Vehicle fleet maintenance management.
Fleet maintenance management involves all aspects involving vehicle upkeep to ensure your commercial fleets are fit for use and in good operating condition.
Regular vehicle fleet maintenance plays a crucial role in improving the longevity of your commercial vehicles.
Without proper fleet maintenance, you run the risk of unplanned downtimes, failing Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) inspections, and dealing with hefty repair costs.
You might also risk compromising the safety of your drivers and fleet assets.
These are only a handful of the reasons why you need a vehicle fleet maintenance management plan.
Effective vehicle fleet maintenance management can help you establish proactive and preventive measures to reduce your fleet’s downtime, avoid potential accidents, and lessen last-minute repair costs.
Continue reading to learn more about fleet maintenance management and why it’s critical for your business operations.
Learn how Motive can help reduce costs with preventive fleet maintenance.
What is fleet maintenance management?
Fleet maintenance management involves all aspects involving vehicle upkeep to ensure your commercial fleets are fit for use and in good operating condition.
Essentially, fleet maintenance management is a system that allows you to monitor the maintenance of your vehicles and related assets based on recorded histories, usage, and other activities. Then, based on the data and insights, you can take the necessary actions to ensure that your fleet stays in optimum condition. The primary goal of fleet maintenance management is to ensure all vehicles are operating at capacity and safely so that your company is operating efficiently and productively.
Modern fleet maintenance management requires software and hardware to give fleet managers and administrative staff access to valuable data in real time.
For instance, when you connect the fleet maintenance system to your vehicles’ on-board diagnostics (OBD) port, it can automatically monitor fault codes. It can then alert you when issues happen and flag repetitive trouble codes.
With fleet maintenance management software, you can:
- Schedule preventive maintenance to reduce mechanical issues leading to unplanned downtimes.
- Track individual vehicle movements and locations throughout maintenance and deliveries.
- Identify harsh driving events and potential engine issues.
- Improve response times during vehicle breakdowns or accidents.
Benefits of fleet maintenance management
Some of the advantages of a well-planned fleet maintenance management process are:
Less downtime and higher productivity
Efficient and effective fleet maintenance management can enhance your fleet’s reliability, increasing your operations’ productivity and, in turn, your company’s ability to make more money.
With a high-functioning fleet, you’re more likely to deliver orders on time, conduct site inspections on schedule, minimize unexpected breakdowns and operational hiccups, and keep customers happy.
Lower repair costs
Timely maintenance can help your company lower repair costs.
A damaged vehicle can continue to operate for a long time without showing obvious signs of irregularities or issues before breaking down. With proper fleet maintenance management, managers can catch and repair these issues before they become full-blown problems.
Reduced operational expenses
A well-maintained fleet leads to cost-efficient and high-performing vehicles. With this, your fuel consumption improves and your vehicle repairs and breakdowns become less frequent — all these will reduce your operational expenses.
Better inspection and testing results
The FMCSA requires commercial vehicles to undergo routine inspection and testing. Failure to meet their requirements is a violation and can result in potentially costly penalties.
Proper fleet maintenance management helps you comply with regulations, improve the safety of your fleet and your commercial drivers, and avoid downtimes caused by violations.
Maintain vehicle resale value
Conducting regular vehicle upkeep through fleet maintenance management helps you maintain the resale value of your commercial vehicles.
Through proper fleet maintenance management, you can easily keep track of all necessary documents, including maintenance records, to show as proof to interested parties and future owners of vehicles you want to sell.
Essential aspects of an effective fleet maintenance program
Consider these crucial components when developing and implementing a fleet maintenance program.
Safety
A proper fleet maintenance program should prioritize safety. This includes technician and manager training and safety protocol monitoring.
With training and monitoring activities in place, you can operate your commercial fleet with optimum safety and comply with legislative and safety requirements.
Proactive preventive maintenance
A fleet maintenance program that focuses on preventive maintenance (PM) can minimize downtimes and control maintenance costs.
Proactive PM can reduce garage drive-ups, road failures, and out-of-service repairs in between your scheduled maintenance dates.
Plus, by staying on top of your PM failure and success rates, you can track results and make adjustments to improve PM quality to keep your fleet operations running smoothly while lowering your maintenance costs.
