What is a Ryder "Commercial Business Unit"?

A "Commercial Business Unit" or "CBU" is a group of Ryder locations under the supervision of a general manager.

Each location provides maintenance and administrative services for a variety of full service leasing customers. (In some cases, an individual customer may even have a Ryder facility located at its place of business. Ryder calls these "captive shops.")

We visited the Hartford, Connecticut CBU which, besides Hartford, oversees operations in North Haven and Waterbury, as well as in Springfield, Massachusetts and two "captive" shops.

What does "full service leasing" mean?

In a full service lease arrangement, Ryder specs and orders vehicles for the customer and performs all maintenance on them. The customer takes care of fuel and pays a monthly leasing fee for the vehicle, including its maintenance.

With a "Ryder Preventive Maintenance" arrangement, customers own their own vehicles, but rely on Ryder to provide all maintenance required.

And these CBU shops provide that maintenance?

They do. And customers may also take advantage of Ryder's fuel-buying capabilities by filling their tanks there too.

How many locations does Ryder have?

This will give you an idea: Ryder has over 75 CBUs in North America, and the one in Hartford is just one of 12 in the Northeast Area. And it has six shops. So it's a very extensive network.
And what do Focus Teams do for a Ryder CBU?

If you've had a complete physical, you know that your doctor starts with the hair on your head and finishes with the soles of your feet, leaving out nothing in between.

That's pretty much how Ryder Focus Teams go over a CBU. Focus Teams have several different areas of concentration. The one we observed was divided into seven different groups.

What do the teams actually do?

Each team goes through the facility with a list of review questions - everything from the condition of its lighting to how it's handling warranty records. Each question is graded on a four-level scale, from "Unsatisfactory" to "Exceeds Expectations."

What's an example of things the teams look at?

During our visit, team member Bert Duhaime handled safety, the preventive maintenance process and "Initiatives." Initiatives are special goals Ryder has established. Bert gave us an example: "Our company goal for new vs. used battery usage is 50 percent. We don't want to buy more new batteries than we need to.

"So we have special equipment to test batteries as well as charging and cranking systems. We also have special test, inventory and labeling procedures. And we have designated personnel in each facility who are assigned to these tasks.

"Another of our team members Estill Sowell, assists the CBU with its productivity through breakdown analysis and labor planning. This helps the CBU meet goals for standard repair times."

Were those the only initiatives?

By no means. Bert, along with teammate Charles Rhodes, also looked at the CBU's efforts to control brake costs and even how the shops buy and maintain shop supplies.

Charles, who also works on inventory, said this: "To some people, it might seem like micromanagement to be counting parts.

"But, when a truck needs service, what happens if you pull it into the service bay, diagnose the problem, then find out you don't have the right parts?

"Now you have to pull it out of the bay, park it, wait for the parts to arrive, pull it in again and complete the repair. You can easily waste 45 minutes just moving the truck around.

"And, if you have too many parts on hand, especially ones you don't use that often, you are wasting money on both parts and storage. Fortunately, we have so much experience that our inventory guidelines are very effective."

A lot of things must be under warranty.

That's Dan Hutchinson's area. Besides handling the facilities portion of the Focus Team work and compiling the team's final report, Dan also concentrates on warranty matters.

"With so many vehicles, we have lots of warranty issues. It's critical that everything related to warranty claims be handled properly, from tagging and labeling parts, to shipping them, to keeping the records we need.

"We also have goals regarding percentages of repairs we want to perform in-house vs. outside. Warranty matters are so important that we have a special person at each location designated as the 'Warranty Responsible Person.'

"Any legitimate warranty item that doesn't get properly claimed is throwing money away."

What about tires?

For this visit, the Ryder tire team member is Dick Baker, a Bridgestone employee who devotes 100 percent of his time to Ryder.

"I participate in about six of these Focus Team projects each year," says Dick. "We go to each shop facility and examine as many of the tires as we can on the vehicles parked there, plus, we look at tire-related facilities and procedures being followed."

How do you examine the tires?

"We use a Ryder form, called a 'Tire Checker Report,' that includes just about everything you'd want to know, from the unit number and tire size to the correct and actual inflation pressures and remaining tread depths.

"This gives us a very good overview of the condition of the tires on the CBU's vehicles."

What other things do you look for?

"Every vehicle is supposed to have a decal indicating correct inflation pressure. Sometimes they're incorrect, missing or damaged. So, we look for those, and use them to see if the proper inflation pressures are being maintained.

"For our report, we prepare charts, showing how many tires we found underinflated, overinflated, with mismatched inflation, and so on. And we check a lot of other tire maintenance items as well."

What do you look for in the facilities?

"We make sure the shop has all the right tools and is following Ryder procedures. For example, every shop has to have a tire gauge check station and a program to rotate tire gauges in for calibration at regular intervals.

"You can't be sure tires are inflated properly unless you calibrate your everyday stick gauges against a check gauge, and unless that check gauge is calibrated too. Even the master gauge has to be sent to a laboratory once a year for calibration."

That's a lot of work to get the right air pressure.

"As important as air pressure is in getting the most out of tires, it's worth it. After all, on a full service lease, Ryder pays for the tires. So getting the lowest possible cost per mile is very important.

"Ryder takes very good care of its tires. There's a motto around Ryder shops: 'If I touch the vehicle, I check the tires.'"

Are there other tire-related items you look at?

"Our complete report runs to eight pages. We cover tire inventory issues through Tire Checker Reports (which Ryder employees also fill out regularly) to making sure all the proper charts and information are available.

"And, just as there is a 'Warranty Responsible Person,' each shop has a 'Tire Responsible Person' as well.

"Ryder also participates in Bridgestone's 'Tire Policy' program, and requires that copies of the tire policy be on hand at every shop location."

How long does it take a Ryder Focus Team to complete its work?

Generally, the process takes about a week. Team members usually converge on a CBU on Monday, conduct a telephone conference that afternoon, then spend Tuesday and Wednesday doing their evaluations and preparing reports. On Thursday, they present their findings to the CBU general manager and staff.

Is this painstaking effort paying off for Ryder?

According to Abe Gol, who, like Dick Baker, is a Bridgestone employee who oversees all the Bridgestone emplyees assigned to Ryder, it does.

"I've been working on the Ryder account for over 20 years, and I know of no company anywhere that does a better job of managing every aspect of its business. Ryder's attention to detail shows off in its profitability, employee retention and customer satisfaction.

"You can be sure that if Ryder does it, there's a good reason to do it."

So how did the Hartford CBU do?

There's never a perfect score, and the Focus Team will return in the future to see if areas that needed improvement got it. Still, considering that this was the very first Focus Team visit to the Hartford CBU, by all accounts, it did very well.