Reducing fleet maintenance costs: 7 actions

Reducing fleet maintenance costs is a widely pursued goal, since saving money is a fundamental objective in almost all transport operations.

This is due both to the substantial costs involved in various areas of these operations, from fuel consumption to vehicle maintenance spending, and to managers neglecting to apply preventive maintenance processes.

For a deeper understanding of these issues, explore the actions you should implement to reduce your fleet’s maintenance costs:

• Implement different types of maintenance;
• Understand maintenance management routines and processes;
• Calculate maintenance costs and monitor indicators;
• Keep an updated maintenance history;
• Perform failure analysis;
• Provide periodic training;
• Use data collection and analysis technologies.

Implement different types of maintenance

There are three main types of maintenance in truck fleet management: preventive, predictive and corrective. Although new models and methods are emerging in this industry, these remain the main ones.

What makes fleet maintenance costs high is mainly excessive reliance on corrective maintenance.

Many operations still lack knowledge of the process and an understanding that preventive maintenance is fundamental to avoid vehicles stopping.

A vehicle out of service represents one of the greatest losses for the fleet, as it requires longer, more expensive servicing and becomes unavailable for necessary operations, potentially causing delivery delays.

Corrective maintenance is crucial for the fleet, but it should be scheduled and planned, without unwanted surprises.

To make this possible and improve the company’s cost management, it is essential to implement the different types of maintenance, establishing vehicle inspection activities and monitoring each vehicle’s condition.

Understand maintenance management routines and processes

To successfully implement the different types of maintenance and establish more productive routines aimed at reducing fleet maintenance costs, a complete understanding of maintenance management routines and processes is fundamental.

This means understanding which activities are necessary, how frequently they should be performed, who is responsible for each task, which tools should be used and many other details.

In addition, as these tasks are performed, it is important to evaluate the time needed for each and constantly seek ways to simplify and optimize these activities.

Calculate maintenance costs and monitor indicators

Knowing maintenance costs is the first step toward identifying that they are high. It is essential never to fail to record all expenses, from inspection charges to repair and parts replacement costs.

It is also important to organize these costs with appropriate descriptions, making it easier to understand the main ones and helping determine the most suitable solution to optimize spending in each situation.

Another fundamental aspect of understanding and achieving lower fleet maintenance costs is monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) specific to this area.

Some of the main maintenance indicators include:

• Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF): indicates the mean time between one vehicle repair and the next.
• Vehicle availability: identifies the number of vehicles fit to meet the fleet’s delivery and transport demands.
• Fleet idleness: assesses the number of stopped vehicles in the fleet, how many are traveling without loads and identifies the reasons.
• Maintenance Cost Relative to Revenue (CMF): expresses maintenance costs relative to company revenue, indicating which vehicles have excessive costs in this area.
• Maintenance Cost Relative to Replacement Value (CPMV): evaluates a vehicle’s maintenance costs relative to its acquisition cost to determine whether it is worth keeping or replacing the asset.
• Among others.

Keep an updated maintenance history

To monitor indicators and control fleet costs effectively, it is fundamental to keep a detailed maintenance history. This record includes all maintenance services performed, vehicle information, service costs and much more.

Maintenance history not only simplifies data retrieval for detailed individual vehicle analyses but also provides an overview of maintenance across the entire operation.

In addition, it is a valuable tool for determining whether vehicles with unexpected failures followed proper processes or whether preventive maintenance was neglected.

Keeping this record updated is essential for efficient fleet management.

Perform failure analysis

Failure analysis or diagnosis starts from the principle of anticipating problems in the vehicle fleet. This practice is directly linked to a detailed record history and implementing effective processes, since it is based on concrete data.

From this, you can determine the necessary corrective measures. If, for example, a large number of problems is identified in vehicle electrical systems, this may lead to increased inspection frequency for this aspect.

Likewise, if there is a consistent pattern of failures associated with a specific driver, this may trigger a more direct approach, including the possibility of additional training to promote more appropriate practices.

Failure analysis is therefore a tool that keeps fleet operation reliable and efficient, as well as contributing to maintenance savings.

Provide periodic training

To effectively reduce fleet maintenance costs, all employees need to be aware of three things: 1) their individual responsibilities, 2) the importance of their roles in fleet management and 3) how to perform fleet maintenance activities properly.

You should therefore promote ongoing training and skills development for the entire team, emphasizing drivers, who play a central role in maintaining fleet vehicles.

After all, their driving behavior directly influences vehicle condition, and they are also responsible for performing inspections and opening support requests and work orders when necessary.

This ensures the process is performed correctly and preventively, contributing to lower maintenance costs in the long term.

Use data collection and analysis technologies

Data play a crucial role in fleet management and, naturally, in maintenance. Using technological systems and tools for preventive maintenance management is essential.

Likewise, adopting predictive maintenance offers advanced resources for collecting and analyzing vehicle information.

Automation in maintenance management is a trend that not only speeds up processes but also contributes significantly to achieving the main goal: reducing fleet maintenance costs.

So, are you ready to start implementing an effective maintenance management system in your fleet and generate greater savings? Schedule a free demonstration with Prolog.