According the the Technology and Maintenance Council, RP 534, Guidelines for Determining Vehicle Lift Productivity Efficiencies, exited the appeals process on Oct. 1 and will be published with the rest of its graduating class during the first quarter of 2009.
RP 534 was developed by the S5 Task Force on Lift Productivity and ROI to address fleet managers’ needs to recruit and retain technicians, improve shop efficiency and reduce shop-related injuries. According to the RP, “Vehicle lift technologies can assist fleet operations in these critical areas, but equipment users should have a sound means of determining the cost-effectiveness for acquiring these devices.”
The RP includes a simple ROI formula that fleet managers can use to estimate the additional revenue a new lift would generate or the cost-savings it would provide. Recognizing that it can be challenging to calculate ROI for a piece of equipment a shop has never used, RP 534 includes typical ROI examples derived from and validated by independent sources that are representative for commercial vehicle maintenance operations; all of the examples show a reduction in preventive maintenance costs through improvements in technician productivity. Typical savings range from $27,840 to $74,472 annually per lift, after the price of the lift has been recovered.
The S5 Task Force on Lift Productivity and ROI began developing RP 534 in 2004. It was balloted and approved by TMC membership at TMC’s 2008 Annual Meeting, and it went into the appeals process in July; no appeals were filed. For more information, call TMC at 703-838-1763.
