Predictive maintenance gives operators a new lever on route reliability

Predictive maintenance has the potential to become a route protection tool for convenience services operators. Operators that can spot vehicle issues earlier — and act before a breakdown — may gain more consistent service, less disruption and better use of existing fleet assets.

In “How predictive maintenance is driving the third wave of fleet technology,” from our sister publication FleetOwner.com, Philipp Gauss offers insights that convenience services operators can apply.

Start with practical questions:

• Who owns your vehicle data?
• How early can you detect a likely failure?
• Can you schedule a service before a breakdown affects the route?

Those are the questions the author says fleet leaders should be asking now.

Treat fleet uptime as a service issue, not just a maintenance issue (utilization and downtime pressure). For instance, a down vehicle can affect refill frequency, fresh food quality, missed stops and customer retention.

Ask whether your current vehicle telematics are providing maintenance insights or just location and driver data. Consider systems that let you correlate data across the vehicle rather than one-off point tools. Isolated devices and disconnected control units limit what fleets can do.

Read the full article here.