the
company's board. I think top leaders are passing
the buck when they leave these decisions up to
the individual shop managers.
The strategic asset management plan (SAMP)
is an enterprise-level policy about how fleets
will treat assets such as trucks, tools, or shop
buildings. It outlines what is essential to the
organization and discusses safety, appearance,
customer orientation, and data integrity in strategic terms.

The SAMP is not tactical. It does not prescribe
how you are going to take care of the fleet. It
merely lists the aspirations and priorities of
the entire operation. In large organizations,
the rules are the same across the enterprise.
The job of the organization's top leaders is
to set the direction of the organization. The
highest expression of that activity is an active
and well-known mission, vision, and values
statement. The SAMP is the next level down. It
sets the course for the conception, acquisition,
maintenance, use, and disposal of the assets.
It also defines the rules of the game and the
interaction of the players. The players are the
managers of all functions in all departments
involved in fleet management, acquisition, and
disposal. Everyone uses the same rule book.
The rule book defines the time frame, roles
and responsibilities, decision-making processes,
financial rules, priority rating of different possible costs, management of risk, and management
systems. Extensive knowledge of the practices
ensures that everyone is on the same page as far
as the crucial issues of ROI, safety, code compliance, and risk.
For example, when you acquire a new asset,
several groups are involved. There may be
marketing personnel, accounting business
analysts, engineers, purchasing professionals,
lawyers, vendors, installers, operators, and
maintainers. Each of these groups has different
goals and different contributions to make for
the success of the enterprise. The SAMP ensures
that all parties are pulling in the same direction.
Developing a SAMP can be a difficult task, but
top managers should not avoid it; it is their job,
and everything else flows from this.
Typically, when you join an organization, you
are given (or invent for yourself) tasks appropriate to your job. Everyone's job consists of

Joel Levitt

» The SAMP ensures that all parties
are pulling in the same direction.
62293476 | Weedezign | Dreamstime

The SAMP is not
tactical. It does not
prescribe how you
are going to take
care of the fleet.
It merely lists the
aspirations and
priorities of the
entire operation.
activities that they enjoy and ones they avoid.
Among the activities that are most often avoided
by top management are the decisions about how
groups of stakeholders will interact.
My theory is that the reason top managers delegate strategic decisions to the shops, divisions,
and regions is that they are avoiding making
decisions that could cause conflict. They avoid
these decisions because there are always conflicts
between the group's goals, KPIs, and how they
deliver value to the organization. Conflict is difficult to engage with, manage, and channel. While
disputes are difficult and sometimes painful to
handle, it is useful to treat them before they erupt.
That is where the SAMP comes in.

PRESIDENT OF SPRINGFIELD RESOURCES
Joel Levitt is the president of Springfield Resources, a management consulting firm that
services a variety of clients on a wide range of maintenance issues. Levitt has trained
more than 17,000 maintenance leaders from more than 3,000 organizations in 38
countries. He is also the creator of Laser-Focused Training, a flexible training program
that provides specific, targeted training on your schedule, online to one to 250 people
in maintenance management, asset management, and reliability.

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36 Fleet Maintenance | May 2020

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Fleet Maintenance

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