Grading and Excavation Contractor | Using Software to Manage Maintenance

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When it comes to maintenance management, software puts you in the driver’s seat.

By Dan Rafter

When Tim Griffin first arrived at Fontana, CA–based American Asphalt, he tried to piece together the maintenance records for the company’s fleet of paving equipment and about 200 trucks.

He couldn’t do it. The company, which handles paving and resurfacing jobs, hadn’t kept accurate records of truck and equipment maintenance for years. This meant that Griffin, the company’s operations manager, had no access to records stating when the firm’s most expensive trucks had last been serviced.

Griffin decided that this had to change. No construction company can afford extended downtime from their vehicles, and the best way to prevent such downtime is to maintain regular maintenance schedules. Without accurate records, Griffin had no way of knowing if American Asphalt had been doing this.

“We weren’t able to perform preventative maintenance,” Griffin said. “We were spending all our time chasing problems, putting out fires, instead of preventing them from happening. It was tough. Instead of preventing problems, we always seemed to be reacting to them.”

That was four years ago. Today, American Asphalt’s trucks and equipment receive regularly scheduled tune-ups and inspections, something that Griffin says has reduced downtime in the company’s fleet. Griffin points to the company’s purchase—recommended by him—of Tatems, fleet-maintenance software created by PCHelp Ltd., based in Henderson, NV

Tatems tracks when each truck in a company’s fleet should receive an inspection, and also counts the miles and work each vehicle performs. The program recommends, too, when mechanics should perform specific service jobs on each vehicle.

“The software has made a huge difference,” Griffin said. “It’s streamlined our maintenance. A lot of jobs that were getting overbooked on before, we are now able to keep up with. It’s a lot better than always playing catch-up.”

Griffin is far from the only grading and excavation professional who has discovered the benefits of fleet-maintenance software. As the name suggests, such software automates the maintenance process, reminding mechanics of when they need to inspect and service vehicles.

It sounds simple, but the software can save construction firms significant dollars. Every time a truck goes out of service, it no longer is producing income for its owner. Preventative maintenance—making oil changes when necessary, regularly inspecting vehicles to catch small problems before they become large ones—is the surest way to prevent unexpected downtime.

Construction firms are increasingly busy. Unfortunately, when schedules get hectic, the first casualty is often preventative maintenance. Busy crews and mechanics forget an inspection or regularly scheduled lube job because they are busy handling emergencies.

Fleet-maintenance software, though, provides constant reminders of the importance of preventative maintenance. It’s not so easy to ignore such maintenance when company computers are sending regular reminders that it’s time to inspect that dump truck or that the company’s bulldozer is ready for transmission service.

Marc Ready, president of PCHelp, the makers of Tatems fleet-maintenance software, recognizes this. And, even better, he says, a growing number of construction company professionals are recognizing the importance of automated fleet-management software, too.

“I just got off the phone with a guy whose company keeps its maintenance schedule with pen and paper,” Ready said. “But they have 200 pieces of equipment. It’s getting to the point where they need to have something more automated, especially when it comes to reminders. Sometimes people, if they aren’t real computer savvy, are hesitant to use our software. But once they start using it, they really like it. They can’t imagine working without it.”

This is a significant change from 1998, when Ready and PCHelp first created Tatems. Back then, a customer came to Ready with a problem: He had failed his California state inspection largely because his mechanics were writing their inspection records and results on paper. Unfortunately, the company’s records were a mess, and the state inspector, unhappy with this, gave the company a failing grade.

Inspired, Ready began work on what would eventually become Tatems. Basically, Ready computerized the company’s inspection process, basing it on the forms that the California Highway Patrol required state trucking and construction firms to fill out.

Today, PCHelp receives from five to 10 requests each day for the software, Ready said.

“The regulatory agencies today want companies to keep such good records,” Ready said. “We see it here with the Department of Transportation and the California Highway Patrol. But we have customers from all over the world who are facing this challenge. We have customers from Canada, Australia, other parts of the world. Everyone needs to keep good records now. And this software helps.”

Tatems is designed to serve the trucking industry, Ready said, and he estimates that 85% to 90% of his customers work in that business.

But Tatems is not the only fleet-maintenance software designed specifically for the trucking and construction industries. Trucking professionals have plenty of choices when it comes to automating fleet maintenance.