Quality monitoring
A well-established fleet maintenance program should include key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to your business targets. For example, if your focus is to improve client satisfaction, you need to be mindful of metrics such as scheduling adherence and delivery times. When these indicators are up, you can feel confident that your clients are getting their cargo on time.
Data gathering and analysis
It’s critical to have a fleet maintenance program that allows you to easily capture and analyze pertinent data.
For instance, you can set up a fleet maintenance program that integrates your data streams with your fleet management system to spot trends and analyze data within your fleet operations.
You can use the integrated data to make strategic decisions at each level of your fleet maintenance programs, including asset management, PM, and quality of repairs (among others).
Routine inspection processes
Execute routine inspection workflows to prevent unexpected breakdowns and accidents caused by defective vehicle parts.
Your routine inspection process should have the following qualities:
- Straightforward. Performing periodic (daily, weekly, or monthly) inspections should be effortless for your team. Create a standard inspection process so your drivers can familiarize the workflows, minimize errors, and perform the inspections with ease.
- Always-accessible data. Make your routine inspection information readily available for drivers, mechanics, and fleet managers. Doing so empowers your team to coordinate and perform their tasks more efficiently.
- Mobile. Fleets and drivers are constantly out and about, so create inspection workflows that adapt to their mobility. Use remote maintenance methods and solutions that help your drivers perform inspections on the go and send you data anytime, anywhere.
Inventory and parts management
Streamlining your inventory process can improve your fleet maintenance management.
Proper inventory management prevents delayed repairs and service delivery. It also improves your asset utilization and reduces equipment or vehicle downtimes.
Use these tips for efficient inventory and parts management:
- Ensure you have sufficient stock of frequently used maintenance parts, e.g., hoses, filters, fluids, and belts.
- Track your parts and supplies inventory, expenses, and reorder details.
- Identify and record the sources for new, used, rebuilt, remanufactured, and counterfeit parts, including warranties.
- Compare your repair costs to generated revenues, and use this information to set a replacement baseline for every piece of equipment.
- Upon completing an accurate count of the physical vehicle parts, maintain accurate inventories. Track when the parts arrive, when you take them out of the inventory, and when you issue parts to specific work orders. Use barcode scanners to help automate this process.
- Train your parts room personnel on how to organize and track fast-moving parts and inventory. Integrate barcode inventory management systems into your fleet management software to monitor stocks. This system also lets you create reorders when the available inventory drops below the minimum order level.
- Generate inventory aging reports to list items you haven’t moved from the shelves during specific date ranges. The report should also indicate sales histories with the value of the used stocks.
Fleet maintenance management system best practices
Consider the best practices below when setting up your fleet maintenance management system.
- Set up real-time alerts and visibility. Detailed, real-time updates based on engine hours and mileage help you establish regular maintenance scheduling. Ensure your fleet maintenance management tools can alert you when your vehicles are due for maintenance and automatically flag ones that are past due.
- Leverage scalability. Fleet maintenance management software that can easily scale with your business provides the flexibility needed to track and manage your fleet maintenance scheduling, regardless of the number of vehicles.
- Get an overall view. Establish a fleet maintenance management system that offers an all-in-one solution and integrates with your maintenance strategy and operational needs. For instance, choose a fleet maintenance management software with a comprehensive, user-friendly dashboard that can give you at-a-glance views of maintenance alerts and real-time route progress.
- Keep your data and systems secure. Reduce security risks and issues while ensuring secure user access for your fleet maintenance management system. Leverage solutions with enterprise-grade security controls like two-factor authentication, role-based permissions, data encryption, and more.
- Opt for custom solutions. Ensure your fleet maintenance management system can address your unique goals and business needs. Use solutions with open or public application programming interface (API) to allow your fleet maintenance management software to interact, share data, and communicate with other related and relevant apps. This can include integrations that let you monitor and analyze vehicles, sensors, and your entire fleet with ease and without the manual work of moving information from your multiple data sources.
Leverage these fleet maintenance management system best practices to increase your chances of implementing successful maintenance programs and processes.
Plan ahead with preventive fleet maintenance
Learn your fleet maximize productivity and reduce costs with preventive fleet maintenance. Get a tour of Motive Maintenance.