Fleet maintenance control: 7 tools

Maintenance management tools help optimize work processes, whether by delivering more precise results or speeding up tasks that previously took hours or even days to complete.

Today, digital and technological equipment is available to replace manual work and provide fleet managers with immediate answers. This increases operational quality and the useful life of the company's trucks and machinery.

With your business's maintenance management department in mind, we have brought together the latest tools available in the logistics market that may be useful in your routine. Take a look:

• Electronic Checklist
• Maintenance management system
• Electronic tread probe
• Maintenance indicators
• PDCA cycle
• 5W2H method
• Work order

Maintenance management tools

Electronic Checklist

Unlike a paper checklist, the electronic version is used on a mobile device containing the vehicle components to be checked during the inspection.

You can include vehicle documentation, truck parts, safety items and others for a daily, weekly or monthly check.

As a digital tool, its questionnaires can be customized, changing the questions to suit the individual needs of each vehicle in the fleet.

It also allows items to be added and removed whenever necessary, making daily work much more practical.

In addition, daily inspections are an excellent way to recognize and prevent problems at the first signs, ensuring safety and reducing operational costs.

The electronic checklist's ease of use encourages drivers to do the task as they should.

Maintenance management system

A management system helps reduce maintenance time and expense, extend assets' useful life and improve productivity, since it:

• Provides integration between company departments;
• Schedules maintenance;
• Creates automatic work orders;
• Manages vehicle and machinery assets;
• Provides final reports that are important for improving services.

All the activities above can be done manually with a maintenance management spreadsheet, but a system provides much greater organization and speed.

Among maintenance management tools, it stands out for bringing greater speed, productivity and safety to transport operations.

Electronic tread probe

This tool works as a digital calibration meter. It is used to measure tire tread depth, providing tire data with up to 99% accuracy.

It looks like a gun which, when inserted into the tire groove or connected to the tire valve with the adapted hose, calculates the necessary measurements and sends the data in real time to the mobile device's system.

It is fast, precise and practical to include in a vehicle's maintenance plan.

Maintenance indicators

Performance indicators, known as KPIs (key performance indicators), are metrics for measuring the performance of operational departments.

They are not actually a single tool: there are several ways to monitor the efficiency of a company's processes using pre-established formulas. After all, you can use indicators to understand fleet fuel consumption, driver performance and, of course, fleet maintenance.

Indicators for this last case include calculations of asset availability, reliability and maintenance cost as a proportion of replacement value, among others.

PDCA cycle

This is a cyclical method that helps with administration and task allocation within the company. The acronym essentially describes these steps:

1. (P)LAN: the planning phase, when problems are identified and understood;
2. (D)O: the time to put the plan into practice by testing ideas;
3. (C)HECK: the time to evaluate the results of the first two steps;
4. (A)CT: based on the evaluation, put the revised plans into practice in the company.

As one of the maintenance management tools with this cyclical nature, PDCA must restart whenever a problem is detected, until the process becomes smooth and efficient.

5W2H method

This method is widely used in planning, procedure control and management activities. In most cases, it produces a very effective result.

The methodology revolves around 7 questions, which in English are:

• What: What should be done?
• Why: Why should it be done?
• When: When should it be done?
• Who: Who will be responsible?
• Where: Where should it be done?
• How: How should it be done?
• How much: How much will it cost?

It is immediately clear that these are essential questions for any action to be developed, providing the first steps toward more detailed planning.

Work Order

A Work Order (WO) is a document that describes in detail the type of maintenance or servicing required, specifying the service type, necessary materials, precautions, maintenance history, photos and attachments — when necessary, etc.

Problems range from a broken headlight to faulty brakes or worn tires. They are usually found during the driver's daily checklist and referred to those responsible for maintenance control.

The WO can be created in two ways: manually or digitally.

In the manual option, a document is usually created on a computer and printed to be completed by different people until it reaches the department responsible for Work Orders.

It must also be stored afterward to keep track of the vehicle's history.

In the digital option, the work order opens automatically when damage is detected during the driver's checklist. This gives the responsible mechanic immediate access and allows the necessary services to be scheduled.

In this case, the history is also saved automatically.

To start using maintenance management tools in your fleet, download Prolog's Maintenance Control Spreadsheet (in Portuguese).