Trimble, DTNA integration to enable more visibility into roadside repairs

Trimble has integrated its Trimble Road Call, a vehicle breakdown module within the Trimble TMT Fleet Maintenance platform, with Daimler Truck North America's Freightliner Service Tracker to simplify the repair process for commercial fleets, the company said.

The single user interface can connect to various service providers and OEMs' maintenance tools to provide a real-time tracking solution of vehicles as they’re repaired within DTNA’s service network.

This lets the system sync equipment and repairs, where the Service Tracker syncs with TMT Fleet Maintenance so that if equipment is activated or disabled in one platform, the change shows in the other, too. This way, both fleet maintenance managers and technicians can input repair information into the system overall. Additionally, the integration provides regular status updates to a fleet, including notifications on when work begins, estimates for completion, vehicle ready alerts, and confirmation when a truck is picked up by a driver.

Ultimately, putting all the repair information for downed trucks in one place and streamlining communication is expected to lead to better transparency and more uptime.

“I've been in [fleets’] call centers, and when they have breakdowns and have seen them go to 17 different websites,” explained Brian Mulshine, sr. director of maintenance and TMT product management for Trimble. “What we want to do at Trimble is develop an integrated workflow where I can talk to any type of vendor right through our common interface, and give [fleets] one pane of glass to see the world, and be able to see where they can get service.”

All of this creates greater visibility for fleets, manufacturers, and maintenance departments, as fleet managers can view all repair orders, even if they originate from outside TMT Fleet Maintenance.

“We want the OEMs to look at the ability that they can create a pending work order directly into the fleet’s system,” Mulshine added.

As an example, if an OEM gets an alert about a coming component failure, they can now automatically create a work order for a fleet to address, either by accepting it and clearing the truck for work, or by rejecting it if the alert was a false alarm or if the truck has a hot load. Similarly, dealer technicians can also input repair order details if a vehicle shows up unannounced, pulling information from TMT Fleet Maintenance and generating a repair order.

“There are engine manufacturers that have predictive failures, and they will send the customer an email with an Excel spreadsheet,” Mulshine said. “So we're going to actually work with some of the engine manufacturers on ‘How do you create the pending work order directly into TMT?’ And that's just me putting the data in the right spot, instead of sending an email to somebody that could be on vacation this week.”

Trimble Road Call with Freightliner Service Tracker is available for Daimler customers enrolled in Service Tracker using Trimble TMT Fleet Maintenance version 2023.2.3.817 and higher for all Trimble TMT Fleet Maintenance customers using this TMT version. The service supports both on-premise and SaaS customers, and is available for other third-party maintenance solutions.