As fleets continue to address the challenges of today’s vehicle designs and technology, you can understand the frustrations they are going through.

Complaint

Excessive downtime, delayed dealer support and increased maintenance costs are only a few, but all hit the bottom line and impact their customer service levels and their drivers, as well. Having worked for over 40 years in the truck rental and leasing industry and consultant to truck dealers, Vince DiSchino, LTE, of Assessments and Solutions, brings an interesting perspective to this crisis: “Businesses are evaluated based on their people, processes and products.” Setting two of these aside for now, he’ll focus on the people aspect.

Cause

The challenges of hiring technicians, retaining them and keeping their skills and knowledge up-to-date have been the nemesis for business owners and fleet managers for years. There is a thread to solving these—training. Few companies truly commit to training and have had some success but most suffer from the insanity syndrome—doing it the same way and expecting different results. Saying they have a training program when they really don’t, cutting training budgets when revenue and profits are down, and not closing their critical skills gap are just a few repeated actions that need to be addressed.

Through experience and research, fleet managers have been given the responsibility of training but lack the experience and required time to do it correctly, effectively and continuously. Let’s face it, most managers were put in a supervisory role—from lead man and foreman to service managers because of their technical skills and the opinion of senior management that they could be “part of the team”. Hardly prerequisites for a being a trainer! Because most companies don’t have a Human Resource department to handle this function, top management’s focus is growing their business, handling customers and developing new products and services. As a result, training falls on the shoulders of those that really see the need for training, want the training, but don’t know how to implement training and keep it going. For companies with multiple locations, duplication is also very important.

Correction

Through an article in a local business newspaper, Vince discovered a new company that was created to address diesel technician training and providing the much needed piece to the puzzle—implementation. Pro-MECH is the brainchild of Chief Executive Officer Jack Schickler. As an executive of General Motors, Jack created GM’s Tech Line (still used today worldwide) to address the challenges the auto industry faced when it went from carburation to fuel injection. Realizing that the truck industry was going through the same challenges, especially with 2010 and 2014 compliant engines, his company created product offerings that really help fleets address their training needs. Through basic training courses, to progressive learning, to total training outsourcing, their customer base has seen immediate results. For fleets that want to really understand all the aspects of a truly effective training program, Pro-MECH created a 27 page manual, titled “Establishing a Technician Training Program”, that even quantifies Return on Investment. Their highly experienced staff uses a combination of skills testing and fleet analysis, e-Learning and Instructor Led Training (ILT). The methodology of their e-Learning is to teach people how systems “think” and work through interactive, virtual reality on-line courses designed by a gaming company that actually makes it enjoyable to learn.

Jack is very emphatic, “This isn’t about training. It’s about uptime.” Fleets are on the firing line every day to provide uptime. “Our training is part of the Technicians Uptime Tool Kit”. If owners and senior management realize the importance of training in this concept, they may have comfort that things can change for them and their most valuable asset, their people. If they don’t, let them “follow the money” and they will.

In conclusion, Vince adds, “In my 40 plus years serving our industry, I have never seen such a comprehensive, yet flexible solution, that truly addresses today’s needs and tomorrow’s challenges If we want things to change, we have to change. Fortunately there is something out there that can help us.”

You can reach Vince at [email protected].