Vehicle Selection For Efficient Fleet Management In New Zealand

New Zealand Qualification Authority in Motor Industry

Discuss about the Smart Driver Program for Heavy Vehicles.

The purpose of vehicle selection is really important for the benefit of business organization, industry and even for the personal purpose. The main target of our paper aims in defining the heavy and the light vehicles of New Zealand. This mainly focuses on the reducing the efforts of the managers by increasing the efficiency of the fuel and reducing the cost of the vehicle. By achieving this, the company should also target the safety of the environment (Archer, J., Fotheringham, Symmons and Corben, 2008). The impact of the government in New Zealand plays a vital role by proposing certain policies that could reduce the carbon deposition and also efficient steps were taken in the freight sector.

The New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) is the New Zealand government top body that plays a major role in offering their control during the assessments and qualification. This educational act came in the year of 1989. The National Certificate in Motor Industry (Automotive Electrical and Mechanical Engineering) Level 6 with filaments in Electrical as well as Electronics, Light Vehicle, Motorcycle, Outdoor Power Equipment, and Trailer Boat Systems identifies the skills and acquaintance necessary for people in responsibilities within the automotive electrical and mechanical division of the motor industry, which engage common vehicle or tool repair and service work at an initial level to transitional level.

The execution of fleet management is very important that could create efficiency in the utilization of the fuel. According to the New Zealand, the term heavy vehicle means the trucks or lorry or busses that weight more than 3.5 tonnes. This is defined as a heavy weight group of vehicles. This could be managed by an individual company although it has a single owner operator within the circle. These vehicles are created for the specific purposes and the driver who drives these vehicles should be well equipped with specified skills. The vehicles are extremely costly. For operating the fleet the company has to come forward to show their interest. For example, the company can increase the amount of production by increasing the profit by efficiently utilizing the vehicle.

New Zealand has also defined the light fleet vehicles evidently (Baas and Latto, 2007). They provide vehicles to companies like taxi, courier, provide vehicles to employees, government and public sectors. The fleet ensure in following the “safety driving policy” among the employees. They could also vary at certain circumstances. The country tends to reduce the circumstances by reducing the consumption of fuel using certain factors like slow driving, using the vehicles for a long distance, regularly monitoring the fuel tank etc. Due to this the country not only provide a safe and secure environment but also it raise the profit and the business economy of the industry by increasing it’ productivity. In this paper we have presented certain specification of the commonly used vehicles in New Zealand and made a study based on their cost, which is presented in a spreadsheet.

Heavy and Light Vehicles in New Zealand

Fleet management is very necessary that falls under the hands of a transport operator who select a vehicle by considering the fuel management, safety for the transportation etc, and select a driver who could manage the task efficiently (Baas, Latto & Ludvigson, 2007). The operator is responsible for managing other factors too that could enhance the fuel-efficiency, safety and cost. The factor of saving fuel is very important since this could have impacts on the following factors:

• This could increase the fleet profit by lowering its operating cost and increasing its demand and productivity
• Enhances the economy of the New Zealand by reducing the imports, which does not affect the employment
• The energy security of the New Zealand could increase since the country need not depend on the fuel from other countries
• Highly saves the environment by decreasing the emission of carbon dioxide. This could have an impact in the reduction of toxic gases that could save the people health.

This factor forms a strong bond between the safety and the efficiency. Certain steps are required to bring these factors into activity: 1) managing speed 2) predicting the situation at a prior stage 3) reduction in rash driving 4) regularly monitoring the tyre pressures 5) maintaining the vehicle and avoiding the vehicle usage for a minimum distance. The increase in the vehicle driving could contaminate the road and affect the brake system of the vehicle.

Smart way of transport is also the similar way of achieving the sustainability of vehicle like fuel efficiency. Smart Way Transport recognizes the operators of the transport system and shippers who help them in improving their environmental facilities by certain measures. Those operators should involve in cost savings and fuel efficiency to improve the business strategy once in three years.  They are required to measure their performance using the Smart Way Fleet Logistics Energy and Environmental Tracking (FLEET) system and sign the Smart Way partnership agreement. Once they receive this recognition they can receive their logo and display it in their systems. Shippers are the major user of the transport facility and they have to spend 50% of their goods with the smart way transport operators (Charlton, Mackie, Baas, Hay, Menezes and Dixon, 2010). This particular quantity is monitored by the FLEET. By their own facility they have to agree in the reduction of the emission. The most significant concept of this system is to increase the popularity of Smart way transport to the public by helping them in reducing the environmental factors (Department for Transport (DfT), 2004).

Transportation is a major part of function in the courier deliver. Among New Zealand certain areas play vast role in this deliver system (de Pont, 2010). There are numerous factors that involves in providing the transport facility within the corridor based on the time, logistics etc., that are as follows:

• Organizations mixture and its density within the corridor
• Service prospect based on the customer’s point of view
• The standards followed by the operators of the transport service
• Volume of the traffic
• Competitors among the suppliers. This could create a sustainable solution by providing the best services with lowering the cost of the transport.

