Tired of preventive maintenance (PM) sneaking up on you and benching your valuable vehicles? If you said yes, you’re not alone. PMs end up being a headache for fleet managers across the globe. In fact, unscheduled PMs have resulted in a number of problems, such as:
- PMs become scheduled outside working hours which causes problems with confusion and completing work on time
- Items are improperly scheduled during holiday hours
- Bigger projects that span weekends do not account for closed shops or maintenance downtime
- Reduced asset and organizational efficiency while waiting for vehicle maintenance
Just take a look at the example photo below. There are three different workers trying to work on one central calendar, with at least two other open calendars, a business report, and more. This is an inefficient and messy way to go about scheduling!
So, if PMs are necessary, but also a problem, what is the solution?
The Calendar Connection
One of the most effective ways to resolve unscheduled PMs, along with several other fleet-related issues, is to invest in all-inclusive fleet management software. Ideally, your software’s Calendar functions would allow for significant client customization and accessibility. If it does, you may notice immediate improvements in PM scheduling, time management, workflow efficiency, and even ROI.
Let’s look at 7 specific reasons that this Calendar functionality is worth investing in:
Schedule PMs according to your timeline and preferences
Set up your typical weekly schedule with only the hours that the shop is available
Set holidays: You can set standard holidays, plus, you can schedule any company holidays, breaks, etc. to allow for further flexibility around your organization
Automatically scheduled items can build a reliable calendar, instead of over-scheduling items that don’t take actual hours into account
Give accurate return times for bigger ticket items, along with daily scheduled items
Keep shop/company more organized and running more smoothly with an easy-to-follow, visual-based calendar
Less confusion and frustration when trying to readjust if a holiday or other event was not taken into consideration with proper scheduling
Imagine a scenario where your technicians need to update, alter or adjust the maintenance schedules of your vehicles due to unforeseen circumstances while you are out of the office. In your current situation, what would happen? More than likely, they would submit paperwork to your office indicating the change and proceeding as such. What if they didn’t submit the paperwork? Would you, or even your entire maintenance shop, be at a loss with the unscheduled change? In addition, if the paperwork was lost in submission or filled out with errors, the information present may not even be correct! With hard-copy materials, you may be entirely out of the loop until the next time you can make it to the office.
Not a single part of that situation is very ideal. With a properly managed Calendar, your maintenance adjustments may look a bit different.
The Calendar Correction
The scenario may appear the same at the start: you are out of the office while a change to the maintenance schedule is deemed necessary. With a real-time Calendar system with built-in scheduling accountability, you can see exactly what your team is doing while you have an Internet connection. The Calendar system will restrict the changes to the hours that the shop is open and to the available technicians. Despite that, if a mistake is made, you can see and receive the updates right away and contact your team for a correction if necessary. The real-time, corrective nature of the Calendar program promotes efficiency and helps eliminate redundancy and errors. The potential benefits keep growing as you more effectively utilize the system!
AssetWorks FleetFocus fleet management software comes with a Calendar functionality with all of the benefits listed above. Through proper usage, Calendars can noticeably improve operational efficiency and asset uptime. FleetFocus also comes equipped with several other useful features, like dashboard reporting, and even integrates with the premier fuel management software, FuelFocus, among other programs!
