Maintaining service quality First Vehicle Services
At First Vehicle Services performance measures are used to assess the overall quality of service in terms of availability of fleet, preventative maintenance completed on time and as scheduled and the percentage of vehicles requiring rework or roadside assistance. We set company-wide targets in relation to each of these areas.
We continue to exceed our targets in all performance areas apart from preventative maintenance. As in First Transit, our target in this area is challenging and requires cooperation from our customers to make vehicles available. However, we believe that preventative maintenance is fundamental to effective fleet maintenance and we will continue to work with our customers to achieve our goal.
We remain committed to the Lean Sigma Six programme directed at greater efficiency and cost savings. The programme supports our ambition to deliver our services faster, better and cheaper. All but 16 of our service centres hold certification. These centres have newly hired contract managers who are tasked to comple their training and receive Lean Sigma certification within 90 days.
We train our technicians to the highest standards. Over 69% of our eligible workforce hold Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certification, the highest of any service provider in the United States. 62% hold Blue Seal certification that indicates a minimum of 75% of the technicians at a location are ASE certified with at least one technician certified in each area of service offered.
We continue to develop our web-based maintenance reporting system, which is now available at 65 locations. This improves accessibility to data allowing deficiencies and concerns to be identified more quickly.
This year an impressive 36 of our service centres were recognised by the Top 100 Fleet in America Award. The Government Fleet Magazine polls over 1,300 municipal fleets and chooses the top 100 based on a number of criteria including best practice in service maintenance, improvement initiatives, safety and environment.
