You will need both proper and thorough oversight of your organization’s vehicle fleet maintenance activities to ensure the overall value and health of your fleet assets.
This responsibility typically falls on the organization’s fleet manager. As a general rule, most fleet management plans and policies include routine inspections of the vehicles as per their working life. Here, the addition of customized fleet management software can easily help and troubleshoot any issues when fleet vehicle maintenance might be required.
With this software, you’ will be able to keep an eye on the vehicle inspection and maintenance requirements of your extensive fleet.
The Main Reasons Why You Need Fleet Maintenance Management For Your Organization
There are many reasons due to which you should consider outsourcing your fleet maintenance to a highly experienced and technically sound service provider. These people can help you increase productivity, save money, and gain expert-level insight into the mechanics of maintaining the vehicles in your fleet.
Using such a company will mean that you will be able to track vital information regarding vehicle fleet maintenance procedures. Consider these simple questions: When was the last time your vehicles had an oil and filter change? How many miles have passed since your fleet’s tires had been rotated or replaced? If you do not know the answers to these questions, then you really should consider getting a fleet maintenance company to do the needful and take care of your assets.
They will keep track of all such data and act accordingly to increase the service life of your fleet. The key here is that excellent fleet management requires a proactive instead of a reactive approach. This is because a fleet manager does not have the luxury of allowing a broken vehicle on the roads because of a lack of maintenance-related oversight. Here, a fleet management company will help you to do the following:
It will Formalize the Whole Maintenance Approvals Process
Once your whole fleet is active and in the field, you will need a full lineup of assets. This is because this is an ideal way to get the entire approvals process streamlined and in the same place. This way, you will be in a position to control and authorize all maintenance-related activities as and when they are needed. You will also be able to figure out issues even before they occur so that they won’t have any negative impact on your business.
However, doing this on your own when you have to manage a fleet involving literally hundreds of vehicles can be pretty overwhelming. Apart from that, it is also pretty difficult to stay organized as well. Instead, it is a much better idea to go for external management along with the requisite fleet software system.
This will easily and seamlessly integrate all of this vital information without involving the fleet’s management with tedious data entry procedures. The external company and software solution will allow you to access and analyze the data in real-time and thereby make quick and informed decisions that are based on accurate data.
Quality Control of Fleet Vehicle Maintenance Activities
This is another very important aspect of fleet management. Proper quality control QC measures will ensure that all monitoring work has been completed concerning your assets. While your team of engineers might have done a good job of servicing and maintaining the vehicles, there is no way of figuring it out. Not when hundreds of roadworthy vehicles are involved.
This is why you have to rely on your own personal inspection to make sure that the quality of the procedures is fully up to your exacting standards. Such checking has to take place as soon as maintenance operations have been completed. It should ideally be done before the vehicle has put in a few thousand miles on the odometer.
This way, you will quickly identify and take care of any discrepancies and also take appropriate remedial action. Since the fleet management company will provide you with the records of every vehicle, you can check them out as soon as possible.
Performance-Based Contracts
External fleet maintenance contractors will work on performance-based contracts. This way, you will pay only when you are satisfied that they are keeping the end of their contractual obligations. All you have to do is to prepare a list of requirements and check and see if everything is according to the list.
If they agree to the items of the list at a specific rate you may hire them for the task at hand. You can use your very own tailor-made performance metrics such as repair turnover rates, comeback rates, etc. Moreover, you can check them with the results of your quality control reviews. If there is any discrepancy, you can pinpoint it so that they will improve their service, accordingly.
Here, it is pertinent to note that measuring performance is critical to fleet maintenance operations. Until you have certain benchmarks and the maintenance activities can achieve those, you will have issues with the fleet. This aspect of fleet management should never be overlooked, otherwise, your orders will be delayed as your vehicles will spend more time in the garage than in the field.
Moreover, such performance-based contracts prevent any urgent need for additional maintenance. Apart from that, they will also let you know that you have chosen the right contractors for the job. This will give you complete peace of mind regarding the maintenance activities of your fleet. The value of such composure can never be overlooked.
Conclusion
In light of the above, we can safely state that outsourcing your fleet maintenance management can turn out to be a very smart move. It will not only be of great help in increasing the overall profitability of your organization, but also keep your customers satisfied as well.
