TLC* maintains an aging fleet

TLC* maintains an aging fleet

Hurricane Marine Transport Inc.’s Ian Fenberg saves fuel with engine software, super-wide tires and *tender loving care

Hurricane Marine Transport Inc.’s Ian Fenberg saves fuel with engine software, super-wide tires and *tender loving care

“As in every aspect of today’s transportation market, fuel economy and the maximization of that key component is our goal Number 1,” says Ian Fenberg, president of Hurricane Marine Transport (HMT) Inc. “If you can save fuel, you’re saving money. This filters down to every aspect of business operations,” he says. “When you can save 1/2-mile per gallon per truck per day, we pay out less daily for fuel, and that eases the burden on cash flow.”

That’s a sound business decision any way you look at it, whether your fleet is large or small. And Fenberg has found ways to maximize his dollars in several ways.

HMT is primarily a regional, dry-van general commodity hauler, with 10 tractors and 20 trailers. The Hurricane part of the company name comes from Fenberg’s allegiance to the University of Miami “Hurricanes.” Due to the company’s proximity to Lake Erie and its recreational boaters, the “Marine Transport” comes from the recent addition of boat-hauling capability with two ultra-low deck trailers that can haul vessels up to 48-ft. long. The company operates a mix of older power units, including International 9200s, Sterling AT9513 day cabs, and Western Star 4900 EX and FAs. The average vintage is 2003, and all are powered with Detroit Diesel Series 60s.

One of the innovations that has improved performance, efficiency and cost savings for HMT has been engine standardization. “We have embraced the Detroit Diesel Series 60 engine as our main line engine,” says Fenberg. “We have purchased proprietary software from Detroit Diesel Corp. (DDC) that allows us to troubleshoot problems, track engine and driver performance, and change drive parameters to fit our specific customer’s requirements.” Even for Fenberg’s small fleet, he says the benefits of this program have far outweighed the cost. “As fuel costs go up, we are able to bring our equipment into our facility and reduce the maximum road speed each vehicle is allowed to travel. Currently, we have our regional day cab tractors set for a maximum road speed of 60 MPH.” The maximum idle time for day cab tractors is three minutes. “Our long haul, over-the-road tractors are allowed to travel a maximum 63 MPH,” Fenberg relates. The average length of haul is 300-500 miles, so this limit makes sense, he says. Idle time has been set at 10 minutes maximum. “The ability to change road speed and idle time, as well as track fuel economy performance in our own facility without having to go to an outside vendor has saved us a great deal of time and money.” He cites as one example a tractor with a hot-foot driver that was getting 4.5 MPG, now gets 6.3 MPG with speed limits. “But for most, we’re seeing between a half- and a mile-per-gallon in-crease by doing this and it doesn’t take long for that to add up at $4.70 a gallon.”

The engine software helps in other ways. Fenberg says, “Knowing what you can do and can’t do is part of bringing maintenance experience to the table. Trying to do a repair if you’re not capable –– or if a repair takes you twice as long to do as an outside vendor –– can cost you.” He continues, “We don’t have the ability to do an injector change ourselves, but we can start the engine and plug into the computer and be on the phone to give a readout to the DDC tech and quickly determine if it is an injector problem or not.” Fenberg admits, “It saves running to our nearest engine repair facility.”

HMT does outsource much of its major component work. “We have partnered with the same vendor for many years, thus allowing us to build a relationship that extends our maintenance program,” Fenberg explains. “This vendor knows our trucks like we do, has current, good records of the work performed, and also trouble-shoots problems before they arise due to repetitive visits by the same unit to their shop over the course of a year.”

“Other components have seen increased life as we reduce our road speed to combat fuel economy demons,” Fenberg relates. “For example, tire life has been greatly increased by an overall reduction in road speed, and thus heat.” HMT was one of the first fleets in the area to purchase Michelin X-One wide single tires. They’ve had the most success with better tread life on three long-haul tractors with an average haul length of 500 miles.

In an industry often focused on extending maintenance intervals, it may be surprising to learn HMT has gone the other way. “We are trying to do more with less, so we are watching maintenance closely and shortening our preventive maintenance (PM) cycles –– with the exception of synthetic motor oil changes –– as we try to get more from less.”

Using synthetic motor oil has allowed HMT to extend oil drains up to 35,000 to 50,000 miles, “But that doesn’t give us an excuse not to see the truck more often,” Fenberg says. They try to see the trucks at 10,000 miles to look at and grease the driveline, fifth wheel and other components to help make these pre-’04 tractors last longer. He admits longer PM cycles are a benefit to larger fleets, but believes the economy of scale doesn’t apply as much to a fleet his size.

Asked what pitfalls a fleet manager should avoid, Fenberg replied “I’m still learning!”

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