This guide covers the nuts and bolts of heavy equipment maintenance software. If you’re looking to procure heavy equipment maintenance software for your fleet, then this guide is for you.
Why is heavy equipment maintenance important?
Not having an established heavy equipment maintenance process has far-reaching consequences. Here’s why fleet owners need to invest in heavy equipment maintenance.
1. Detect potential equipment issues early
Conducting thorough heavy equipment inspections helps ensure that your machinery is working correctly.
Your regular equipment inspection and maintenance should include checking the oil level, fuel, and gauges and meters. Also check tracks, tires, coolant level and batteries. While some heavy equipment issues are unavoidable, regular inspections and maintenance help you spot minor defects before they become major defects.
2. Reduce safety issues
Operating damaged heavy equipment can lead to crashes or accidents.
That’s why established companies invest in equipment maintenance. It keeps your staff safe and protects you from spending on pricey repairs.
3. Prevent unplanned breakdowns and downtimes
Detailed inspections and regular maintenance keep heavy equipment in its best condition. Maintenance can reduce equipment malfunctions that cause extensive downtimes. Regular maintenance also prevents bottlenecks in your workflows, protecting your bottom line.
Take a proactive approach to equipment maintenance. Create a maintenance and repair plan and set regular inspection schedules.
4. Increase your equipment’s lifespan
Implement routine maintenance to keep your equipment in excellent condition. The longer your equipment stays in operation, the higher your potential return on investment.
Keep in mind, a piece of well-maintained equipment often has a higher value. That means that when it comes time to sell, you can resell your equipment for a higher price.
5. Minimize the need for replacements
Regular maintenance reduces vehicle or equipment breakdowns. That means you can avoid having to buy replacement parts. Replacing vehicle parts can be costly and labor intensive. Especially if your equipment or machinery parts are only available from a few suppliers.
What is equipment maintenance software?
Equipment maintenance software helps digitize and modernize the equipment maintenance process. Equipment maintenance software aims to keep business equipment in optimum working condition. The software simplifies and streamlines the maintenance management processes.
For example, some equipment maintenance software can automate work orders for predictive and preventive maintenance tasks.
When properly used, equipment maintenance software can do the following.
- Optimize your machinery or equipment’s runtime and lifespan
- Monitor and lower your maintenance costs
- Provide detailed maintenance, repair, and inspection history records
- Track your maintenance activities, physical asset movement, and operating conditions
Who uses heavy equipment maintenance software and programs?
These are the industries and companies that can benefit most from equipment maintenance software and programs.
1. Construction companies
Unexpected heavy equipment breakdowns can cause severe delays to construction work.
When companies in the construction industry use heavy equipment maintenance software, they minimize equipment breakdowns. The software reminds construction companies to be consistent with maintenance.
Use equipment maintenance software to detect early signs of construction machinery and equipment fatigue. You can also use it to monitor construction equipment performance, based on the number of work orders per asset. And you can use it to monitor maintenance activities and events, based on historical data.
2. Energy, oil, and gas industries
The equipment used in the energy, oil, and gas industries is complex. The equipment handles hazardous materials, so it requires a higher level of precision and safety to operate. Due to the equipment’s specialized nature, it’s also more expensive to repair or replace.
Using heavy equipment maintenance software reduces equipment breakdowns. Since it helps companies consistently keep up with equipment maintenance, they can avoid paying thousands of dollars for equipment repairs.
3. Agriculture and farming fleets
Like oil and gas, the machinery used in agriculture is specialized. It can be a challenge to properly maintain.
One of the biggest challenges is locational. Unlike cars or trucks, heavy machinery owners and operators usually can’t bring their broken equipment to the mechanic for repairs. In some situations, the farmer might need to transport tractors to specialized repair shops. That makes the process tedious.
Using equipment maintenance programs can speed up the maintenance process. Farmers can be more proactive and timely in doing maintenance work. And that leads to improved vehicle health.
Benefits of equipment maintenance software
Integrating equipment maintenance software into your existing processes offers many benefits. It
1. Keeps your equipment operating efficiently
Equipment maintenance software brings better visibility into asset maintenance tasks and workflows. With increased visibility, you can plan and execute maintenance. Keeping up with maintenance will boost your equipment’s efficiency during operations.
For example, implementing and learning how to add a maintenance schedule with automated reminders lets you conduct regular asset checks and servicing. You can spot defects that cause unexpected downtimes, fuel waste, and other issues that prevent your equipment from running efficiently.
Reliable equipment maintenance software can track your service needs automatically and send maintenance reminders. Closely monitoring asset maintenance scheduling lets you optimize your equipment’s health so it operates efficiently.
2. Centralizes your maintenance data
Equipment maintenance software drastically reduces the need for paper records. The software allows you to store, organize, and share maintenance documentation in a central location.
You can keep your inspection forms, operation manuals, technical specifications, and insurance documents on the cloud. Or, store them on a custom digital platform. Since it allows you to access all your important data from a single location, a digital platform can save you from mountains of paperwork.
3. Simplifies your equipment tracking
Simplify your maintenance planning and documentation by using equipment maintenance software. The program helps boost your workflow efficiency, especially if you have a large fleet.
