Scheduling Preventive Maintenance to Match Your Freight Schedule: Avoiding Unnecessary Revenue Loss
In the world of trucking, preventative maintenance is a crucial yet often overlooked aspect that can significantly impact a fleet's profitability and efficiency. By adopting a systematic approach to maintenance, fleets can protect their most valuable asset – the ability to keep the trucks running and earning – and avoid costly roadside breakdowns.
One key strategy is to sync the maintenance calendar with dispatch tools, ensuring that dispatch has visibility into maintenance schedules. This way, loads can be planned around service intervals, preventing situations where trucks are booked without considering downtime.
Scheduling preventative maintenance the right way is another vital aspect. By encouraging drivers to flag issues early and adopting regular, scheduled inspections, minor problems can be addressed before they escalate into major breakdowns. This proactive approach not only saves on repair costs but also reduces the risk of revenue-killing breakdowns.
German associations like the HDT (Hauptverband der Deutschen Bauindustrie) and large fleet operators have long employed systematic planned maintenance to reduce costs from truck breakdowns. Smaller fleets and individual truck drivers can copy this principle by adopting regular, scheduled inspections, using diagnostic tools, and following structured maintenance plans similar to those promoted in technical seminars and workshops aimed at improving vehicle reliability and compliance.
Documenting downtime is also essential. Recording every service date, cost, and miles helps spot patterns where trucks are losing time. By identifying these patterns, fleets can work towards optimising their maintenance schedules and reducing downtime.
Leveraging 34-hour resets for service instead of burning fresh drive time can be beneficial. This strategy can be particularly useful for smaller fleets, as it allows them to schedule maintenance during their drivers' rest periods, minimising lost driving time.
Planning preventative maintenance around delivery points is another effective strategy. By booking service for trucks after they have delivered and before they need to reload, fleets can ensure that their trucks are serviced in reliable shops along their regular routes.
Creating a maintenance calendar for every truck is another important step. This calendar should list service intervals for components beyond oil changes, such as brakes, coolant, suspension, and tires. By having a clear overview of when each component needs maintenance, fleets can ensure that their trucks are serviced on time, reducing the risk of roadside breakdowns.
Creating standing shop relationships with priority service can prevent last-minute scrambling for maintenance. By having a trusted network of service providers, fleets can ensure that their trucks are serviced promptly and efficiently, minimising downtime.
In conclusion, discipline in scheduling preventative maintenance beats luck in ensuring uptime and avoiding lost revenue days. By adopting a systematic approach to preventative maintenance, fleets can not only reduce costs but also improve their efficiency and competitiveness in the market. Skipping a PM puts a truck at risk of a roadside breakdown, potentially costing thousands in towing, hotel, missed load, and emergency shop bills, not including the hit to the customer relationship. Therefore, it is essential for fleets to prioritise preventative maintenance and treat it as an integral part of their dispatch process.
