For the management team at Ameren Corp.’s Fleet Services department, purchasing and maintaining a reliable fleet at the lowest cost is all in a day’s work

The mission is clear for Sherry Moschner, manager, fleet services, at Ameren Corp. “The fleet services department is responsible for maximizing fleet effectiveness by providing the proper transportation tools at a competitive price,” she says. “We provide equipment that is designed, engineered and maintained to perform in a safe manner and at the lowest total cost of ownership.”

Based in St. Louis, Mo., Ameren is the parent company of four electric and natural gas utilities, including AmerenUE, Missouri’s largest electric utility and a provider in central and eastern portions of the state. In neighboring Illinois, AmerenCIPS in Springfield services a 20,500-square-mile area, AmerenIP in Decatur provides services across 15,000 square miles of central, east central and southern regions, and AmerenCILCO in Peoria provides electricity and gas in east and central parts of the state.

Collectively, the Ameren operations serve 2.4 million electric and nearly one million natural gas customers across 64,000 square miles in Missouri and Illinois. Supporting all of its business activities is a fleet of 5,700 units and a network of 254 company shops located throughout the company’s service area.

“Like most utility fleets,” Moschner relates, “Ameren operates a variety of vehicles and equipment, including pickups, vans, service bodies, stake bodies, crew trucks and road tractors with van and deck trailers. As a supplier of both electricity and gas we also have equipment for building and maintaining electric distribution and transmission lines as well as gas lines.”

The electric utility fleet at Ameren includes aerial devices ranging from 37- to 125-ft. boom trucks with and without diggers, a variety of support vehicles and various pieces of line stringing equipment. The gas side of the business has both large and small construction trucks supported by service and emergency response vehicles. Construction equipment consists of cranes, backhoes, trenchers, excavators and dozers while miscellaneous units include personnel carriers, forklifts, air compressors, generators, welders, lighting systems, personnel carts and a variety of trailers.

Standardizing

“Like most utilities, we continually work to standardize the fleet,” Moschner reports. “Presently, our chassis mix is made up of Chevrolet pickups, vans and small utility vehicles; Ford cab/chassis up to 19,500 lbs. GVWR, and larger Freightliner chassis. Our aerial and digger derrick equipment is currently supplied by Altec Industries, including bodies for those units. Most of our service trucks are upfitted by Drake–Scruggs Equipment Co. with Knapheide bodies.

“Standardizing is important to us for a number of reasons,” Moschner continues. “While our goal is to provide the right equipment for field operations, standardizing helps control costs, minimizes post-delivery modifications and makes it easier to reassign vehicles across our service territory. It also makes it simpler to order replacement equipment on a timelier basis and minimizes the number of different parts we need to stock, helping reduce maintenance and repair costs and the amount of training required for our mechanics.”

Vehicle and equipment purchasing decisions at Ameren are based on several factors. “We rely heavily on past performance, which we measure using appropriate metrics and key performance indicators,” Moschner says. “Since the early 1990s, Ameren has utilized a lifecycle analysis tool to compute the annualized cost of ownership for all of our equipment groups. This model considers the economics of our financial discount and composite income tax rates; applicable property taxes; lost hours due to downtime; operating costs, including inspections, maintenance and repairs; escalation factors on wages and capital; and the salvage value of used equipment. We also take into consideration specific units that may need to be replaced sooner than the model dictates.”

Collective effort

Vehicle and equipment specifications are a collective effort at Ameren. “Fleet services department representatives serve as resources on a number of equipment teams comprised of operations superintendents, supervisors and in some cases bargaining unit field personnel,” Moschner explains. “We have equipment teams for each of the major operating sectors of our company that identify needs, apply best practices and guide the design of our equipment.”

Feedback from the fleet’s maintenance staff and user groups is also used when developing specifications. Based on all of this input, the equipment acquisition teams at Ameren develop specifications and place orders for units designed to meet applicable federal, state, OSHA and ANSI regulations.

“We choose vendors using a strategic sourcing approach that is focused on achieving the lowest total cost of ownership for our company,” Moschner says. “Product quality and availability, the financial strength of the vendor and after-the-sale support are also major factors in selecting suppliers. That includes technician and operator training, and parts and service availability.”

Moschner also notes that Ameren works closely with its suppliers and routinely offers feedback that the utility feels enhances the design, usability and safe operation of equipment. “Providing equipment that is safe and reliable for our operators is our highest priority,” she states. “It’s important for us to deal with suppliers who consistently look for ways to upgrade their equipment and for ways to ensure operator safety.

