The market appears to be split when it comes to the best approach to maintaining company equipment. There is no “one size fits all” method to determine if having an in-house shop for your company is advantageous.
I spoke to a variety of drivers about this, and their preference was for a company to have its own shop.
One driver believes that having your own shop is a significant time saver. The company-owned shop can prioritize which trucks need to be serviced first and can get them back on the road quicker.
The mechanics also have a little more knowledge of the vehicle history and might know some background information that third-party shops wouldn’t. This includes driving style, where the truck goes to, where it will be dispatched in the future, etc.
He also mentioned that the labor rates at the dealers can make it much more cost-effective to run your own shop.
Another driver told me that your own shop might actually enable fleets to educate drivers. If they choose to, the fleet can show the driver the impact that their driving style has on the equipment and can work with the safety team to teach the driver to operate in a more “truck-friendly” way.
Another experienced driver told me he can see the benefit of both approaches, but worries that a company shop might cut a corner or two to get the truck back on the road and earning money.
I also spoke to a few C-Suite executives about this, as I was genuinely curious about the two options, having worked for both types of companies.
The first gentleman said that he would never have his own shop. He believes that it restricts the types of equipment that you order as you then must keep inventory for every type of truck you own in stock.
For a small to medium fleet (and in a market where there is extra stock), you can order trucks from several different dealers and have them compete for your business. Staffing the shop is another obstacle for companies to overcome.
There has been lots of talk about the driver shortage, but the mechanic shortage is arguably just as bad (and in some areas, worse). If a truck must sit because there is no mechanic to work on it, you can imagine how costly that can be for a company.
An executive from a company with a shop said that being in control of your own repairs has a major impact on the bottom line. If you properly run your shop and keep accurate records of inventory, staff time/planning and warranties, you should be earning a lot more money.
You control your costs and should be able to reduce your downtime by doing everything in-house. It also leaves the door open to third-party work should you want to add more revenue.
The idea of a full-service lease was too appealing to pass up for another exec I spoke with. She said all her company-owned trucks have a full-service lease so she can accurately budget the cost of running her trucks. She also didn’t want the headache of finding space for a shop and then having to manage it in addition to a trucking company.
The last gentleman I spoke to likes having his own shop because he can see exactly what is going on with his high-priced equipment. All repairs are done to the high standard that he set, and he believes that he gets much more out of his vehicles than if he were to outsource the repairs.
The control over maintenance standards and the confidence in putting the safest vehicles on the road was his highest priority.
Success can be achieved with either model; it is up to people a lot smarter than me to determine the operational complexities and cost savings of either choice.
Factoring in the size of your fleet, what outsourcing models could fit in with your business (full-service lease, dealer network, third-party shops, on-site maintenance, etc.), if you have multiple terminals, lane activity…these are just some of the many factors to consider and they all need to be looked into as this will be a major decision for your business.
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