Every fleet wants to keep its vehicles on the road as much as possible. While 100% utilization is not possible (trucks have to be taken off the road for regular maintenance), maximizing uptime is key for all fleets.
The good news is that there are some simple things fleets can do to get as close to 100% as possible.
[Related: Three ways to reduce operating costs]
1. As odd as this may sound, the number one way to ensure uptime is by measuring downtime and making it very visible. One good way to do this is to create a dashboard that is visible in the shop, to senior leadership and to the customer.
When a truck comes in, the technician or foreman enters basic information about the piece of equipment, what is wrong with it and the repair plan and the clock starts ticking. Everyone can see how much time the repair is taking. You can set a threshold limit so that when a repair exceeds a certain amount of time, the dashboard turns red letting everyone know that the situation is critical.
Or you can have it first turn yellow when the repair is getting close to exceeding the time typically allotted. That will give you the opportunity to take action before the situation becomes critical.
2. Set thresholds for escalating parts procurement beyond your normal practice. When a piece of equipment goes down, you are at the mercy of your parts supplier to get you the part(s) needed to complete the repair.
