Fleet Maintenance - 8

UPTIME

Planning for change

Stay educated on future vehicle technologies
to help optimize the maintenance process
between preventive and predictive practices.

By Erica
Schueller
Editor-in-chief

@FM_Editor

Change is inevitable, and oftentimes it's hard. The
implementation of new technologies and processes can seem
so far ahead of current business practices, that it may seem
far-fetched to believe we'll see change anytime soon. But
somehow, slowly and all at once - change happens.
This may be attributed to the fact that we often learn
about new technologies months or years before they're
actually introduced into our everyday lives. That is because
small changes happen incrementally. Looking back, it may
seem as though change happened all of a sudden, but there
was a slow evolution from point A to point B.
One example we can look to is automated vehicle technologies. In May, the U.S. Postal Service partnered with
autonomous truck developer TuSimple to pilot SAE Level
4 autonomous trucks on U.S. roadways, routed between
Phoenix and Dallas. But, the foundation of automated
systems goes back as far as 1996 when anti-lock braking
systems were mandated on heavy duty trucks. Almost a
decade after that, electronic stability control systems were
introduced. In 2015, radar, cameras, and sensors allowed
for lane departure warning, blind spot detection, and more.
It's been a long time coming.
The same goes for any number of other vehicle technologies, such as tire monitoring and auto-inflation systems,
or telematics and vehicle tracking.
We know change is coming, so it's best to stay educated
and understand how it will impact the future of your fleet.

Inundated by data

The ability to collect and analyze the numerous data from
vehicle systems has driven much of this change - whether
it's the process of collecting data (via sensors), how to organize and analyze data (through telematics providers), or
what to do with that data (changing maintenance practices).
As fleets understand how to harness this data and translate
it into usable information, it will continue to help optimize
the entire maintenance operation.
This issue of Fleet Maintenance in particular highlights
some of the changes we continue to see: the availability and current features for computerized maintenance
management system (CMMS) software (page 10), a look
at how some fleets are using predictive maintenance
practices to optimize vehicle service (page 34), and the
increased use of sensors to collect vehicle performance
data (page 40).
Our industry is on the cusp of change - slowly but surely.
Data has continued the push to understanding the operation and requirements of a vehicle's component or system,
and has helped with predicting what may happen before
an event occurs.

Preventive versus predictive

Keep in mind that predictive maintenance can only get us so
far. There are still practices fleets will continue to maintain
to ensure the longevity of equipment, without sacrificing
downtime.

8 Fleet Maintenance | June 2019

We know change is
coming, so it is best to stay
educated and understand
how it will impact the
future of your fleet.
It is important to define the difference between preventive maintenance and predictive maintenance (sometimes
referred to as condition-based maintenance). Preventive
maintenance is viewed as a measure to minimize vehicle
downtime. Predictive maintenance, on the other hand, aims
to maximize uptime. What's the difference?
Preventive maintenance considers previous failures of
components, systems, or vehicles in order to create a model
of maintenance to prevent future vehicles from breakdowns.
Predictive maintenance relies on the analysis of vehicle
data and regular or continuous monitoring on the condition
of the system to stop that failure before it even occurs.
Fleets will continue to rely on both preventive and predictive maintenance for the foreseeable future.
"What you'll see is more of a hybrid where you're utilizing
both," says Matt Capot, vice president of maintenance at
Transervice, a logistics company. "As [processes] get finetuned a little better, maybe the predictive maintenance
percentages move up a little, but I don't think you're going
to diminish or fade out preventive maintenance."

» The U.S. Postal
Service recently
began piloting
autonomous trucks.
Photo courtesy of iStock

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Fleet Maintenance

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Fleet Maintenance