“Supplier and dealer relationships are extremely critical to our success,” Moschner continues. “The ability of a vendor to meet deadlines and promised delivery dates is essential in managing our maintenance and repair costs, and ensuring the satisfaction of our operations groups. We also recognize the importance of our impact on our vendors and strive to keep them up to date on current issues, expected demands and our future needs for equipment.”

Providing reliability

Behind the reliability of the Ameren fleet is a maintenance operation that includes 254 shops in Missouri and Illinois. Most of the facilities are staffed on two shifts with the majority of mechanics working in the evening. In 2004, the company implemented a special shift of four mechanics that rotates through the seven garages in the metropolitan St. Louis area performing inspections on equipment and writing repair orders for items they identify as needing attention. As a result of this program, service calls have decreased dramatically.

“We employ very capable journeymen technicians who are required to work on the full range of our equipment,” Moschner states, “and we support them with an extensive training program designed to keep them up to date on new technology as well as supply baseline knowledge for the various hydraulic and electrical systems they repair. There is also a separate program that focuses on the testing and training new mechanics prior to having them work on aerial devices. Our Missouri technicians are also required to have ASE medium-/heavy-duty truck and fluid power certifications.”

To track and manage maintenance, repair, fuel, labor and other costs, Ameren utilizes a fleet management information system developed in-house. “This ensures that expenses are fairly incurred by the departments that utilize the equipment,” Moschner points out. “The data also provides for accurate lifecycle costing, which enables our internal customers to identify high cost equipment usage and make prudent decisions to reduce transportation costs. Cost reduction activity may include operator training, identifying different equipment requirements or renting equipment for specialized or infrequent job applications.”

Relationships

Strategic supplier relationships also play an important role in Ameren’s maintenance operation. Typically, the company outsources glass repair, bodywork, most transmission overhauls, some hydraulic cylinder repairs and dielectric testing. “We outsource items to make the most effective and efficient use of our resources,” Moschner notes. “Addi-tionally, since 2004 we have partnered with our in-house strategic sourcing group to purchase almost all transportation related parts.”

As part of that initiative, Ameren converted all of its shops garages to a single vendor for maintenance and repair parts. Discount parts purchasing along with volume discounts have been put in place as a result and using a single vendor provides an enhanced ability to monitor and audit parts that are purchased at each facility.

Ameren also sources all tires from a single provider. Pricing is received directly from manufacturers and purchases are made through local dealers. Tire service programs are negotiated between individual garages and vendors.

Fuel purchasing is also managed centrally for the Ameren operation. Using a Voyager fuel card program, the company tracks purchases made at retail locations and has fuel charges downloaded to the in-house fleet management system and passed through to the individual unit. In the St. Louis metropolitan area, a pro-vider also fuels vehicles during off hours and passes the charges through Voyager. At 157 Illinois facilities, the fleet maintains on-site fueling systems but also uses the card system to track consumption.

“We contract with a management company to supply bulk fuel for our on-site facilities in Illinois,” Moschner relates, “and we are using BQ9000 compliant B11 biodiesel at 14 of those sites.

We’ve been using B20 from April through Oct. at one site for the past seven years. While we use regular diesel from Nov. through March due to the cold flow characteristics of biodiesel, we have never experienced any filter plugging or other problems with B20. Its use is transparent to our drivers and it provides EPAct credits and benefits to Illinois farmers.”

Ameren also has a limited number of vehicles in operation that are capable of using E-85 fuel, but availability has been an issue. “E-85 capability was standard or offered at a negligible incremental cost,” Moschner says. “In areas where the fuel is available it is a little less expensive than standard unleaded; however the reduced fuel economy makes it close to a break-even proposition.”

Perspective

Moschner, a 33-year veteran of Ameren who previously headed up customer contact centers and credit and collection departments for the utility, was named manager, fleet services in early 2003. “My career at Ameren has entailed a variety of accounting, analyst, customer service and supervisory roles,” she relates. “That experience has enabled me to bring a different perspective to fleet services and to complement the technical expertise of the rest of the management team.”

“We’re fortunate to have a top-notch fleet management team dedicated to providing performance leading fleet services to our customers,” Moschner concludes. “I would match their skills, abilities and expertise against any fleet team in the country.”