Reduce Downtime with Fleet Maintenance Inventory Software

Regardless of what ‘80s movies have taught you, no vehicle is capable of traveling through time. But what if the trucks your shop works on could travel through downtime, instead?

Think about it—instead of waiting to receive out-of-stock parts and dealing with unexpected breakdowns, you’d be able to get your fleet back on the road as soon as possible.

At Fullbay, we can’t help you come out ahead in a hoverboard chase or make sure your parents fall in love. But we can provide software designed to keep your fleet up and running. With our fleet maintenance inventory management software, you’ll have no trouble getting your fleet’s downtime under control!

The Impact of Downtime on Fleets

It’s easy to see how downtime can affect heavy-duty repair shops—in fact, we’ve written a whole article on that very topic. But downtime doesn’t just impact the repair side. It also can cause problems for the fleets these shops work on.

Perhaps the most obvious effect associated with fleet downtime is lost revenue. Though exact losses will vary based on the freight a truck carries (among other factors), fleet managers can safely expect to lose hundreds of dollars each day one of their trucks is out of commission. By carefully tracking daily losses and other downtime-related stats, you can start to get a picture of how this issue truly affects fleets.

But the consequences of fleet downtime go much deeper than the bottom line. When a fleet’s drivers are paid by the mile, it won’t be long before they get irked at downtime. In extreme cases, they could end up looking for employment elsewhere.

Beyond that, a fleet’s customers will be less than satisfied when they experience delivery delays and other downtime-related issues. This could seriously damage that fleet’s reputation, making it harder to retain existing customers and take advantage of growth opportunities.

How Specialized Software Tackles Downtime

Fortunately, there are a few steps you can take to reduce your fleet’s risk of downtime, and investing in specialized software is one of them. With assistance from exceptional diesel truck repair shop software like Fullbay, your shop can benefit from capabilities like:

Preventative Maintenance Scheduling

Preventative maintenance can go a long way toward proactively noticing and attending to issues in your fleet’s trucks—issues that could contribute to breakdowns if left unchecked. Even so, when you’re juggling an entire fleet of vehicles, it can be all but impossible to keep track of each truck’s maintenance needs on your own.

Fortunately, there’s a better way: when your shop has access to the right fleet management software, you’ll get automatic alerts and reminders whenever a vehicle in your fleet is due for maintenance work. These maintenance scheduling alerts can take both a vehicle’s mileage/hours and manufacturer service recommendations into account, making it much easier for hard-working heavy-duty shop managers to prevent breakdowns.

Proactive Parts Ordering

How many times has your internal shop been forced to put a repair job on hold due to out-of-stock parts? If you said “never”…well, we honestly weren’t expecting that. Like, you’ve never once run out of the parts you needed? Wow. Way to go, we guess.

Of course, the vast majority of heavy-duty shops have run into this inventory management issue at least once or twice, even if they take cycle counting and other best practices seriously. If you’ve had experience with this problem, Fullbay can help.

With our fleet maintenance inventory management software’s accurate parts tracking capabilities, you’ll know when you’re at risk of stockouts well before they actually happen. And even if you aren’t keeping a close eye on your stock levels, Fullbay’s automated reorder reminders will bring this situation to your attention. That way, you’ll be able to make data-driven decisions while purchasing parts.

Fast Part Location

Quick: where does your shop keep its turbos?

When you have a centralized inventory system, this won’t feel like a trick question. The right software can track your inventory with ease, even if the components in your inventory are spread across multiple locations and vehicles. And the faster your shop’s techs can find parts, the sooner they’ll be able to get back to work and get those trucks back on the road, minimizing yet another common source of downtime.

Inventory tracking software also has a vital role to play in the process of protecting your inventory. If you know where your parts are at any given moment, you’ll be much less likely to experience employee theft (and much more likely to have necessary parts in stock at all times).

Detailed Repair History

If you want to protect a fleet’s trucks from downtime over the long term, you need to be able to spot recurring issues and trends that could contribute to breakdowns. The easiest way to do that is using reporting software. Among their many (many) other capabilities, these programs can give you a complete overview of a vehicle’s repair history.

Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Downtime

When you put Fullbay’s fleet maintenance inventory management software to work in your shop, your fleet’s vehicles won’t have to drive at 88 MPH to travel through downtime. Instead, our program can tell you whenever your fleet’s vehicles need repair work, help you manage parts with zero difficulty, and provide detailed information about your trucks’ repair history.

Go back to the future of heavy-duty shop management by scheduling your demo today!