The Mechanical Department is one of the key operational departments of Dubai Police. It is a technical department that focuses on the maintenance and repair of vehicles to ensure optimum and best use of Dubai Police vehicles. The department has 7 main specialized sections with more than 150 employees.

Dubai Police were one of the government entities that participated in the 2nd cycle of Dubai We Learn initiative, a one year programme consisting of a range of knowledge sharing and organisational learning activities designed to fast-track organisational improvement and stimulate innovation. A key part of this initiative has been the mentoring of benchmarking projects by Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP) partner the Centre for Organisational Excellence Research, New Zealand. Project teams used the TRADE Best Practice Benchmarking Methodology – a rigorous 5-stage approach that involves searching for and implementing leading-edge practices.

A short summary of Dubai Police’s benchmarking project is presented below:

Terms of Reference

The Terms of Reference (TOR) is the first stage of the TRADE Benchmarking methodology. This is where the team developed a clear purpose of what they wanted to achieve, specify the resources required, and what was expected in terms of financial and non-financial benefits.

Project Aim:
To find and implement best practices in vehicle fleet maintenance to improve vehicle availability and labour productivity of the Dubai Police Mechanical Department to world-class levels.

The specific targets set were to increase productivity for the Mechanical Department from 40% to 70% and increase vehicle availability from 88% to 95%.

Review
The team conducted an extensive review of factors that were impeding labour productivity and vehicle availability. This involved SWOT analysis, fishbone analysis, surveying the opinions of mechanics, analysing job sheet data, and deciding on the most important performance measures to use. The main areas of concern were identified as spare parts management and storage, equipment, material and tools availability, manpower and labour capabilities, and the Fleet Focus Management System (as the maintenance data was found to be inaccurate and not supportive of management decision making). Through this analysis the scope of the project changed from focusing on a total fleet of 3,600 vehicles to the 800 police patrol vehicles as these were most critical to police operations.

Acquire
At the beginning of the ‘Acquire’ stage, Dubai Police defined 12 criteria for the selection of potential benchmarking partners. These criteria were selected to reflect the priorities of the project. Thereafter, the team brainstormed potential benchmarking partners as well as the ways in which ‘acquisition’ would be carried out (e.g. site visit, internet research).

Potential Benchmarking partners were then approached and ultimately, nine organisations were visited for the purposes of benchmarking exchange. The nine organisations were 3M, Kia – Al Majid Motors Company, BMW – Arabian Gulf Mechanical Centre, Mazda – Galadari Automobiles Co, Al-Futtaim. Ducab, Avis Repair Centre, STREIT Group and Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT).

At the end of this stage, the team had identified a total of 35 improvement ideas.

Deploy
All 35 improvement ideas were assessed for potential based on a set criteria. Meetings were then held with all stakeholders to communicate the findings from the benchmarking project and get their commitment to deploy the improvement actions.

Key activities implemented at this stage included data cleansing, closing of the Bur-Dubai mini workshop to improve efficiency, creation of a shift pattern for workers and the setting up of a spare parts demand management system. In addition, workshop audio visual screens were set up to improve visual management and cost and productivity calculations were made. With particular regard to the mechanics, an incentive scheme and working hours management system were set up.

Installed monitors in the workshop to show real-time performance

Evaluate Stage
The results showed an increase in labour productivity from 40% to 72.2% (exceeding the target of 70%) as well as an increase in vehicle availability from 88% to 95%. This has resulted in a saving of 14 million AED with future savings estimated to be in excess of 20 million AED. The increase in labour productivity contributed to a saving of 5,120,367 AED and the increase in vehicle availability led to extra savings of 8,680,000 AED (the elimination of ‘replacement’ costs of about 40 vehicles).

To find out more about Dubai We Learn contact:
Dr. Zeyad Mohammad El Kahlout, Senior Quality and Excellence Advisor, Dubai Government Excellence Program (DGEP). Email: Zeyad.ElKahlout@tec.gov.ae or Dr Robin Mann, Director, Centre for Organisational Excellence Research (COER). Email r.s.mann@massey.ac.nz.

Detailed reports and videos on Dubai We Learn projects and 1,000’s of other best practicescan can be accessed from the member’s area of the BPIR.com (free to DGEP Dubai We Learn participants). Our book of case studies from the 1st cycle of Dubai We Learn can be found here.