In our study we have taken the light weight commercial vehicles (LMCV) that could travel well in the urban areas. These are designed under certain criteria that are as follows:

• Cars that contains traditional insignia (this indicates the person who is the owner/ operator of the vehicle)
• Vans, less weight trucks and utility that takes about 3.5 times larger gross laden weight (typically we consider the light commercial vehicles to have only a sole rear tyre but here we can include dual rear tyre also)
• Two-axle large trucks more than 3.5 tones gross laden weight that is independent of a trailer.

Fleet Management for Fuel Efficiency and Cost Reduction

Though the study has more significance in the LMCV vehicles, certain consideration was made in the vehicle that makes the commercial purpose by entering the corridor. These vehicles were analyzed based on the goods and service related and analyzed whether the vehicle is coming into the city or going out of the city. Certain consideration regarding the vehicle that is made in our report includes:

• The vehicle should carry the good or provide services or it should do both. The purpose of the vehicle should satisfy the business meets, picking up of goods from certain organizations, attend the expectation of the employer and finally deals with the confidential actions.
• This involves LMCV, HCV (high commercial vehicles) and other type of vehicles such as personal cars, taxi, etc, in fact it also deals with the non-motorized vehicles such as bicycle or walk
• The term”incoming” means that somebody arrives from different site to the organization or business beneath surveillance and “outgoing” means that somebody from the pragmatic business or organization is moving to various site.

The chassis design is the main objective that is to be considered while designing a vehicle. This design requires the use of certain software such as CAD and other simulation software such as CATIA V5 R19 and ANSYS 15.0 (Issling and Coyle, 2008). The chassis design has to be considered based on the level 7 consideration of NZQA. During this measure it is necessary to consider base of the wheel, width of the track and other vehicle measurements that are listed below:

• Track Width (Front)
• Track width (Back)
• Overall Weight (without tyres)
• Overall length (with tyres)
• Overall width
• Distance from back to back wheel axle
• Distance from front to front wheel axle
• Tube thickness

Again coming back, the environmental issue is the major role that is to be considered while making chassis. Carbon fiber composite material that is used while manufacturing the chassis utilizes Petroleum based resin material. This material may not be a biodegradable and it could also be hazardous to the environment. Due to this material, it can affect the human health of the employers who work there during the time of manufacturing. Hence maximum steps should be taken to avoid the petroleum based resin and replace it by sustainable and secure resin materials like bio based green resins that serves best to the environment.

The term ‘light vehicle fleet’ comprises of five types of companies (Baas, 2008) that includes certain safe driving policies for the employees that are as follows:

• Taxi companies
• Car or light vehicle rental companies
• Courier companies
• Companies, which supply vehicle for the employees
• Government and public agency vehicles

Certain light weight vehicle with their fuel types is listed in the table given below. There are about 20 vehicles in the below table and these values are taken from the registration database. Other than these fuel certain light vehicles uses compressed gas, electricity and liquid petroleum that are not considered in our paper (Baas and Taramoeroa (2008).  It is to be notes that the amount of diesel as well as petrol fleets in the category of fleet size does not match the amount of fleets of that particular size of vehicle (Bomel Ltd, 2004). This is because large fleet vehicles could use both type of fuels. This states that the fleet of 400 vehicles could contains 250 petrol based vehicles and the remaining 150 diesel based vehicle.

Smart Way Transport for Sustainability

SUV stands for the Sport Utility Vehicle. At the year of 2016, about 21,500 new medium-sized vehicles of SUV were registered in New Zealand. This becomes a strong raise in the world of automobile that was achieved 13 percentages by the small cars and 12 percentages by the Utes and large SUV (Lawson, Michaelis & Waldron, 2008). The remaining was left to the popularity by the medium sized SUV and by the next two years it is expected to be filled by the other vehicles that enter the industry. Among other vehicles, Toyota RAV4 is the most popular vehicle that could be used for both the personal and fleet use. This model came into the world at the year of 11995, now it has reached its fourth generation. This has been in the top list for four consecutive years and in the top next list for eight years. Previous year this model has a great impact. About 3612 vehicles were registered last year that comes after Toyota Corolla. About 1593 of the vehicles were left to the rental business.

Last year the top-selling medium-sized SUVs were the RAV4, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Hyundai Tucson, and Holden Captiva. Excluding the rental business out of the condition then the popularity vehicle would be Sportage, CX-5, Hyundai Santa Fe, and the RAV4 and Mitsubishi Outlander dead-heated in fourth place. Facelifted Ford SUV was later called to know as Escape which was previously called as Kuga. During this period Mitsubishi came in view that was represented by the Outlander, which was considered to be the most popular and conservative SUV or as a plug-in electric hybrid. The vehicle has reached high rank in the year of 2016 and it is expected to reach a target this year too is doing well, too though it is being shaded by the less significant ASX. At the year of 2017, Outlander exposed to the Geneva Motor Show to have another medium-sized SUV known as - the Eclipse. This is a new reach to the New Zealand next year. This vehicle will lie amongst the ASX and the Outlander in the Mitsubishi SUV fleet. Surrounded by the intermediate SUV segment there is a group cuisine for vehicles that cost more than $60,000 - and this is where every medium-sized luxury product exists.

