Solving The Logistics Problem With Mobile Fleet Maintenance
Posted on: 12 May 2017
Maintaining a fleet of vehicles is tough enough, but when you have to schedule time for all your vehicles to get to a garage or central shop, it can become a logistical nightmare. Keeping up with the maintenance is critical to keeping the fleet on the road but sometimes you need an alternative to bringing them all in for work. A small company might not have as big a concern, but if you have a lot of vehicles on the road, spread over a large area, you need an alternative.
Scheduling Maintenance Time
Regardless of how you do the maintenance on your fleet vehicles, the driver needs to be aware that the vehicle will be down and that means scheduling the time. It is important to manage the maintenance time carefully. If mobile technicians are not on time, the entire schedule can quickly become so far off that vehicles are down much longer than they need to be. Keep the windows for appointments or scheduled time a little longer than they need to be so that the tech has the time needed to get the work completed inside the allotted time frame. Scheduling from one central location is the best option but the techs must communicate clearly with the scheduling person to make the system work properly.
Mobile Maintenance and Cost Savings
For companies with a lot of equipment in the field, mobile maintenance is more than likely not a new concept. If you run a company that does construction, for instance, one technician can go to the site and spend the day working on the vehicles without them ever leaving the job. The benefit here is the 2-fold. First, it saves time because the equipment does not need to leave the job site and it saves money because trucking the equipment to the yard for service takes time and fuel that you don't need to spend.
Outsourcing Your Fleet Maintenance
In many cases, companies don't have the resources to run a fleet maintenance program on their own so they work with a fleet service company. The work is outsourced and the technicians managed but the service company, not the fleet owner. Scheduling is handled by the service company so you don't have to deal with any of it. Finding a company that has experience working with fleets of similar size and in similar industries and don't be afraid to check references to see if other companies that have used them, are happy. At the end of the day, you need your fleet on the road not in the shop. If you can get it done without the headache of bringing everything into a shop, the savings to your company may offset the cost many times over.
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