A Growing Business
Like Ready, Stephen Bathurst, owner of Dundalk, MD–based Fleetmate, has seen the demand for his company’s fleet-maintenance software increase during the last three to five years.

The reason, he says, is a simple one: construction firms are looking for ways to lower their operating costs. Fleet-maintenance software helps them accomplish this task.

“With there now being more of a focus on controlling costs, it’s so important to have a tool in place that lets you know precisely what your costs are,” Bathurst said. “Business managers and owners can manage those costs and identify and control problems.”

Customers use Fleetmate to manage the maintenance schedules of their vehicles, Bathurst said. The software also provides customers with reminders of when they should be servicing their vehicles. Customers can create maintenance schedules for each vehicle, schedules that vary depending on the unique needs of each piece of equipment.

“When you use a product like ours, it does help you extend the life of a vehicle,” Bathurst said. “A lot of construction firms, unfortunately, still rely on pen and paper to keep track of maintenance and maintenance schedules. Often, that paper is misplaced. The resulting equipment failures wind up being more costly than having the customer perform regular maintenance on schedule. If the customer would have had some help sticking to a regular maintenance schedule, they would have ended up saving some significant money.”

Bathurst says that he expects demand to continue rising for Fleetmate because the software does so much to help customers save money. The program, for instance, allows owners to track fuel consumption and costs over time. Armed with this information, they can then change driving patterns and habits to, hopefully, reduce the amount of fuel their vehicles consume, Bathurst said.

“It really is all about saving money over the long run,” Bathurst said. “That’s what preventative maintenance does for you. Our program, for instance, includes tire management. Often times, trucks will be riding on tires that are under-inflated or in need of replacement. Tires like that can degrade fuel economy over time, costing our customers money. If they are reminded that it’s time to inspect or change those tires, maybe they will save some of that money.”

Burlington, NJ–based Arsenault Associates produces its own fleet maintenance management software, Dossier. The program, too, is popular, largely because it saves customers money, said Charles Arsenault, chief executive officer and founder of the company.

Dossier helps keep trucking and construction firms from repeating the same costly mistakes, Arsenault said. It helps prevent truck breakdowns, helps customers create workable and efficient maintenance schedules and even creates detailed repair histories that can be used to meet OSHA and DOT requirements.

“Management is a function that regardless of what size the fleet is, whether it’s one or two units, or 11,000 to 12,000 units, the processes are very consistent,” Arsenault said. “It’s about identifying the asset, knowing its specifications and its warranties, and tracking and managing its costs. Some you have to manage according to a per-hour basis, while other vehicles and equipment you manage according to a per-day basis. You have different maintenance schedules depending on whether a vehicle is on-road or off-road. With grading and excavation work, you have both on-road and off-road vehicles. With that type of operation, you are dealing with a very mixed bag of equipment. Our software handles that very nicely.”

The key to all fleet maintenance software, Arsenault said, is that it allows customers to automate their repair and maintenance schedules. This is key because it frees employees from paperwork and scheduling duties, and allows them to do what they do best, operate or repair their company’s vehicles.

Companies that don’t rely on automated fleet management software miss out on this benefit, Arsenault said.

“With a lot of fleets, you see that the fleet manager or supervisor will be doing data entry,” he said. “Sometimes even the mechanics will be doing that. That doesn’t make economic sense. We need to allow companies the most automation possible so that their mechanics can focus on turning wrenches or managing those who do so. They don’t need to be stuck behind the computer all day.”

This all combines to reduce downtime among fleet vehicles, Arsenault said. And that is the ultimate goal. Arsenault refers to vehicle downtime as a “business killer.”

“Think about it: A front loader can easily run into the six figures,” Arsenault said. “If you have three or four of them, that’s a million dollars of capital investment. You want to make sure that investment reaches its maximum usable life. You want it to operate at the lowest operating cost possible. And you don’t want it to be stuck in the shop waiting for repairs.”

Providing a Service to Customers
Iowa Mold Tooling Co. Inc., based in Garner, Iowa, builds and designs mechanics trucks, lube trucks, hydraulic and electric truck-mounted cranes, hydraulic loaders, articulating cranes and tire-handling equipment for off-road vehicles. As part of the service they provide to their customers, company officials have long sought ways to help owners/operators lower their operating costs.

That’s why the company offers ValuePlus Fleet Management, a software fleet management program.

