What to Know About Today’s Mobile Maintenance – Maintenance

Communication is the key to making the relationship with your mobile service provider work. Most fleets have some internal communication protocols for drivers to contact maintenance staff with alerts and even to submit driver vehicle inspection reports (DVIRs). Could you share those reports with mobile maintenance service providers? 

“It can be, but fleets are often reluctant to share it,” says Kortyna. “Trucks have had telematics for years and can tell you exactly what’s wrong with it, but fleets will not share that information with large service providers. Likewise, the OEs can’t share it without the customers’ permission.” 

Cox is building a system that can capture equipment condition data from customers’ trucks and the customers’ maintenance software platforms. He says that’s a tough row to hoe because of the extent of the integration involved, but it’s high on his to-do list. 

“I think we’ll have a system in place long before we’ll have a lot of customers willing to give us the data,” he laments.  

DIY Mobile Maintenance 

You can have the service provider come to you or bring your trucks to the service provider. The idea behind mobile maintenance, or outsourced maintenance, is to have the necessary work done somewhere where you don’t have hands-on access to the asset.  

Love’s and TravelCenters of America offer a broad range of maintenance and repair services, scheduled or unscheduled, at most locations nationwide.  

“T/A offers scheduled and unscheduled work in our mobile maintenance portfolio,” says Homer Hogg, vice president of operation of truck service at TravelCenters of America. “We can work with customers to support scheduled work via an API and their vehicle scheduling system. We also offer mid-trip inspections, wheel-end inspections, and many other standard services to help supplement regular preventive maintenance inspections.” 

Hogg says T/A’s in-house portal, called eShop, can be used by a customer to reduce phone calls and emails for work requests, estimates, approvals, etc.  

That means fleets can schedule specific maintenance and even inspection work en route when the opportunity arises, assuring the truck is fit and ready for its next assignment.  

Love’s offers similar flexibility through its Shop Connect View maintenance software. Fleets can see scheduled maintenance items, a full repair management platform, and warranty recovery.   

“Love’s Truck Care can provide data to interface with most maintenance software on the market today,” says Eric Daniels, vice president of truck care at Love’s.  

Love’s Truck Care offers multiple inspection services for vehicles on the road. Take tires, for example.  

“With TirePass, all tires are inspected for tread depth, wear, mismatched duals, and proper inflation in about 10 minutes at any of our locations,” Daniels says. “Lighting, mudflaps, air leaks, and more are visually inspected during the TirePass service. In addition, courtesy inspections are completed on all vehicles while service is being performed to ensure any safety concerns are brought to the fleet’s attention.” 

Embedded Techs 

Another option gaining traction with fleets is having a dealership technician on-site doing maintenance repair work. Embedded techs are trained and employed by the dealership but work at the fleet’s discretion. These techs have all the tools and training they need to service OE equipment. In some cases, they’ll even maintain an on-site parts inventory.  

“Getting to a truck fleet’s core competency, it’s delivering freight, not maintaining parts inventories,” says Victor Cummings, vice president of service operations at Rush Enterprises. “Back in my fleet days, we always ended up with many obsolete parts, which is a drain on the company’s expenses. When the dealer has their inventory, the fleet only pays for the parts they use. And the dealer can afford to manage a broader spectrum of inventory better.  

“Access to that inventory results in less downtime,” he adds. 

That same access to parts applies to the mobile service trucks as well. Mitchell Skates, Rush’s director of mobile service, says everybody wins when the customers can tell exactly what work they want and what parts they are specifying.  

“The success of those missions depends greatly on the upfront communication,” he says. “Where are we going? What are we servicing? How can we be prepared to make just one trip from a part and tooling standpoint? It won’t be perfect every time, but the more communication we have up front, the closer we can get to perfect.” 

This brings us back to Kortyna’s earlier remarks about maintenance software integration.  

“The more the service provider knows about the assets we are working on, the better we’re able to bring value to the work,” he says.  

The Value Proposition 

You know immediately that mobile service will cost more per event than doing the work in-house. That’s a stumbling block for some fleets. In other fleets, the maintenance manager might want things done a certain way. So while the inspections can be tailored, there must be a little letting go. That can be a stumbling block, too.  

Kortyna says attitudes are changing with the increased emphasis on minimizing downtime and, to a growing extent, increasing driver satisfaction. “Fleet customers are looking to smooth out those bumps in the road that can affect productivity,” he says. “Each piece of equipment we service before the driver needs it is one less the fleet manager has to worry about.”  

Cummings has also seen a change in the maintenance mindset over the years. Previously, doing the work in-house was more economical if you had the resources. But he says customers are becoming more astute, business-focused, and logistics-centric. As a result, it’s no longer simply an accounting exercise.  

“Back in my days as a shop superintendent, my primary focus was maintenance costs. I wanted to stay within my budget,” he says. “But as I got promoted and went into operations, delivery became my responsibility. So, in addition to the shop, I became much more aware of the revenue loss due to the downtime.” 

Is it more expensive to have someone else looking after the equipment you hardly ever see, or is it a good business decision?    

Outsourcing Maintenance Can Lower Your Training Spend

General or routine preventive maintenance doesn’t demand the highest technician skill levels or commensurate training. However, trucks are becoming more vertically integrated, changing the game. Does the fleet invest in OE-specific training or a farm that works out to another expert source?

“The training gets more specific by OE, and so it can get pretty extensive,” says Victor Cummings, vice president of service operations at Rush Enterprises. “Between the online training, the in-person training, and the travel time to attend the hands-on training, you’re looking at a minimum of two to three weeks per year per tech. And there’s often travel costs on top of that.”

Access to those specialized skill sets only when you need them through a mobile maintenance service leaves more money in the training budget for more “practical” skills training, such as diagnostics. In addition, spreading those training dollars around provides opportunities for a broader swatch of your workforce.

“Technicians get excited about training,” says Mitchell Scates, director of mobile service at Rush. “And training is a great retention tool.”

On the flip side, doing preventive maintenance work and minor repairs on trailers provides entry-level opportunities for junior technicians and a chance to prove themselves and show interest in more advanced repair and diagnostic work. But even those technicians are getting hard to find these days. So making heavy training investments in junior technicians can pay off, but putting a lot of money into every one of them is risky.

Having the resources from mobile service providers solves the immediate need for expertise while allowing you to be more selective in who you decide to train and foster.

“We invest heavily in our technicians in their training,” Cummings says. “If a technician wants to attend something or participate in training above and beyond their expertise, we will support that.”