Many companies in the transportation industry look forward to deploying CMMS for their fleet maintenance initiatives. While this could serve the short-term immediate digitalization requirements, having an effective maintenance strategy in place with a solution that caters to your unique process and business requirements might be a more viable option. There are innumerable challenges which companies encounter while trying to achieve optimal fleet maintenance levels at satisfactory costs- route optimization, shortage of drivers or staff, vehicle maintenance to reduce downtime, meeting compliance requirements, and health & safety are some of the more potent challenges fleet managers grapple with.
To counter this threat, most transport companies opt for a CMMS solution. CMMS or computerized maintenance management system is a software suite built to help large enterprises such as hotels, energy plants, and manufacturing companies streamline repair and maintenance. This helps organizations to organize repair and maintenance, track data, improve efficiency, and make more informed decisions. Ultimately, while CMMS tools may be great for large enterprise organizations, they were never designed to help fleet managers in transport companies grapple with these challenges.
There is just one problem – CMMS solutions are usually not customized to the use-cases which transport companies might use them for and can end up costing more time and money than they are worth. Some of the potential reasons CMMS Solution might not be ideal for your restaurant chain or commissary are listed as below:
Cost – the total cost of a CMMS solution to your transport company when deployed to several sites, the users, and probably the number of work orders created. This could well be a few thousand dollars per month and this does not include the cost of onboarding, training, hiring dedicated staff to run the system, and working with your IT team to roll out a complex piece of technology for your business – all of which would bloat up the cost of the CMMS system to your organization.
Time consumption - Apart from just learning how to use the CMMS tool, the service agents require you to enter and update information about your repair and maintenance on an ongoing basis apart from analyzing data and making decisions about which vehicles need to be serviced and when. A technician would then have to be deployed, a work order created verification of the completion of the task and updating the invoice on the CMMS. This could well take several hours of your precious time, which could otherwise be spent on other value-added activities.
Limited use cases for transportation companies - While CMMS solutions have many use cases for industries across manufacturing, facilities, and field services, CMMS solutions are not built for companies in the transportation industry. Many of these industries where CMMS is an ideal fit is primarily because the equipment is custom and often very expensive and often needs continuous monitoring and servicing to work at an optimal level. Moreover, there is a huge workforce working round the clock to service, repair, and track R&M and to manage the CMMS solution. Transportation companies, more often than not, do not have a full-time person trained and dedicated to managing the solution and hence might not be the best fit for the use cases which fleet managers might potentially have. Additionally, the solutions provide endless amounts of data daily to make business decisions, which would need the expertise of dedicated staff, often at an additional cost which cash-strapped transportation companies might want to avoid getting into.
Requires constant monitoring and updates- CMMS would provide you with the tools for repair and maintenance, but would not do it for your transportation company. Someone in your team would monitor the software daily, update it regularly with all the patches, ensure the reliability of the data to make educated decisions. For most organizations looking for seamless fleet maintenance solutions, without a dedicated resource, the same might prove to be a headache, with little time and effort to manage it effectively to view the desired results.
Now that you know why CMMS solutions are not the best fit for transportation companies, let’s understand how a No-Code MRO solution might help with fleet maintenance management. But before you proceed with the decision, these are some of the items that would help you decide between the CMMS or the No-Code MRO solution for your restaurant:
Optimize obsolete processes - For years, fleet managers relied on paper forms and invoices, complex spreadsheets, and messy whiteboards to keep track of their fleet. You might even be using these today, but each of these presents a unique set of issues. Paper processes like vehicle inspection forms take time to be hand-delivered by drivers and are susceptible to pencil-whipping and errors. Though spreadsheets hold value for certain aspects of fleet management, they can be cumbersome and inefficient when it comes to managing multiple data sets. Whiteboards are great for jotting things down and creating visual flow charts but aren't optimal for recoding and updating mass data. These outdated measures aren't nearly as effective or efficient as software and mobile applications. A dependable fleet management software is also scalable, intuitive, and delivers a return on your investment.
