Table of Contents
Overview:
Get the inside story on TCW’s improved fleet maintenance strategy and technology that led to major gains in warranty reimbursement, process efficiency, and data insights.
About TCW
TCW is a leading transportation and logistics company with over 75 years of experience serving clients throughout the USA, focused on the Southeast. Founded in 1948, TCW has grown into one of the largest intermodal operations in the country. The company offers a comprehensive suite of logistics services including drayage, truckload, full-service logistics solutions, dedicated fleet services, transloading, and yard management services. As an employee-owned company since 2022, TCW prides itself on its unified team culture, disciplined focus on core strengths, and unwavering commitment to safety, service, and sustainability.
Manual Processes, Missed Warranty Reimbursements
When using their previous fleet maintenance software, TCW struggled with many time-consuming tasks that had far-ranging effects on productivity and costs. Justin Olsen, TCW’s Regional Maintenance Manager, outlined some of these challenges that impacted his work overseeing five terminals.
When it came to warranty, “The way it was setup, the person administering it had to go into every single work order,” Justin said. “It was a very tedious job.”
“The biggest problem was that it was so labor intensive,” he added. “There was no way to track (warranty).” Because of this, technicians lacked valuable information that led to missed warranty reimbursements, costing the company a significant amount annually.
An inability to sync with other business systems and processes led TCW to even more manual effort, human errors, and missed data insights.
Choosing a Trusted Fleet Maintenance Solution
It didn’t take TCW long to know that their previous fleet maintenance software wasn’t cutting it.
“It didn’t work out,” Justin explained, “And we kind of got stuck.”
Fortunately, TCW was familiar with Cetaris and knew they could work closely with the team to bring about positive solutions to their system issues. By choosing Cetaris, TCW selected a system they could trust to improve ROI, increase warranty reimbursement, and streamline labor, with powerful abilities to automate data flow across their enterprise systems.
“They came and they were hands on,” Justin said about the Cetaris implementation. “They’ve also come in other times that we’ve asked them to help with training. They’ve been there every time.”
Even with all of the data captured in Cetaris, the TCW team has been able to use the software seamlessly. “Once you start using it and learning the processes, it becomes second (nature).” said Justin.
With Cetaris, Justin’s team is accessing important data with ease to power TCW’s fleet maintenance operation. “We watch the PMs, schedules, closing the work orders, warranties, checking invoices – making sure they’re all being closed in a timely manner,” Justin added.
Remarkable Warranty Reimbursement Growth with Cetaris
Before long, TCW was seeing extensive gains in productivity and warranty reimbursements with the tracking, data, and insights available in Cetaris.
“Warranty has probably went up three times what it used to be,” said Justin. “Now with Cetaris, it flags them every time. It has completely streamlined the process for us.”
Getting into specifics, Justin highlighted that last year, “We ended up pulling about $350,000 out of warranty – about $1,100 per truck.”
Cetaris helps automate warranty processes by tracking agreements and flagging warrantable parts and labor from the work order. TCW has seen significant value from this capability, as well as the insights it can gain into failure patterns, chronic repairs, and missed warranties.
“I find (Cetaris) valuable because everything is linked to it,” Justin explained. “I can run reports off. Warranties run off of it. I mean, just everything revolves around it.”
Great Results with a Great Partner
From implementation to training and ongoing support and advice, Cetaris has been a key partner to TCW. Justin had great things to say about the Cetaris client success and support team, who have helped resolve day-to-day challenges and provide long-term strategic guidance.
“Larry’s outstanding, he’s helped me a lot,” Justin made sure to note about Cetaris’ Director of Client Success. “Any questions I have, he’s been there.”
This team and client-centric approach is a pivotal part of the Cetaris experience, allowing the company’s decades of fleet maintenance experience and expertise to help shape industry leaders and those aiming to get there.
How could Cetaris impact maintenance bottom line? Calculate your estimated warranty reimbursement increase.