Fleet strategy for AAH is simple: it wants to be the best in the pharmaceutical sector, delivering operational and service excellence.
Its in-house distribution platform operates from 19 core stock holding branches and has a fleet of 1,500 vans and 750 cars.

Meanwhile, its employees are guided across the organisation by the company’s ‘Magnificent 7’ set of values.

These define the objectives and aims of AAH, with seven steps to achieving success.

However, it recognised at an early stage that the Magnificent 7 needed to be an organisational priority, not just a programme that lived within distribution.

Buy-in from the group’s managing director and the board has been crucial to this journey, while communication of a consistent set of messages would also be key in making sure it achieved the success it was looking for.

As a result AAH developed four pillars – the team, the fleet, the journey and the future – to help define how it could achieve excellence in pharmaceutical distribution.

Each pillar carried a set of aims, with developing an industry-leading driver development programme central to its team pillar.

They were presented across the organisation at group conferences, transport manager meetings and driver briefings.

They provided a vital guide; giving visibility on how each area was interrelated and supported the overall strategy, as well as helping everyone understand that they would play an important part in achieving success.

Head of corporate service Geoff Wright is responsible for delivering the fleet element of the strategy.

Fleet News: What was your crucial first step to achieving success in managing the fleet?

Geoff Wright: The first focus has to be getting quality data on your fleet.

This then enables you to have a solid platform to review the findings and identify the areas for improvement. Having established the areas for improvement, I believe it’s then vitally important you consider what is safe and legal.

Whatever you do throughout the process, it needs to be constantly thought about in those terms and it will also help you develop a culture of safety across the fleet.

Having laid the foundations, you then can begin the process of setting out the policy and managing the costs.

The use of quality partners throughout the process is also essential to making sure the dials you are looking at are the right ones.

Regular contact will enable you to benchmark your policies against others within the industry and keep your fleet in line with the latest legislation and technology

FN: What was the biggest challenge in effecting change?

GW: Getting people who have little to no knowledge of fleet to understand that managing a fleet is not just about achieving a competitive up-front price for the vehicles.

There is a need for them to understand the management time and associated costs for in-life management and the process for disposal.

Fleet is so emotive and therefore ensuring the policy is robust and clear ensures that you’re not addressing time consuming queries or facing the risk of the goalposts being moved.

Having clarity around why there’s a need for change and also a clear detailed, programme of works to get there is imperative to driving change through the fleet. Without this, the whole project risks getting side-tracked and nothing will improve.

FN: How important was it to develop a driver training programme?

GW: I have always maintained a fleet is totally effective and efficient while it sits in the car park. It’s when you put a person behind the wheel that you start to incur the costs.

It is therefore not surprising that driver training is imperative to the success of your programme.

We have a bespoke training programme that is specific to the areas of driving we want to address. The focus for car drivers is on online assessment, with any subsequent training focused on the areas it has identified for attention.

Commercial van and truck drivers go through our EiPD – Excellence in Pharmacy Distribution – programme along with the Safe and Fuel Efficient Driving training certificate as the foundation for this.

To get buy-in from the drivers we also award a NVQ qualification at the end of the initial training, which is then backed up by a continuous programme of improvement.

The savings achieved from this approach covers the cost of the training and also ensures we have the right training for the right application.

FN: How important is mitigating your impact on the environment and what are the benefits it has brought?

GW: Being environmentally-friendly is also cost effective. We have cut our mileage by more than one million miles through effective scheduling, which has dramatically reduced our environmental impact.

The green agenda has also been enhanced through a wholelife cost car policy which has a focus on CO2 emissions, but also ensures costs are kept to a minimum.

FN: How do you build on what you’ve achieved so far?

GW: Communication, communication, communication. Keeping people informed of the success we have achieved so far helps us to get further buy-in to carry on to the next level.

People are normally reasonable and open to change if they understand why something is being introduced. If they continue to feel part of the process, success will follow.  
 

AAH now has one of the largest accredited driver development programmes, delivering enhanced skills in service, safety fuel efficiency and product safety.

More than 1,000 drivers have received SAFED training, while it has achieved an overall fuel economy improvement of around 12% across its van fleet.

Speed limiters have been fitted to every vehicle on the fleet and it has started supplier inbound collections to reduce empty running and take product miles off its suppliers.

It also quickly identified that the FTA Van Excellence programme was a key development for any fleet and it became the first business in the UK to achieve accreditation.

The FTA van excellence logo is now proudly displayed on its entire fleet, providing an external recognition that it is doing business in the right way.

Since achieving accreditation, AAH has also supported the FTA in developing the programme and assisting in the training and development of its assessors and auditors.

It backed this up with a focus on vehicle safety, setting a target of reducing its accident rate by 25% within three years.

Within the first year it achieved a 24% cut in van fleet accidents, a 39% reduction in HGV-related incidents and a 12% cut in company-related accidents.

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