Charles Arsenault, CEO of Arsenault Associates, says, “Contrary to popular belief, tomorrow has not been canceled. While there appear to be some small signs of life in our national economy, for the most part, America’s businesses lack confidence due to economic uncertainty and direction. This translates into businesses being reluctant to spend and reinvest as they might in better times.”
Regardless of the industry, almost every company has tightened its financial belt and is looking hard for ways to maintain high productivity with fewer resources. This throttling back on business spending has created what many financial press sources have reported as one of the largest commercial business cash reserves of our time, and as much $1.8 trillion.
While this “hold, wait and see” strategy is understandable, it can have a negative business effect if it is not supported by processes, methods and technologies that protect profits and increase productivity.
An excellent example of such a technology is the acquisition and deployment of fleet maintenance management software. Because fleet maintenance is a pure expense item, each dollar saved goes directly to the bottom line at little or no cost. Many times it is low hanging fruit waiting to be picked.
To get these savings means you must manage your fleet effectively, and the resulting rewards must be measurable. Operating in such a manner ensures that your fleet maintenance is performed at absolute minimum cost and that your equipment downtime is reduced and productivity increased.
In our 30 years of developing fleet maintenance software, we have interviewed over 40,000 fleets. We know that most companies are not fully aware of their fleet maintenance performance levels. Here’s a very simple 12 question test that will quickly tell the level of control you have over your fleet, and whether it makes sense to invest in fleet management software technology or not:
1. Exactly how many vehicles or pieces of equipment are in your total fleet?
2. What is your cost per mile or hour, and which are your highest cost units?
3. Which vehicles have the worst fuel MPG economy?
4. Are your preventive maintenance services regularly performed on time?
5. Which vehicles have the most downtime and why?
6. Did your fleet operate within your budget last year?
7. What is the current value of your parts inventory?
8. How many dollars in obsolete parts (no use in six months) do you have?
9. How much did you spend on re-work in the last 180 days?
10. How many warranty dollars were missed in the last 12 months?
11. Which vehicles have chronic tire problems?
12. How much are you spending with each parts or service vendor?
How many of these very basic fleet questions did you stumble on? Were there questions you just could not answer? Don’t feel bad, we found that very few fleets not currently using fleet maintenance software could answer more than a handful. The same is true of fleets that have software that is either under-implemented or under-utilized, or not specifically designed to manage fleet maintenance.
The more questions you were unable to quickly answer, the greater the value fleet maintenance management software will bring to your company’s fleet. The key to maximizing your ROI in fleet technology lies in the quality of the software, how well it was implemented, the training and direction you provide to end users and mechanics, management’s backing, and your ability to utilize the information produced.
The cost savings derived from a well-managed fleet maintenance operation goes straight to your company’s bottom line as pure profit. Typically the ROI for fleet maintenance software is less than six months. The longer you put off bringing your maintenance operation under control, the more you lose.
Section 2: Tracking tire maintenance
Despite the availability of software and technology, most of the trucking industry is stuck in the past when it comes to tracking their tires. The reason for this in our experience is that tires are incredibly tedious to track. Most companies have a paper form they print out that must be filled out for each truck. They write down all the information they gather about the vehicle’s tires, take it back to the office and enter the data in manually. They co
uld enter it into an Excel spreadsheet or transcribe it to a notebook (some just write it out on cards and that’s as far as it goes). In the end, the data is often full of transcription errors and rarely lives up to its potential due to the difficulty of compiling any kind of reports. Even large fleets with thousands of pieces of equipment follow this pattern due to a lack of options.
Revolution turns things completely around by taking electronic readings using our “Kwik-Check” tire probe, which takes both tread depth and tire pressure readings and sends them wirelessly to “The Inspector,” our wireless handheld PC. The Inspector also has a built-in bar code scanner for easy tire identification (we are partners with Tire-Track LLC who supplies the permanent all-rubber bar codes), which has many uses including quick vehicle identification and performing inspections on multi-part heavy haul trailers and truck trailer combos. This information is transmitted wirelessly directly to the customer’s database when an inspection is completed. No need to dock, link or sync the handheld, it happens automatically. It can even be taken out of its service area and will simply send everything up the moment it returns. Our contacts in the industry tell us that for one person to inspect a vehicle and enter the data it could take as much as 20 or 30 minutes. We’ve found that with our system we can reduce that by as much as two-thirds and at the same time give our customers much better data.
The back-end software system tracks everything from tire costs (from purchase to disposal), to tire locations on vehicles, tire movement, cost per mile, even cost per 32nd. It also has an extensive reports system that allows you to generate highly detailed reports in seconds. Everything in Revolution is done using a simple drag-and-drop interface that almost anyone can understand and use with very little training.
Section 3: Maintenance software provides winning edge
Each year at the TMC SuperTech skills competition, each competitor is tested at a Service Information Station, which is run by Mitchell 1. The maintenance software provider tests competitors on their ability to use computers and web-based programs to diagnose and fix vehicles properly. Each competitor sits at a computer terminal that accesses Mitchell 1’s on-line Tractor-Trailer.net program. They are given a series of 20 questions about vehicle repair issues that can be answered by navigating the program. The software company gives each contestant a 14-day trial of the program prior to the competition so they can become familiar with it if they don’t currently use the program in their shop. TMC includes the Service Information Station, recognizing that skilled technicians need to be able to use computer and web-based programs to correctly diagnose and fix the complex vehicles operated by today’s fleets. At the 2010 SuperTech Competition, Mitchell 1 awarded the individual winner of the Service Information skills station, Jason Kleman, from Navistar Inc., Warrenville, Il, a one-year subscription to their new Repair-Connect.net program.
