It’s no secret that proper maintenance is one of the important components of a successful fleet. If your vehicles aren’t properly maintained, you could face serious safety or compliance problems, business downtime, revenue loss, and expensive repairs.
That’s where a fleet maintenance management program comes in. If you’ve never considered one, or if you’re researching different partners, this article is for you. We explain the top benefits of a fleet maintenance management program—plus details on the most important fleet maintenance features and which industries benefit most from this type of program.
Fleet maintenance program features
Fleet maintenance management is a process through which you track and manage all maintenance-related details and expenses for your fleet vehicles. Maintenance programs can be provided for all passenger vehicles and trucks, from Class 1 to Class 8, as well as non-vehicle equipment.
Some of the features of a fleet management system include:
- Fleet vehicle GPS tracking
- Driver behavior data
- Maintenance alerts and notifications
- Fuel management
Industries leveraging fleet maintenance management systems
Whatever type of business you operate—trucking company, car rental service, field service provider, you name it—a fleet maintenance program will be helpful, especially since it can be tailored to your business goals and specific industry needs.
All types of industries leverage fleet maintenance, including:
- Logistics and delivery
- Government
- Utilities and power
- Retail
- Construction and contractors
- Agriculture
- Delivery services
- Engineering and infrastructure
- Medical and pharmaceutical
- Insurance
- Residential care and passenger transport
Benefits of a fleet maintenance program
Now let’s dive into the main benefits of a fleet maintenance program. Here are the top five that we think drive the biggest value to an organization:
1. Ensures highest level of safety
Fleet management helps businesses and organizations stay on top of regular maintenance, which reduces the risk of breakdowns or accidents.
Driver safety should be the number one priority. While it’s impossible to prevent all accidents, there are steps you can take to ensure your fleet is as safe as possible—and it starts with maintenance.
When vehicles go in for regular maintenance, other potential safety-related components, such as brakes and tires, are also checked and repaired (if necessary). Something as simple as replacing faulty windshield wipers or broken headlight bulbs can help prevent accidents.
Connected vehicles, or plug-in telematics devices, can also track engine hours and provide maintenance schedules so that your fleet is running optimally.
2. Lowers fleet repair costs
A fleet maintenance management program can help you track your fleet’s performance data to make better business decisions. Set up email or text-based preventative maintenance alerts. Keeping up to date with preventative maintenance is a great way to help minimize costly vehicle repairs. Plus, fleet management partners may provide discounted negotiated repair cost savings for their enrolled portfolio.
3. Reduces operational costs
Delays, idling, and downtime can increase operational costs. With a maintenance management program, you can be proactive by tracking idle time, driver behavior, and driving patterns. This can also help reduce vehicle emissions and save on fuel costs.
Fleet data is a powerful tool that you can obtain from telematics devices, GPS tracking, or connected vehicles. By monitoring trip data, vehicle systems information, and driver behavior, you identify key areas of improvement to drive cost savings and improve safety. You can easily monitor emissions, speed and idle times, system diagnostics, and much more.
4. Centralized control
Whether you’re looking to control costs, reduce administrative burdens, minimize downtime, or track expenses, it’s helpful to have everything maintenance-related in one place. A fleet maintenance management program is just that—a one-stop shop with easy access that will help keep you, your employees, and your business running safely and efficiently. Plus, if you have a fleet maintenance dashboard, you can identify trends and establish benchmarks.
5. Helps maximize resale value opportunity
Have you ever considered remarketing your fleet vehicles at some point? If you keep fleet vehicles well past their prime, you’ll likely run into expensive maintenance and repair costs. Since a maintenance program tracks all related details, issues, and expenses, you’ll have a clearer idea of when it’s time to replace your fleet vehicles.
Unfortunately for some companies, their vehicle replacement strategy is to wait until a vehicle goes out of commission before considering a replacement. Plus, vehicle supply shortages are causing fleets to keep vehicles for a longer period of time.
When you’re leasing a fleet, however, these “strategies” can hurt your bottom line. When you take a strategic approach and plan when to remarket your vehicles, you maximize resale value.
Fleet maintenance is one of the most important aspects of managing a fleet, and it should be taken seriously. The right fleet management partner will structure a maintenance program around your goals, needs, and budget while ensuring a safety-first mindset that allows for efficiency, cost savings, and ultimately peace of mind.
Information provided by: Merchants Fleet
Author bio: John Herold serves as manager of fleet maintenance at Merchants Fleet. With over a decade of experience in fleet management, Herold focuses on partnering with clients and maintenance providers to facilitate data capture, controlled authorizations, and negotiated savings of fleet vehicle repair expenses.