Tracking vehicles and equipment- One of the best ways to gain visibility across your fleet is through GPS tracking. Tracking the location of your vehicles and equipment is a great way to check that your drivers are staying on their routes and remaining productive. In real-time fleet managers can receive readings in real-time, monitor driver behavior, and receive notifications when pre-defined fault codes might be initiated. From there, you can take necessary action to address issues in real-time to avoid downtime.
Streamline maintenance workflows- Maintenance is essential to maximize the lifespan of your mobile assets and every fleet should have an understanding of how much they spend on it. With fleet management software, you can keep track of service history by line item for every mobile asset and develop reports to discover cost trends. But monitoring your fleet's maintenance expenses isn't enough. Developing and carrying out preventive maintenance schedules is also critical to keep your assets functioning. Service reminders can be configured based on the vehicle manufacturer's interval recommendations (mileage, km, or time) or your preferred period elapsed between services. Notifications can be automated so you receive them directly into your inbox at the appropriate timeframe to take action and schedule maintenance.
Control Costs- Capital limitations might restrain fleet managers, but if you know your numbers, you can still make cost-effective decisions. Trying to navigate your budget and manage expenses can be a challenge, especially with so many variables to consider. To best address this, you must identify your mobile asset’s true TCO (Total Cost of Ownership). A vehicle’s TCO is comprised of both fixed (taxes and fees, licenses or permits, loan/lease payments, insurance registration, depreciation) and variable costs (fuel, parts and labor, tolls). You can leverage the cost of your mobile assets to help determine an optimal replacement strategy and get the most out of your investment.
Automate data entry and reporting- With so many functions to manage, spending your days entering data is a poor use of your precious time. It's probably not possible to fully automate every piece of data you need, but with a No-Code-based fleet management software, you can come close. Automation based on pre-set triggers or integrations can instantly pull in data and how software can automatically calculate expenses to determine ownership costs on a per-vehicle basis. Reporting is another important feature to consider. Once you've collected your data, you need a solution to organize and visualize your metrics in a concise and digestible manner. Configurable reports aggregate all of your metrics, making it easier to analyze and share those conclusions with other stakeholders.
Improve communication to avoid bottlenecks- The ongoing pandemic has brought remote work to the forefront. Many fleet managers have had to adjust to working from home, which might be a challenge for some given the lack of tools to manage operations. Communication becomes extremely critical given your team is dispersed throughout the day and some oversee a fleet across multiple locations. You must provide means for your drivers to communicate issues with you in the most efficient manner. Digital applications on mobile provide a means to manage your fleet from anywhere while empowering your team to upload information instantaneously.
Regulatory compliances- There should be a well-defined structure and processes to which your team should strictly adhere. This would not just help improve performance, but also make it easier for you to comply with regulatory issues. When it comes to inspections, consider building electronic driver vehicle inspection forms on the No-Code platform itself. Additionally, you can track and review vehicle inspections and require details like pictures to help identify issues. This allows you to identify issues immediately and take the necessary action to resolve the problem.
QuickReach No-Code MRO: A custom approach to overcome fleet maintenance challenges
Whether you are a transportation company looking to survive the onslaught of the pandemic or looking for digital transformation to scale your business, having a No-Code MRO solution like QuickReach might help you build applications that are custom to your requirements at a fraction of the cost.
By using QuickReach Platform’s No-Code MRO Suite for Fleet Maintenance, you would have pre-built templates which you can customize using a simple drag-and-drop interface. Additionally, you would be able to build other support applications which would complement the suite of existing maintenance modules such as work management, inventory management, preventive maintenance, purchase requisition, and more. Couple this with process automation and integration allows streamlining repetitive activities and the ability to connect easily with third-party applications via built-in recipes or direct integration.
Connect with one of our customer success team HERE for a demo to gain a deeper understanding of how QuickReach's No-Code MRO solution would be ideal for your transportation company and take your first steps towards building a digitally connected business.
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