This is the first of a four-part series that looks at telemetry data as a maintenance tool in trucking, the information service providers seek to provide fleets, and how fleets use that information. The series is based on a survey conducted this spring by CCJ parent company Randall Reilly. The results can be downloaded here. Additional coverage in this series includes Technology seeks role as fleet maintenance partner, OEMs, aftermarket collaborate to fill gaps in telematic data, and What are fleets looking for from maintenance telematics?
Shiva Bhardwaj, CEO of predictive maintenance software Pitstop, grew up spending time in his father’s mechanic shop in Toronto, where he became fascinated with the electronics that ultimately led him to launch a career as an engineer. Bhardwaj understands full well that every vehicle is different and therefore should be treated differently rather than have a uniform predictive maintenance schedule fleetwide, he said.
“Somehow every vehicle is treated the same as if they're driven the same by the same drivers and manufactured on the same assembly line, which we all know is not true,” he said. “With ELD and maintenance history data and where we are with AI today, that's a lot of information that you can pull and tease out key patterns that help you understand what is trending towards failure, very uniquely specific to each (vehicle). Then you can take that and focus it on actionable insights so that the fleet can act on things that are actually going to break down. We've been able to prove that we can do this with 94% accuracy on average nine days ahead of a breakdown event.”
Bhardwaj said that’s where aftermarket telematics solutions prevail – they often provide more proactive measures to save fleets from downtime, whereas OEM solutions tend to be focused on reactive measures, like with fault codes that come up once a problem has been detected rather than using machine learning in the background to predict a problem.
How are fleets and owner-operators using telematics? Find out with this comprehensive research from the editors at CCJ.
Download to access insights on what telematics solutions fleets/owner-operators are using, how telematics influences business decisions and more.
