Question

2&3 please. thank you

Question 2 Imagine you are a Fleet Manager for the County Sanitation Department and you are given a project of acquiring new vehicles. You'd like to acquire trucks that are fueled with Natural Gas to save on rising fuel costs. Discuss how you would plan the project (including the steps you would take) and list two advantages and two disadvantages for the County Sanitation Department. Question 3 Tom has received a call from personnel in the Environmental Services department who has told him that OSHA inspectors just left their office and are on their way to the fleet maintenance garage and his office. (Each answer is worth 4 points) a) What are three (3) safety/environmental concerns of a fleet manager? b) List two (2) environmental issues/guidelines the OSHA investigator will look for?

Answer 1

Question 2)

With the cost of traditional fuel steadily rising over a period of time, and pollution norms becoming stricter, there is a shift towards alternative fuel to reduce the cost of operations as well as protect the environment of a nation at the same time. In this case, the acquisition of trucks will have the following steps which will help in guiding the way in which the department will be able to save fuel over a period of time.

Planning Technique:-

The major challenge in acquiring new trucks would be to find out list of potential suppliers, match this with our budget and rolling out tenders for final acquisition. Post Acquisition maintenance and development will also remain important considerations.

The planning process is as described

1) Draw a requirement sheet in which we describe the quantity of trucks required as per the allocated budget and need.

2) Shortlist potential sellers in the market that offer similar products and have a history of successful delivery and maintenance.

3) Float a tender in which the quantity of trucks, minimum requirements, costs etc is clearly mentioned.

4) Initiate documentation and sign off purchase with the best bidder.

5) Follow up and Post purchase activities to ensure that the supplied trucks are in sync with description and recourse if required.

Advantages:-

1) With the Introduction of new trucks that run on natural gas, the per unit cost of fuel can be reduced by the firm. This would mean that the monthly expenses for the company will largely go down.

2) Using Cleaner Fuel will help the city in having a firm that genuinely cares for the population at large. Corporate Social Responsibility goals can be highlighted by the firm as it is initiating a cost which will help reduce overall pollution. This exercise thus will help in image building for the corporation respectively.

Disadvantages:-

1) The cost of acquiring the trucks at times can be so large that the monthly benefit on fuel costs will be negligible. Thus acquisition stage has to be extremely robust.

2) The time taken to refuel vehicles will substantially increase. Further traditional fuel vehicles can lift much higher loads at better speeds. Time management will thus become a major issue for the firm currently.

Question 3)

The OSHA stands for the Occupational Safety and Health Act and was passed in the year 1970. It looks to protect the interest of workers particularly in the hazardous factories and helps in ensuring that safety of employees can be maintained.

It helps in setting standards which all sectors must adhere to and any failure or deviation from the same can lead to serious repercussions for the establishment.

Part A)

A fleet manager must necessarily ensure that basic standards of safety are maintained. At work, the fleet must ensure that they have the required safety equipment to handle any accident situation. They must ensure that records of accidents are kept handy and that repeat accidents due to failure are avoided.

Further maintenance records are important for the establishment to keep as this helps in ensuring that the vehicle being operated by the staff does not go bad and harm the general public or the driver himself.

Further, he must ensure that environmental safety issues are not ignored. All vehicles must be insured and have regular pollution testing done and exceptions looked into.

Part B)

The OSHA investigator usually looks for any signs of safety hazard for the employees or environmental hazards which the establishment may be doing. They will thus look into accident records if any and analyze whether appropriate steps were taken to handle the situation and whether these happened due to poor machinery or general failures or by bad driving. All of these records must thus be maintained.

Further, they are authorized to check the pollution certificates for all of the vehicles been operated and thus that is a big consideration as well.