By logging onto the program, the company’s clients can quickly track the performance of every vehicle in their fleets. ValuePlus provides the data that these clients can then use to maximize the life spans of their equipment and develop the most efficient replacement cycle for it. The program even allows users to view reports comparing the performance of their vehicles to that of similar trucks and equipment worldwide.

Clients either input data directly into the program or compile it and then send it to a fleet administrator with Iowa Mold Tooling Co. As with other fleet management and maintenance software, the program helps clients draft preventative-maintenance schedules designed to reduce unexpected vehicle downtime.

Mark Zipse, strategic accounts manager for Iowa Mold Tooling, said the inspiration for the program came directly from his company’s customers.

“We’ve had customers come to us and say they were concerned with how much they were spending on their vocational vehicles in the later years of their existence. It became a lifecycle question for them,” Zipse said. “They had some questions: What is a vehicle’s useful economic life? Is it being properly maintained? Are they being used exactly for what they were planned to be used for? Are some vehicles performing higher than others? These are important questions, so we began looking for ways to help our customers analyze and improve the operating costs of their vehicles over time.”

Every owner/operator faces a challenge when deciding how long to stick with a vehicle: How do you determine that one point when the increasing costs of operating an older vehicle become so high that it makes more economic sense to retire the truck and replace it with a newer version?

ValuePlus provides the objective data that owners/operators can use to make this difficult decision, Zipse said.

The key to ValuePlus—and to any effective piece of fleet management software—is that the program doesn’t treat each vehicle, or each part of a vehicle, the same, Zipse said. ValuePlus monitors the chassis miles and hours that a vehicle’s engine is operating, and the hours that its compressor crane or welder is working, for example, and then creates a preventative maintenance program based on those vehicle components’ actual working conditions.

The program also alters its preventative maintenance recommendations based on the type of trucks it is analyzing. Some trucks work several hours a week, but don’t cover many actual miles. Other vehicles travel several miles in a month, but don’t log as many actual working hours. ValuePlus takes these factors into account when devising maintenance and inspection schedules for vehicles. A global positioning system inputs mileage and work-hours data from vehicles and their components directly into the ValuePlus program, so owners/operators know they are always dealing with accurate, real-time information.

Because the program significantly reduces the need for vehicle repairs, thanks to the preventative maintenance schedules it creates, demand for ValuePlus has increased among Iowa Mold Tooling’s customers, Zipse said. There are still some customers, of course, that resist micromanaging this part of their business, Zipse said. But with the increased costs of operating a fleet, that resistance is fading, he added.

“We started this program about 10 years ago, and have since created a lot of customer awareness about it,” Zipse said. “We are seeing more and more customers willing to manage their fleets this way as their fleets and operation costs get larger. They are finding a greater need to manage this expense in their business. Still, I think we are a bit ahead of the curve right now. I think this is something that we’ll be seeing more and more people accept in the next few years.”

Officials at John Deere International have long known that its customers can benefit from effective fleet management programs. That’s why the company is currently developing its own fleet management software.

It’s also why the company already offers JDLink Machine Messenger, a wireless communications and information program for the owners of the company’s tractors and self-propelled forage harvesters. Using global positioning technology, JDLink analyzes these machine’s work hours and locations, and then provides their owners with access to data designed to help them most effectively manage their fleet for optimal performance.

“We absolutely support our customers using some sort of methodology, whether it be software or something else, to better manage their fleets,” said Kenneth Poppe, product marketing manager with John Deere. “When you use fleet management programs you do reduce your vehicle downtime. You also do a better job of managing vehicle uptime and in scheduling machines for routine maintenance. You are not operating in a reactionary mode but in a planning mode. It’s a great thing.”

Programs such as JDLink also help owner/operators reduce labor costs, Poppe said. Employees don’t have to spend valuable working hours on reading hourly meters. The fleet management system itself can automatically tell maintenance staffers when it’s time to inspect or service a vehicle.

“If you do a good job with maintenance, you can significantly extend the life of your equipment,” Poppe said. “You can continue to maintain a machine and keep it going for a long time. There is some point, of course, where the vehicle begins costing you more than it is making for you. But with effective preventative maintenance—which you can get from fleet management programs—you can extend that economic life significantly.”

Dan Rafter is a technical writer based in Chesterton, IN.

GEC - March/April 2008

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