How To Implement a Fleet Maintenance Program That Works? 

Whether you’re a fleet business owner or a fleet manager; preventative maintenance definitely helps keep your vehicle fleet in check. Reducing the number of vehicle breakdowns will not only improve productivity.

But it’ll also make your transport fleet last longer, saving more money in the long term. Therefore, the following piece shows you how to implement a fleet maintenance program that works.

Why Maintenance Is So Important for Fleet Management Systems

Fleet management is all about efficiency and productivity so that a business may make the most profit off their vehicles. But in order for this to happen, the fleet vehicles must be used to their fullest extent.

This means that they shouldn’t break down while performing a day’s tasks. Just one breakdown can cost your company and its reputation a lot depending on its size. A maintenance plan with genuine spare parts prevents this. A maintenance management software can help automate the whole fleet monitoring process. Despite it being the better alternative, you can still keep track of scheduled maintenance without one.

Implementing Fleet Maintenance Programs That Work

To increase productivity, it’ll benefit you to follow the following steps:

1. Observe the Current Status

You must create a baseline for the current status of your mobile fleet. This means that you should observe the current condition of every single commercial-vehicle you have.

Inspect the mileages, fleet service history, along with the vendors (for genuine spare parts), and the previous part replacements. This will help you know where you need improvement and where you’re starting from.

2. Make A Maintenance Checklist

Your mobile workforce has vehicles with countless moving parts. They all need to work like well-oiled machines to produce results. Hence you should know about all the aspects of a vehicle that need to be serviced and tuned regularly.

For this, you need to give the owners’ manual a good read. Look at the key components involved that need to be observed at regular intervals. These include the fluids, filters, and spark plugs.

The engine, transmission, brakes and tires will also need to be observed. The electronic components are another factor to consider. For unscheduled maintenances, the vehicle diagnostics should identify what’s wrong.

In the case of any replacements, make sure to only use genuine parts. This is because they’re specifically catered to your vehicle. For information about genuine spare parts supplying visit: https://sts-global.com/auto-parts

3. Create A Scheduled Maintenance Plan

After you’ve figured out what needs to be replaced, it’s time to figure out when this replacement will happen. The owner’s manual will tell you this and this can be different for some vehicles.

If you such vehicles, they’ll all be serviced at different intervals and mileages. Plus, some of your vehicles may be subjected to harsher conditions. So, they’ll need more work done on them.

As a manager, you need to figure out the best interval in order to tune up all of your vehicles at once. This can be set at a couple of thousand operating hours, or miles driven. Make sure you cover the schedule for at least 12 months.

4. Instruct and Educate the Operators

Being a manager or owner, you cannot be available everywhere and at all times. This is why you need to provide guidance to your fleet drivers. They need to be educated about the dos and don’ts of driving fleet vehicles.

But more importantly, they must be taught how to figure out maintenance alerts. They should be able to look for signs of trouble and immediately report back to you. You may then get a mechanic to look at the vehicle.

Driving a malfunctioning vehicle can end up being a hazard. It will also cost you loads as a small problem can grow into a nightmare. Within no time, your operators will pick up a skill of identifying their vehicular problems.

5. Execute the Plan and Stick to It

Stick-to-itiveness is key for being able to achieve any sort of plan or strategy. The same goes for your preventive maintenance program. Once you make a yearly plan, make sure to put it in motion.

As the time will progress, you will be able to see good results. You’ll save a lot of money and time for your company. Your vehicles will last longer as well. Make sure to store and monitor all the fleet data and telematics.

If there are any areas that fail to deliver, you’ll be able to identify them and the cause of their problems. Fix those areas so that the plan is optimized to be as profitable as possible. In this way your plan will be improved as you go.