According to Mitchell 1, testing today’s technicians using its on-line programs makes sense because vocational schools like Universal Technical Institute (UTI), a nationwide provider of technical education training, use Mitchell 1 online programs in their curriculum for future commercial vehicle technicians. They use these tools because diagnostic and repair information for virtually every conceivable commercial vehicle on the road is all in one place. The on-line repair programs are continuously updated so the schools know they have the latest information, and UTI helps Mitchell 1 do that.
The software company’s photographers routinely visit UTI facilities throughout the U.S. to take photos of actual component parts they use in training truck technicians. These photos are then uploaded to Mitchell 1 programs, which give technicians a real-world view of problems they are likely to encounter. The company annotates the photos to guide the technicians through the repair process.
Kristy LaPage, CVG account supervisor for Mitchell 1, emphasized the partnership between Mitchell 1 and vocational schools like UTI, “We have a close working relationship with the diesel technician educational community because Mitchell 1 programs are a great tool for them and they can keep us up to date on the ever-changing needs of future technicians. The relationship is good for both of us.”
The company’s newest program, Repair-Connect.net, introduced in 2010, is the latest example of the continuous improvement Mitchell 1 makes to its web-based service and repair programs. According to the company, it speeds up the repair process by taking an experienced technician directly to the service information he needs by simply inputting the Diagnostic Trouble Code (DTC). Repair-Connect.net anticipates what detailed information is required to fix the vehicle based on the DTC and retrieves it in seconds.
Section 4: Streamlining maintenance
Two fleets are realizing better efficiency with maintenance software:
H.R. Ewell Inc.
The fleet, which moves ingredients from chocolate to vegetable oil and a veritable shopping list of other bulk liquid and dry food products across North America, is a for-hire carrier employs 200 and uses TMT Fleet Maintenance software from TMW Systems.
According to Randy Sheeler, vice president of operations at H.R. Ewell Inc., bringing in TMT Fleet Maintenance has been part of a master plan to reshape the company’s business. Pursuing ecological responsibility toward the environment has opened many avenues to greater efficiency and effectiveness for the 63-year-old company. The fleet is part of the Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay program and has begun implementing clean freight strategies like single, wide-base tires to replace traditional dual tires at all positions on tractors and trailers except for the steering tires. That move alone may improve truck energy use by up to 13%, according to one EPA report.
TMT Fleet Maintenance software is now used by the company to manage breakdowns, inspections and outside vendor work with increased visibility to costs, operations performance and much more. According to the company, the maintenance software was put to work to automate tracking of the maintenance lifecycle. Pulling previously filed paper invoices to track down work and costs is now a thing of the past. Repair Order History reports are a standard feature, along with master parts and warranty claim reports.
Sheeler cited the average age of trucks in the H.R. Ewell fleet at three years. “Historically, we could pull two sister tractors in for repair, go back and look at clutch jobs and warranty information and discover that on one truck we spent thousands more than on the other. Now, the software has the functionality to show just how much we are spending on each vehicle at any time.”
Prime Inc.
According to Prime, the fleet sought to address several issues by deploying advanced service management software solutions. The fleet was looking for a system that would provide a collection process for information on trailer and tractor inspections, and the capability of seamlessly integrating data into the fleet’s maintenance management software, which would streamline business processes and improve the value and accuracy of fleet records.
Prime also identified the need to inspect tractors, and about 300 trailers every month, required a comprehensive inspection process and the ability to collect data at the point of service. Effectively evaluating tractors leased to owner-operators—inspections of as many as 100 tractors turned in by dedicated owner-operators each week demanded consistent procedures to effectively charge back repairs.
Decisiv said it worked with Prime to create a series of three comprehensive and interactive electronic inspections. The interactive nature of the inspections steps the user through each item and provides a series of possible responses from a pull down menu. The inspector selects the appropriate response, enters any notes and moves to the next task. Results are captured electronically, eliminating redundant data entry and reducing time, effort and possible errors.
By incorporating the inspection process into the Decisiv Service Management Platform (DSMP), the inspector can also use the DSMP features to communicate with other service personnel regarding the inspection results. At the completion of the inspection process, the results are automatically transferred to Prime’s TMT Fleet Management software. The integration between Decisiv’s Service Management Platform and TMT Fleet Maintenance software from TMW Systems Inc. compresses inspection time and flows accurate data into the maintenance management system using a standard XML interface.
Nick Forte, fleet maintenance team member at Prime, Inc. says, “The Decisiv Service Management Platform eliminates the need to have employees manually entering data into the system. While that alone generates a a potential savings of as much as $40,000 per year, it also saves us time and money by improving productivity for managers at smaller shops. There are also measurable savings from enhanced trailer reliability and reduced repair costs for tractors leased to owner-operators attributable directly to the Decisiv solution.”
