Telematics, the convergence of telecommunications and information processing for automation in vehicles, is an emerging technology that has yet to see the true scope of its potential for vehicle maintenance.
New advances bring new ways to increase the ease of vehicle maintenance.
Among other things, telematics can create maintenance reminders and help schedule service and repair.
It can access diagnostic information and monitor a vehicle’s “health” and communicate this information with the driver and vehicle maintenance operations.
But as with any data, information is only useful if it is used appropriately, or at all.
I wonder how many times a maintenance manager rolls the dice when a telematics system gives him the heads-up that there is an issue.
For example, a maintenance manager figures the vehicle can at least go another 2,000 miles before the issues needs to addressed, and the vehicle has to be sidelined for repairs in 862 miles.
I leave you with this thought from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, a German poet, playwright and novelist: “Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”