New Ford transit vans are the most popular transit heavy vehicles that sell like a hot cake in the New Zealand. In the business era the model of Mark 7 or 6 are most adapted that offers both the front and the rear wheel drive. The transit vehicles are the most versatile one since this comes in a most flexible style and range that gives more comfort. Certain points to remember while choosing a transit van that requires a test driving and inspection, which are as follows:

• Careful inspection should be done on the tyres by checking whether there are any cracks, bulges and any patchy wear on the treads. When these are found then it means that the tyres are not properly aligned.
• Load area should be checked properly. During the time of loading and unloading, ply lined vans could suffer denting and scraping that is to be considered
• There should not be any rust found on the wheel arches, sills and door slide. Make sure that the door handles work in a proper condition and radio work is also checked.
• A test drive is carried out that ensure the smooth drive of the van and no noise should be produced while catching the break. A solid feel should be produced while driving.
• It is necessary to check the seat belts that should properly fit with the passenger. Ensure their presence and check whether they work well.
• The electronic parts should be checked such as lights, sensors etc, which forms a major problem. Check the brake light, front and back light and make sure whether the indicator works well during their indication.

Light Weight Commercial Vehicles

There are certain policies that are adapted in New Zealand under the Efficiency and Safety Improvements section that are as follows:

• To maximize transitory possibilities by clipping back vegetation, embankments, and crests which limit sight reserve.
• To afford crossing lanes of an approximate span to facilitate transitory maneuvers to be carefully attempted at supposed spacing of 5 km on routes with traffic volumes in excess of 4,000 vehicles per day, and if not where essential to supply normal transitory opportunities, predominantly in rolling and mountainous terrain wherever certain chances may be inadequate.
• To supply slow vehicle bays on steep grades as well as where suitable on lower volume heavy vehicle and tourist route.

This case study is regarding the Highlanders Company that had made an investigation with the management team, in order to replace the Toyota vehicles from the courier services and replace with the best selling automobile that could increase the efficiency and decrease the cost.

How Ford ventured into New Zealand automobile as an alternative for Toyota

This was started by setting a goal that drive more qualified customers to Ford NZ in order to maximize visitors of this website, which could convert into inquiries. Ford New Zealand (Ford NZ) and J. Walter Thompson (JWT NZ) analyzed the significance of intensifying their online viewers by transferring them into customers. They constructed brand preference and drive deliberation that converts more site viewers as customers. In order to make this idea possible they banged the Google Display Network.  For the suitable customers they started to deliver the appealing digital impact. About seventy five percent of the clients were involved in their web search, sites, videos and other sources to view (Google Analytics and Ford Internal Metrics research, February 2014) their new model car. Though this method they started to guess the information regarding their brand which the customers got attracted and the reports were framed that gather the positive and negative impact of the upcoming model. Although this method banged the eyes of the customer view, they again started to get the clients attention by establishing the idea of JWT NZ. The agency made collaboration that demonstrated banners and attached them with customized content that targeted in engaging the consumers across various websites during their acquisition journey. At past they followed the plan of “set-and-forget” where it came to be called later as “test-and-refine” approach.

Next Ford started a method of “in-market” audiences that targeted the customers who were to purchase the new vehicles. Through the In-market strategy they reached the customers by the data they have, who were enthusiastically glancing to formulate an acquisition. With these approaches they started to reach many customers and also they bought the viewers of Google audience as clients. At last, they used GDN’s marketing tool that bought the previously viewed customer of the site again to view their site newly. They used a customized message setting that made numerous visitors of that site to visit again.

Carbon Resin Material for Chassis and Environmental Issues

Chris Masterson the head of the Ford group says that, “It's critical to use the right data to drive your marketing strategy. We learned that there is a unique data insight about our audience at each stage of the purchase journey. Acting on those right insights opened the door for us to truly deliver the right message at the right moment to the right potential customer”. This is how Ford strengthens their business strategy. The top vehicle that makes a best service includes Ford Ranger, Holden Colorado, Mitsubishi Triton, Kia Sportage, Mazda CX-5, Nissan Navara.

Conclusion:

Through our paper we have achieved in knowing the top vehicles of the New Zealand and made a list based on their specification. A case study is also made regarding the Highlanders Company that had made an investigation with the management team, in order to replace the Toyota vehicles from the courier services and replace with the best selling automobile that could increase the efficiency and decrease the cost. The classification of vehicles according to the NZQA is also studied in this paper.

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