It also makes tracking each piece of equipment quick and easy. For example, you can easily create a comprehensive inventory and show the current status of each asset. The status could include
- Undergoing maintenance
- In transit
- Locked out
- Operational
- Decommissioned or non-operational
You can store and centralize other critical maintenance data, including equipment pictures, manufacturer information, and serial numbers.
Some notable equipment maintenance features include
- Real-time asset location tracking
- Personnel authorized lists
- Automated information updating, such as driving hours and mileage, through a compatible mobile device
4. Improves compliance with legislation
Given the sheer volume of data that governing bodies require, proving compliance can be overwhelming.
By easily gathering data and generating reports, maintenance equipment software can simplify the compliance process.The software can pull, access, and share data from your sources. When necessary, it can provide the data you need when audited.
Benefits of machine maintenance software
Using machine maintenance software has the following benefits.
1. Optimized maintenance workflow
A dependable software makes creating and sharing standard machine maintenance procedures simple.
The software allows you to
- Access asset maintenance logs.
- Create a spare parts management system to control inventory and to ensure you have enough parts on hand or if you need to order more.
- Establish a centralized database that includes each machine’s maintenance procedures, fault patterns, and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) recommendations.
2. Streamlined reporting process
Machinery maintenance software speeds up the aggregating, organizing, and analyzing of historical data. It includes reporting features that let you see your machinery’s maintenance frequency, cost, and the money saved.
Using machinery maintenance software keeps your data in one place, making it easier to access and manage your work orders, inventory, asset lifecycle, and other maintenance records.
3. Efficient schedule management
Machinery maintenance software can be set up to automate maintenance reminders. The notifications can auto-trigger and be sent to designated parties when a maintenance task is due.
The technology reduces the likelihood of missing maintenance tasks and schedules and reduces administrative burden.
The software also gives an overall view of your maintenance tasks and information, including
- Work-order details and status updates
- The list of your active machine maintenance tasks
- Maintenance costs, including parts and labor hours
- The technicians assigned to each task
Can heavy equipment maintenance software save you money?
Here are a few ways that reliable equipment maintenance software can save you money.
1. It eliminates unnecessary maintenance
Use your equipment service history to plan your maintenance months ahead. This allows you to set up a recurring maintenance schedule and avoid servicing a piece of equipment when it’s not necessary.
You’ll eliminate the costs associated with unnecessary maintenance, including inspection, hardware installation, replacement, and lubrication work expenses.
2. It reduces emergency repairs
Use heavy equipment maintenance software to facilitate your preventive maintenance processes and set up a predictive maintenance system. Doing so can reduce unexpected equipment breakdowns that lead to costly emergency repairs.
For example, since mechanics check tire pressures as part of the maintenance routine, preventive maintenance will keep your tires evenly inflated. Unbalanced tires can damage your wheel assembly, which could lead to thousands of repair costs when broken.
You can keep your equipment damages from escalating and avoid paying for hefty repair costs when you stay consistent with your preventive maintenance.
3. It increases overall equipment effectiveness
The less downtime your equipment has, the more effective and reliable it is for your daily operations.
Use heavy equipment maintenance software to stay on top of your maintenance processes to keep your assets working effectively. Use the software to also plan and implement predictive and preventive maintenance to preserve your equipment’s health.
Consistent asset maintenance keeps your equipment in optimal working condition and reduces equipment damages.
Can heavy equipment maintenance software improve safety?
Heavy equipment maintenance software can improve the safety of drivers or those using the equipment. The software allows you to
- Implement safety standards and regulations easily, such as using a digital construction equipment maintenance checklist.
- Communicate various machinery faults, safety guidelines, and standard operating procedures efficiently through a centralized online portal or platform.
- Monitor operator or commercial driver behaviors that impact maintenance and safety. For instance, constant hard braking can reduce tire treads. This can cause abnormal wear patterns that, if left unchecked, can cause misalignment that leads to accidents.
- Detect the cause of major heavy equipment malfunctions and mitigate the potential damages, including downtimes and revenue loss.
- Gain a thorough understanding of your assets to flag potential hazards and risks more effectively.
Why use Motive as your heavy equipment maintenance software?
Motive’s fleet management solution delivers the functionality needed to supercharge your equipment maintenance processes with features like these.
- Maintenance reminders that help you stay on top of your asset maintenance tasks and workflows and reduce the administrative burden
- Real-time, automated engine fault code alerts that detect heavy equipment issues early and accurately
- Fuel efficiency management, an AI-driven fuel efficiency system to help reduce your expenses and optimize your fuel consumption
- Customizable, electronic Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIRs) that eliminate tedious paper forms and streamline your inspections and documentation
Motive provides a complete maintenance solution, allowing you to take a proactive approach to maintaining heavy equipment and machinery. Taking a proactive approach to equipment maintenance can reduce downtime.
Using a reliable heavy equipment maintenance program or software has many benefits. It saves time and money, improves your fleet’s safety, and ensures seamless asset maintenance workflows.
The software gives you better visibility into your daily fleet maintenance processes. It also lets you automate critical aspects of your fleet maintenance workflows to speed up accomplishing your tasks.
Get all these benefits with the Motive fleet maintenance solution. It can optimize your equipment maintenance processes and create a more streamlined operation.
Request a demo now or call us at +1 (855) 434 3564 for inquiries.
