Why is fleet maintenance management software important?
No matter what industry a company belongs to, as fleet operations grow, it becomes increasingly challenging to juggle everything. While there are many different kinds of fleet maintenance and management software, all are designed to support the complete management of an asset from acquisition through its maintenance to disposal.
Watch the video or read on to find out how going paperless and digitizing the maintenance process can save you time and money.
1. Manage Parts Spend
Without the ability to track and visualize spending, many companies lack cost control. Poor cost control occurs when you overpay for parts by not selecting the lowest cost supplier and struggle to maximize inventory turns. Finally, when parts break down, if you pay for parts that are warrantable, you miss out again. When claims are handled manually, 70% of warrantable claims go unfilled. Fleet management software helps you identify cost-saving opportunities. You can use it to secure the best parts pricing from suppliers, reduce unnecessary inventory, optimize carrying costs, and improve efficiency by ensuring the right part is on hand at the right time. Plus, when you automate the warranty process, you’ll ensure that when a warrantable part breaks down, an alert automatically notifies your team. So you never miss out on warranty returns.
2. Improve Labor and Productivity
Productivity loss commonly leads to overspending on labor. The productivity on the shop floor is affected when repairs lack standardization, and inadequate workflow management extends wait times between tasks. Fleet management software improves productivity by systematizing parts to reduce wait times. And with proper task management tools, managers can minimize downtime between tasks, and assign tasks based on a technician’s skill set to ensure the right person is always working on the right job. Then, with standard repair times, managers can track productivity so they can identify losses and implement corrective measures.
3. Gain Deeper Business Insights
Without hard evidence backed by accurate data, managers cannot effectively make decisions based on the facts. A lack of predictive and preventive analytics impacts your ability to plan for the future. And, without a real-time view into operations, your management team may not see significant events as they occur. Today, 61 percent of fleets use analytics on a daily or weekly basis to track everything from vehicle location to maintenance to fuel trends. Metrics are vital. They help you to improve your operations to stay competitive in a fast-paced industry. Fleet Management software provides Key Performance Indicators and reports that notify managers as changes occur on the shop floor. Empower your team with a 360 view of day-to-day operations such as maintenance, breakdowns, vehicle depreciation, fuel use, and other metrics. At the same time, gain access to accurate lifecycle data that will enable you to improve purchasing decisions down-the-line.
4. Connect Your Business Systems
A good maintenance software talks to your other systems. In many cases, maintenance software becomes isthe backbone that connects your GPS and telematics, ERP, energy and fuel management, and more to your maintenance operations – mileage triggers preventive maintenance, which schedules a work order, cost data flows back into accounting and ERP. This increased visibility drives better resource management. A well connected network across maintenance, accounting and overall operations is mission critical to building better workflows, managing spend, and optimizing resources cross-functionally.
5. Drive ROI
Quite simply, best-of-breed maintenance software should pay for itself in it’s first year in production. Many new users of maintenance software report gaining back the cost of their software in the first year using warranty reimbursements alone. Discover how Cetaris customer Gulf Relay increased warranty reimbursement by 782% in 1 year – leading to a 153% ROI in one year in warranty reimbursements alone!
So, why is fleet maintenance management software important?
Fleet management software improves the management of your fleet on all levels. Maintenance professionals use it to optimize part and labor processes while feeding back analytics to help monitor ahead of the competition. So you can keep your business moving forward toward a better, brighter tomorrow.