Background
Over the years I have experienced bus fleet maintenance practices to be all over the board. Many companies have a general idea how much the maintenance department costs, but they have little understanding of why the costs are what they are. Many times, costs are calculated by taking how much money is spent for all things associated with the maintenance department and dividing that by the combined miles all vehicles have travelled over the year. Sometimes the costs are broken down by model if the company uses fleet tracking software and can extract this data, this method may be more beneficial for identifying expensive equipment, but it is still too general and can miss the bigger picture.
What & Why
I believe that it is very important to separate parts costs by labor costs associated with equipment. It is also important to dig further into the labor costs in order to associate time spent troubleshooting an issue vs. just repairing or replacing parts. Improper troubleshooting can drain a company of more money than one can imagine if it is gone unchecked. Many times, excessive diagnostic time can falsely inflate the operating costs of certain equipment. It may take a technician that is not familiar with an air conditioning system almost a whole day to find out the problem was just a $65 dollar pressure switch. Not separating the diagnostic time from repair time will hide the real problem; the technician needs better training or all too often, they don't have the right tools for the job. There have been many times that I have come across the following situations:
- We can't use the bus because we are waiting on a part. Three weeks later the part arrives, and it did not fix the problem...
- We didn't get to those other smaller repairs because we are tied up troubleshooting this bus for the last X days...
- We changed a computer, a sensor, a module, wiring harness, and now the bus is fixed (we know, all of those components could not have been bad at the same time).
These are just a few of the many different issues that are all too common in maintenance shops across the country. Fleets that operate diverse pieces of equipment from multiple manufacturers are more prone to these mistakes. Not implementing a system to track the repairs and true costs of those repairs is another common mistake that can lead to these kinds of situations. Even having a tracking system, but not using it correctly is about as good as having nothing at all.
PMI Efficiency
In my personal opinion, one of the costliest mistakes is not performing adequate and effective preventative maintenance inspections (PMI). All too often shops are using old inspection forms that apply "general" areas to check on the vehicle. Many shops still change oil at the same intervals that were used over 15 years ago, which is just a waste of resources and labor hours, with no benefit. As new equipment is added the old inspections are just assigned to them. There is no one-size-fits-all inspection out there. Just searching the internet quickly brings up many of the generic forms that are available, and most of these forms only cover the legal requirements for a basic inspection and will overlook the many different nuances of each vehicle in your fleet.
Examples From Google Search
Every vehicle make and model requires a specific and accurate checklist of items to check and when to check them. These checklists are not difficult to create and the manufacturers of each type of equipment have already done the difficult work for you if you check the maintenance manual. As a starting point one only has to massage this list into a simple check-off sheet for technicians to utilize.
Example PMI Schedule Items - Van Hool CX45
Summary
Properly auditing the vehicle repairs that are performed outside the inspection will shine a light on ineffective preventative maintenance practices. This auditing involves categorizing the repair costs correctly and using this historical data to understand flaws in training, tooling, and PMI efficiency. PMI inspections will not prevent all on the road failures, but they will certainly reduce those failures and/or reduce the severity of the failure. The good news is that resources are available to help evaluate these systems and guide you to a more efficient and cost-effective fleet. Schedule some time to better understand how Morra Fleet Solutions can help you.
Cover image source: Joe Botticelli - azcentral.com/story/news/local/phoenix/2015/01/29/elementary-school-bus-loses-rear-axle/22555527/