Fleet Maintenance - 10

UPTIME

FROM THE EDITORS

Information overload
Today's technologies provide an
overwhelming amount of data. How we
handle it determines our level of success.

By David
Brierley
Editor

@ DavidBrierleyFM

From the moment we wake up in the
morning we are bombarded with
information. More than likely, the
first thing you reach for when you
open your eyes is your smartphone.
Even if you are just checking the time,
you will see notifications you received
overnight. Maybe a text from a friend,
perhaps the latest news bulletins,
probably the weather forecast, and
most likely a few work emails.
Like it or not, the year is 2020
and this is the world we live in. We
have gone from finding information
through books and word of mouth
to having the majority of the world's
information quite literally at our
fingertips, and frankly, it can be a
little overwhelming.
The same can be said for vehicle
maintenance today. Just in the last
decade or so, the amount of information available about a vehicle has skyrocketed to
the point where it is too much for the human mind to
comprehend. When technicians connect to a vehicle's
diagnostic port, they need a scan tool to decipher the
codes to figure out what the problem is - or even what
they are looking at in the first place.
The advent of remote diagnostics has increased
the amount of information available exponentially.
Telematics systems can send a constant stream of data
about information on each vehicle: How long the engine
has been running; how fast the vehicle is currently traveling; the temperature of the coolant, or engine oil, or
transmission fluid; the status of the DPF and when it
will likely need its next regen.
All of this information and so much more can be
constantly transmitted from each truck. The amount
of data provided by just a single truck is substantial,
so if your fleet has tens or hundreds of trucks on the
road at any given time, you may see it as a complete
information overload.
The fact is, the data is here and there is a lot of it. How
fleets utilize the data determines whether it is a wasted jumble of lines of code, or a tool used to streamline
maintenance and maximize vehicle uptime.
Using data to your fleet's advantage does not have to
be difficult. There are many ways to go about organizing
the information and putting it to good use. The first
step is finding the right tool to convert the data into
usable metrics.
Whether it is an OE telematics system built in by the
vehicle manufacturer at factory or a third party telematics device retrofitted to a vehicle, telematics providers
often have a platform for viewing vehicle data in an
easy-to-understand format.

10 Fleet Maintenance | August 2020

"Vehicle data, as
overwhelming as it may seem,
can help fleets change from
a reactive and preventive
maintenance program to
one that is predictive."
Now that the data is in a format that is easier to understand, it is time to put it to work. Depending on what platform your fleet uses to host vehicle data, you should be
able to see trends over time for each vehicle and for the
fleet as a whole. These trends can be used in a number of
ways to help streamline and even predict maintenance.
Some trends may be obvious, such as a part or component
that fails at around the same mileage for each truck. In that
case, the fleet can replace the part or component during
scheduled maintenance on vehicles before they reach that
mileage in order to mitigate unscheduled downtime.
Other trends may not be as obvious, but with a software platform tracking each data point for each vehicle
over time, they will eventually emerge, and your fleet's
maintenance program can take advantage to streamline
even further.
Vehicle data, as overwhelming as it may seem, can help
fleets change from a reactive and preventive maintenance
program to one that is predictive. That should be a goal for
any fleet, considering predictive maintenance can have
an increasingly positive impact on the fleet's uptime and,
ultimately, the bottom line.

»The advent of
remote diagnostics
has exponentially
increased the
amount of
information
available.
157972555 | Inga Tomasevic
| Dreamstime

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Fleet Maintenance

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