From the moment we wake up in the morning we are bombarded with information. More than likely, the first thing you reach for when you open your eyes is your smartphone. Even if you are just checking the time, you will see notifications you received overnight. Maybe a text from a friend, perhaps the latest news bulletins, probably the weather forecast, and most likely a few work emails.
Like it or not, the year is 2020 and this is the world we live in. We have gone from finding information through books and word of mouth to having the majority of the world’s information quite literally at our fingertips, and quite frankly, it can be a little overwhelming.
The same can be said for vehicle maintenance today. Just in the last decade or so, the amount of information available about a vehicle has skyrocketed to the point where it is too much for the human mind to comprehend. When technicians connect to a vehicle’s diagnostic port, they need a scan tool to decipher the codes to figure out what the problem is – or even what they are looking at in the first place.
The advent of remote diagnostics has increased the amount of information available exponentially. Telematics systems can send a constant stream of data about information on each vehicle: How long the engine has been running; how fast the vehicle is currently traveling; the temperature of the coolant, or engine oil, or transmissions fluid; the status of the DPF and when it will likely need its next regen.
All of this information and so much more can be constantly transmitted from each truck. The amount of data provided by just a single truck is substantial, so if your fleet has tens or hundreds of trucks on the road at any given time, you may see it as a complete information overload.
The fact is, the data is here and there is a lot of it. How fleets utilize the data determines whether it is a wasted jumble of lines of code, or a tool used to streamline maintenance and maximize vehicle uptime.
Using data to your fleet’s advantage does not have to be difficult. There are many ways to go about organizing the information and putting it to good use. The first step is finding the right tool to convert the data into usable metrics.
Whether it is an OE telematics system built in by the vehicle manufacturer at factory, or a third party telematics device retrofitted to a vehicle, telematics providers often have a platform for viewing vehicle data in an easy-to-understand format.
Now that the data is in a format that is easier to understand, it is time to put it to work. Depending on what platform your fleet uses to host vehicle data, you should be able to see trends over time for each vehicle and for the fleet as a whole. These trends can be used in a number of ways to help streamline and even predict maintenance.
Some trends may be obvious, such as a part or component that fails at around the same mileage for each truck. In that case, the fleet can replace the part or component during scheduled maintenance on vehicles before they reach that mileage in order to mitigate unscheduled downtime.
Other trends may not be as obvious, but with a software platform tracking each data point for each vehicle over time, they will eventually emerge, and your fleet’s maintenance program can take advantage to streamline even further.
Vehicle data, as overwhelming as it may seem, can help fleets change from a reactive and preventive maintenance program to one that is predictive. That should be a goal for any fleet, considering predictive maintenance can have an increasingly positive impact on the fleet’s uptime and, ultimately, the bottom line.
