This is the third of a multi-part series on how drivers and the maintenance department work together to increase uptime. The first installment, “Pre-trip training, follow up critical in uptime goals” can be found here. The second, “Supporting drivers by addressing issues, incentivizing inspections” can be found here.
Keeping a commercial truck running requires a multi-pronged approach that often involves communication between people – drivers and technicians – that could be hundreds of miles apart.
A generation ago, drivers wrote down their maintenance needs and passed a copy on to the shop floor. That’s still a practice employed today but it’s largely been replaced by electronic communication.
Little Rock, Ark.-based Maverick Transportation uses a Qualcomm system to help coordinate the correspondence between the driver and repair shop, which includes information about the issue at hand and what time the driver wants to bring the truck in for service.
“The maintenance coordinator will take it and go into our scheduling board, which we have for each shop location, and they’ll find an open bay and schedule that equipment in that bay as close to that time frame as they can,” says Maverick’s Director of Maintenance Brent Hilton.
Once the truck arrives, the driver checks in with the shift supervisor who ushers the truck in for service.
“At that time, it’s on us to make sure we’re pulling our weight and getting them in and out on those times we told them we would,” Hilton says.
