Just like last year and every year before, the goal of maintenance providers in 2022 will be to keep fleets moving. To understand how to do that, everyone involved in the commercial vehicle repair space should know what’s ahead in the new year—the trends that will speed uptime and those that could become speed bumps. Fittingly, Mike Dickinson, the executive officer of Dickinson Fleet Services (DFS)—a mobile maintenance provider that’s always on the move—gave an overview of this year’s top fleet maintenance trends to look out for.
The FleetOwner-hosted webchat, moderated by Fleet Maintenance contributor Mindy Long, was held on Dec. 14, 2021. Those with the time can listen to the roughly 33-minute discussion by following this link.
Here are the main points from DFS, which operates 700 mobile maintenance vehicles and has 18 facilities, fortified with some additional insights from past Fleet Maintenance coverage:
Fleets are holding onto trucks longer
COVID-related supply chain shocks will continue to jolt companies’ ability to refresh their fleet with new inventory.
“Some manufacturers are sold out through 2022, so that's driving fleets to keep vehicles a lot longer,” Dickinson said.
We covered this in great length in our December 2021 cover feature on “Navigating the parts predicament,” but the gist is that the Classes 5-7 backlogs were at record highs in 2021 and Class 8 missed matching the record high backlog of 2018 by 7.5%, according to ACT Research data. The Sept. 2020 backlog-to-build ratio, or the amount of time to clear that month’s orders, was 8 months for Classes 5-7 and 12.6 months for Class 8.
Dickinson advised to counter these external forces by doubling down on preventive maintenance: “The backbone any maintenance program is preventative maintenance and having a very, very thorough inspection, making sure that you don't miss those intervals, will make sure those vehicles are on the road longer, safer.”
PMs are occurring more often, a “reverse trend” from past years, Dickinson noted, where fleets pushed out service intervals by using synthetic oil. By conducting more routine checkups, technicians can assess truck health more frequently and discover potential breakdown issues before they impact operations.
For fleets who still need to push out PMs, strong communication with drivers, and getting them to accurately perform inspections, will be paramount.
“If you don't have a really solid and thorough driver vehicle inspection process, and have the drivers buy in, I think stretching PM cycles out is going to lead to downtime and roadside breakdowns,” Dickinson offered.
Bigger reliance on predictive maintenance
Getting ahead of potential issues by replacing parts ahead of schedule, essentially a strategy of pre-emptive strikes against downtime, is crucial. While some PMs can be deferred, those involving safety should never take a backseat.
This is where leveraging predictive maintenance comes in.
“The future is going to be ever changing as vehicles become even more intelligent and start to notify the technician and notify the maintenance provider on when a service needs to be performed,” Dickinson said.
Linking telematics, maintenance management platforms, and parts ordering software will aid in these efforts.
“Integrating with fleets will allow us to tap into their telematics and look at data that is coming directly from the truck and then [allow us to understand] how to translate that into best practices,” Dickinson said.
DFS is currently doing this.
“We've got enough data in our system that we can provide recommendations to fleets,” Dickinson said. For example, if a starter lasts between 300,000 to 400,000 miles, it’s better to replace it closer to the low end when the truck is in the shop for other scheduled PMs rather than waiting for it to conk out and incur that unplanned and costly downtime.
“Vehicle utilization is at an all-time high,” Dickinson offered. “Fleets just can't afford that vehicle downtime...We can help with some of that predictive maintenance.”
Finding parts will remain a challenge
Fleets are in a tough spot as parts manufacturers have had to deal with the same supply chain issues as the OEMs, so they can’t get new trucks, and it’s tough to find the parts to fix their aging ones.
To eke out another life cycle from older trucks, Dickinson said fleets are swapping chassis and salvaging usable parts from trucks involved in accidents.
The DFS executive said that while OEM parts are not always readily available, they can leverage their 25 years of “really solid relationships” with truck makers, along with supplementing that with aftermarket parts where feasible.
Experts who Fleet Maintenance spoke with in the past year echoed that sentiment. An overarching theme is to contact vendor contacts not just when disaster strikes, but for routine check-ins. Letting suppliers know ahead of time if you are getting new equipment, or switching from drum to disc brakes, will help them anticipate your needs better as well.
Maintenance management platforms such as Fullbay are also working to offer better visibility to supplement those person-to-person relationships.
“The part you're looking for, that [leading parts supplier] FleetPride may not even have in stock, might be sitting on the shelf of a random shop across the city from you and they don’t need it,” Fullbay Executive Chairman Jacob Findlay explained to Fleet Maintenance. “So, how can you get visibility to that, and get that part, and get the truck back on the road? So, that's something we're definitely exploring.”
A method to provide this transparency via Fullbay is being beta tested with FindItParts.
Taking care of technicians will be a path to success
Dickinson cited the American Trucking Associations’ oft-used statistics about the industry needing 200,000 diesel technicians to keep up with demand by the late 2020s.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics data from 2019 estimated that the industry would need 24,500 new techs every year over the next 10 years to replace its aging workforce, which stands around 281,000 strong. So it appears that the market currently favors the workers, who have their pick of employment. Because of this, fleets and shops will need to be proactive to ensure the best technicians choose them.
“There are more technicians exiting the workforce than coming in on an annual basis, so we need to do all that we can to attract the best talent, retain the best talent, and then develop the next generation of talent,” Dickinson said.
DFS has more than 1,000 technicians total. “To attract the best talent, you've got to have incredible benefits, and provide great tooling,” Dickinson asserted.
For their part, DFS is also providing great schooling as well. In 2019, DFS started up the FleeTec Academy, described by DFS as “an intensive, hands-on residence training program designed to teach truck maintenance and repair skills from the ground up.”
“We bring candidates who have mechanical aptitude, but maybe not necessarily mechanical skill set,” Dickinson explained. “But they've got grit, determination, and they want a career.”
Candidates who are selected are provided room and board, along with meals at the Indianapolis campus while completing an eight-week course. At the end, they will earn two ASE certification and be given a set of tools, which they will use during the subsequent two-year apprenticeship program.
DFS has put 200 technicians through the program since its inception, and opened a second campus in Phoenix last October. Future sites in the next few years are being considered in the Northeast and South/Southeast of the U.S.
DFS moving into light-duty
Many fleets already rely on DFS in some capacity for medium- and heavy-duty truck maintenance, which can be done by visiting their dedicated service centers, scheduling a mobile maintenance technician visit, or calling for emergency roadside service. Dickinson said that in Q1 of 2022, DFS will expand into the light-duty market. Fifty mobile service trucks will be focused solely on the Classes 1-3 segment.
This has been facilitated by the 2020 acquisition of DFS by Cox Automotive.
“Cox has put a lot of wind in our sails,” Dickinson said. “They support the growth, and recognize that there's just a massive opportunity for us to continue to build our business.”
