Digitising your restoration fleet’s data in a cloud-based management software allows you to avoid downtime, automate workflows and monitor expenses. By leveraging a centralised system, you can maximise visibility into asset health by receiving real-time updates from drivers via a mobile app.

Because you don’t have room for vehicle downtime in your schedule, it is imperative to effectively manage fleet maintenance and ensure all vehicles are in good condition before leaving for a job.

Our inevitable  tips to enhance your cleaning or restoration fleet’s preventive maintenance strategy.

1. Leveraging Electronic Vehicle Inspection Results

Monitoring fleet health can be a challenge when your vehicles are constantly in use. Having your drivers conduct daily vehicle inspections allows you to monitor asset health and be informed of issues quickly no matter where your vehicles are.

Lot of restoration fleets make use of paper inspection forms, which are exasperating to drivers and ineffective for momentarily delivering results. Fleet managers may not be alerted to issues for days or weeks at a time, resulting in compounding issues and unexpected breakdowns.

Streamlining inspections and maintenance with a mobile fleet management app allows your drivers to complete simple, thorough inspections and upload results instantly. Fleet managers are immediately notified of any inspection failures to begin scheduling maintenance tasks.

Because commercial cleaning vehicles carry specialized equipment, paper inspection forms often aren’t useful for inspecting every aspect of your vehicle.

2. Standardize Preventive Maintenance Schedules

When a client has water or fire damage, it is crucial to get to them as soon as possible to start recovery efforts.

Because you and your customers can’t afford unexpected breakdowns, all of your commercial cleaning vehicles should be following a preventive maintenance schedule based on manufacturer recommendations. Adhering to a preventive maintenance schedule ensures your vehicles are routinely serviced and remain in good condition to avoid downtime and maximize lifespan.

Fleet management software automates service reminders to improve your preventive maintenance program. Service reminders are automatically sent based on odometer or usage updates from inspection results, preset OEM recommendations or telematics devices. These reminders provide you with ample time to schedule repairs around your team’s vehicle needs.

If your restoration fleet has a variety of commercial cleaning vehicles, creating and managing preventive maintenance can be time-consuming. With Loqqat, you can bulk manage maintenance tasks for multiple vehicles, enabling you to keep an organized schedule and eliminate hours of tedious data entry of schools.

3. Streamline Maintenance Work Orders 

Fleet managers spend a lot of time scheduling maintenance and tracking progress. Unfortunately, this can prove to be difficult and time-consuming if you don’t have a comprehensive view of your fleet or efficient communication channels.

Managing maintenance with jumbled paperwork and playing phone tag with shops is frustrating and doesn’t provide you with a clear view of fleet performance, expenses and shop productivity. Using a collaborative fleet management software allows you to plan, schedule and monitor maintenance tasks from anywhere.

Managers can create and manage work orders via software or a mobile app to easily communicate maintenance needs with your team and track service progress. This saves time and allows you to track repairs and expenses on a granular level to avoid surprise line items or miscommunication.

4. Monitor and Analyze Vehicle Performance

Maximizing visibility into your restoration fleet by managing all data in a single, cloud-based software provides deeper insights into vehicle performance. Having a mass amount of data at your fingertips allows you to analyze vehicle metrics like utilization, fuel performance and repair turnover to determine how efficiently your fleet is operating.

Fleet management software automatically stores a comprehensive service history for all of your vehicles. Fleet managers can view history by vehicle or across vehicle types, groups and locations to spot maintenance trends, uncover underlying patterns and make informed decisions about acquisition and disposal of vehicles.

Fleet management software also integrates with telematics providers for you to track and manage diagnostic trouble codes  and engine fault alerts.

5. Track Maintenance Expenses and TCO

With your restoration or commercial cleaning vehicles being in almost constant use, it’s easy to see how maintenance is the largest ongoing expense for restoration fleets. Closely monitoring maintenance expenses and your fleet’s total cost of ownership is essential for controlling your bottom line and maximizing a return on investment.

Accurately calculating total cost of ownership and tracking expenses can be nearly impossible if you’re using paper and spreadsheets.

6. Invest in Fleet Management Software

Investing in telematics tools and tech can help you gain a competitive edge. Management apps can notify you or your fleet inspector of things like vehicle-damaging driving and issue warnings to individual drivers automatically. This improves their driving while saving you money that would have otherwise been spent on repairs.

7. Spec vehicles properly

It’s important to be aware of the demands each vehicle will face. Take the time to figure out vehicle usage – accurately spec’d vehicles can reduce cost. Under-specifying a vehicle, deployed on  usage for instance, leads to maintenance issues down the road that could create a greater impact on your fleet budget. Apparently, utilizing an over-spec’d vehicle will drive increased cost. Work with our fleet management system when specifying replacement vehicles based on the duration of using the vehicle, operating conditions etc.

Start your trial or request a demo today.