Fleet Maintenance - 15

Examples of asset
groups for TCO
Some considerations and examples
of different lifecycle groups.
"Once good data practices
are established, data
needs to be compared
fairly between products
and applications. For
example, if a fleet has
different vehicle specs,
different routes, different cargos, different
programmable parameters, etc., data for the
different configurations
and applications needs
to be looked at separately," says Navistar's
Heavy Duty Marketing
Director, Jim Nachtman.
Navistar is the original
equipment manufacturer
for the International
brand of medium duty
and heavy duty trucks.
Jarit Cornelius, vice president, asset maintenance
and compliance for
Sharp Transport, says
tractors in his fleet will
last about four years,
or about 500,000 to
600,000 miles. Trailers will
last twice that amount.
This is why Cornelius
stresses the importance
of asset specification.
"Component specification is absolutely crucial
before signing the order
sheets," he says. "If you
know where your weak
points are, historically, as
you go into spec meetings, you know where
to focus more attention
in ensuring the right fit
for the new order."
Lee Long, director of fleet
services, Southeastern

Freight Lines, will record
information based on
the vehicle application.
His fleet has several
separate categories
for its power units:
* Sleeper units for longhaul applications.
Lee confirms these are
the highest mileage in
the shortest amount
of time. This segment
will see about 250,000
miles per year and stay
within the Southeastern
Freight Lines fleet for
about 950,000 miles, or
roughly four years. The
fleet will often specify
new technologies -
such as air disc brakes
or collision mitigation
systems - since the
vehicles are the newest
in the fleet and will see
the most mileage in the
shortest amount of time.
* Day cabs for line-haul
applications, specifically spoke-and-hub
operations. "Once new
technologies are 'vetted' out by our sleeper
teams, we roll that technology into these units.
This provides a second
level of testing due to the
fewer miles traveled on
the interstates and more
stopping and starting
due to the dual role of
these units," says Lee.
He says these vehicles
put on about 140,000
miles per year and will
stay in the fleet about
six to seven years.

been with the fleet, and vehicle component
performance, such as braking systems, liftgates, engines, etc.
From there, Rosa says Penske will review
vehicle groups that have similar functions
or properties and compare one variable.
"We then get into metrics on the
performance by OEM, the performance
by a model from an OEM and then we
compare that," Rosa says. "Now you
get into brand A's tractor versus brand

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* Pick-up and delivery
units. These units
last the longest in the
fleet, driving about
35,000 miles per year
for a total of 12 years.
"These units are typically the last to see
technology introductions," confirms Long.
Long says that
Southeastern Freight
Lines just recently
added a final mile units
segment to its list of
power units as well.
"We utilize our maintenance system to provide
modeling for various
mileage bands of the
units aforementioned
and then determine
what repairs have been
completed to these units
to decide if we will repair
or eliminate the unit from
the fleet," Long adds.
Trailers - particularly dry
vans - inherently last
longer because there
are fewer moving parts.
There is no powertrain
to worry about, and minimal fluids. Penske Truck
Leasing's Senior Vice
President of Procurement
and Fleet Planning Paul
Rosa estimates, on average, tractors will cycle out
every four to seven years,
while trailers will remain
in a fleet about 10 to 15
years. Refrigerated trailers, or reefers, will have
a shorter cycle, since the
refrigerated unit will have
more wear and tear.

B's tractor in a similar application,
going a certain number of miles; you
start to have a lot of comparative data
that you can ... [collect] over many,
many years. You can really develop a
model that helps [to guide you] in your
TCO decisions."
In other words, to figure out the full
TCO, Penske evaluates the lifecycle of
different systems or components, dependent on their application, and can make

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Fleet Maintenance

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fleet Maintenance
