Staff Interview
How many vehicles do we have now as a group? 1187
What were you doing immediately before joining us? Before becoming Fleet Manager at Axis, I was working as a Fleet Operations Manager for a large independent accident repair and management company. I was working closely with Axis at the time assisting the previous fleet manage in accident management and maintenance.
I’ve now been in the fleet industry for just over 15 years, previously working in the rental sector in PSV Vans and Coaches with primary audience being local authority’s then onto the accident management sector manging repairs and
maintenance for clients such as Asda, NHS, DHL, Axis Europe Limited, Westminster City Council and a few more.
Plans for the merged business in outline? We are in the process of merging the fleet operations of Axis and CLC. Centralising our function which will allow us to deliver a more streamlined and consistent level of service across the organisation. The newly centralised fleet team will provide dedicated support in key operational areas, including Accident Management, Maintenance Management & fleet operational management.
How will your plans improve our business? By aligning our fleet operations, we are better positioned to deliver
Name Taylor Burman
Job title
Group Fleet Manager
Department/Division Business Support
Date of joining Axis April 2021
Based Stratford
cost efficiencies, reduce administrative burdens and strengthens our ability to adapt and respond to the evolving business needs whilst continuing to uphold our high stands of fleet safety and compliance.
Immediate priorities – what does your day look like? At present, my focus is to align the fleets of both companies, align fleet policies and reduce costs in all areas of fleet.
Goals for the business? What we’ve come up with is probably the best way to transition toward electric, which is the plug-in hybrids. Ford are in the running to start supplying us with PHEVs (Plug-in Hybrid) and MHEV’s (Mild Hybrid) - a type of
van that’s both electric and fuel, which will be key in the short term. They drive mostly using electricity but still have the fuel to fall back on when needed. Especially when you’re driving in the city. There’s a geo-tracking system and as you get into London’s ultra-low emission zone, it switches to electric. It’s really good as we don’t have the worry of breaking down due to the lack of charge in the battery.
We do have the option to go for full electric, but the infrastructure and the vans are not quite there yet. Electric vans are fine when they’ve got no weight as you can probably get about 200 miles out of them. But, once there’s a bit of weight,
it can go down to 100 miles and it would become a disruption to operations. However, we are closely monitoring vehicles which are doing very low miles in which we will be able to move them into a full EV. We already have some in action on both sides of the business.
What do you need from the business/us to achieve these goals? Route and operational planning is going to be key as we transition into EV vehicles.
Who’s on your immediate team? Anyone you want to give a shout out to? I manage a team of eight and Suri Purewal, CLC Fleet manager has been fundamental in assisting with the fleet.
Anything else you would like to add? Yes, our Driver Handbook was recently updated and you can access it here as well as on your Fleet Check Driver App.