Answer:

There are indeed metallurgical differences between steel and aluminum wheels. Both may be affected by adverse operating environments and corrosive chemicals, however, both aluminum and steel wheels will perform acceptably when properly maintained. In addition there are coating options when specifying wheels and other accessories which may help prevent corrosion issues. Consultation with your wheel manufacturer is recommended.

Answer:

Thanks for the questions David. All OEM programs offered are compatible to run from a laptop or desk top. Snap-on supplies Nexus hook-ups for Detroit engines which also works with their V-Cad hook-ups for Volvo, Cummins supplies Insight hook-ups for your Cummins engines. I always worked directly with my truck, engine, reefer and brake supplier OEM representatives to receive my options. If reps. are not available in your area I recommend visiting the OEM web sites and requesting information on what is available from them as this is always changing. Also, enquire with the tool suppliers such as Snap-On as they will also supply what you need...or some of it. Hope this helps.

Answer:

Thanks for the question George. Before you start deciding if you need a larger shop or more technicians to handle the existing work load you first need to make sure of a few things. Are the staff, number of bays, hours of operation being utilized to full capacity and efficiently? Here is how I set up my last shop I managed which was a very busy Paclease shop. We sold more hours and had a much lesser job return percentage in a 9 bay shop than our big sister Kenworth shop across the road which had 18 bays. Take a look how we did it and hope you can use it.

1.SET UP SHOP FOR EFFICIENCY. If you do both truck and trailer repairs have designated bays for each if space allows. Shop tools should be in a well marked designated area for quick easy access for the technicians. You should also have separate shop tool areas for trucks and for trailers. A technician can eat up a lot of valuable time running around the shop looking for tools.

2. For each shift I had 1 shop foreman running the floor and two working lead hands who were available to answer your technician's questions and quickly get him/her back to work if the foreman was busy with a customer or another tech and could not help. A technician standing around needing direction can also eat up a lot of time. The shop foreman was trained to perform my job and the lead hands were trained to perform the shop foreman's job. If I was away or the foreman then these trained staff just moved up a position so operations continue to run smoothly if someone was away or busy. Tell ya...was real nice coming back to a clean desk from holidays.

3. The shop work order stayed with the shop foreman and he was the only one authorized to have any technicians punched into it. Shop work orders can really run wild and cost a lot of wasted hours that should actually have been charged to a job.

4.When a technician has completed a job he handed off the work order to the shop foreman and started cleaning and putting away his tools, cleaning the bay of cores and garbage but, never touched a broom. The shop foreman inspected the job to ensure it was completed to company standards and that ALL parts related to the job were on the work order to be billed out. You ever here the saying "you can ask 10 technicians to do the same job and when each completed...may be done so 10 different ways." This is very evident when troubleshooting tasks are performed. A technician is utilized for      his/her skills. The level of standard and job procedures should be set by the company so that no surprises arise. If the above is followed less free parts go out the door, less completed jobs come back and less hours spent cleaning dirty tools and the bays being put on the shop work order. These hours should be billed to the job. Notice I said "less"? Human beings will make mistakes. If policies and procedures are put in place to  minimize mistakes, your pulling less hair out and utilizing your shop better.

5. The shop foreman then signed off on the work order meaning he was happy with everything he saw on the job. He then went and punched the technician out of the completed job and into his next job. By then the technician's tools were ready to go again, cores, etc were put where they belong and he   is now ready for his next job and receives the new work order. It happens so often where the tech brings the finished job outside still punched into that job and the next truck won't start to bring into the shop. At this point the tech should have been punched into the work order for the no start truck as the customer should pay to get his truck started to bring into the shop for repair.

While the bay is empty waiting for the next job my "shop kid" swept out the floor and emptied garbage.

6. Your goal is to have every hour for each bay billed out during the hours you are open for business. Dead jobs waiting for parts, etc for more than a  couple of hours or more should be moved outside if possible and you can measure this one. The bay is for selling hours and parts and not for storage. I ran day shift and an afternoon shift and had a 15 minute overlap between the 2 shifts so the day tech can explain things to the afternnon tech who was taking over his job. I found anyone working past 11:00 pm became none efficient especially when outside parts required at these times were hard to get.

7. A lot of my customers were repetitious "fleet" customers so I also had 5 mobile service cube vans fully equipped working right in the customer's yards working two shifts also. I just added another 10 bays to my shop without moving to a bigger building. The service trucks also sent a lot of bigger jobs to the shop...great sales tool.

I hope the above information was some help for you and I am very happy to hear you are very busy during these tough times George.

Answer:

This question would be best handled by a human resources department. However, I do know that with the economic downturn it is possible that there are many techs looking for jobs. That said, I would advertise for exactly what you are looking for or outsource your recruitment needs to a staffing agency.

When I was a maintenance manager, I would organize and set up visits to the local high schools to speak to students about the career opportunities as a heavy duty technician and how this trade has changed extensively.

I have obtained many good technicians through this process, which included supplying interested students with a job after high school and sponsoring them through their technical training while working for me. Hope this helps.

Answer:

It is our opinion that the benefits are worth the cost and here is why. Wheel alignment will affect major components of your vehicle such as steering and tires. Wheel alignments are seen as a preventative maintenance measure to ensure that the wear on the vehicle is reduced, that it tracks straight and handling is properly calibrated to the vehicle. If your alignment is out you can expect you use more fuel and greatly increase tire wear probably costing more than the alignment was worth. So save those tires and fuel.

We give the thumbs up to proper maintenance as a proactive measure to save time, money and headaches.

Answer:

We suggest that in a case like this you try a variety of programs as most offer a 30 day free trial. This is a little homework for you that should take no longer then about 2-3 hours or reading and selection of the best fit. That being said, it is very dependent on the fleet and who will be operating the program. Fleets the size of 50-100 trucks we have heard of an excel sheet being made to track a fleet or giant white boards. The two programs that have a large fleet following are Dossier and Fleetmate, so if you would like to review them based on more the 5000 fleets using them we think it might be a good fit.

Answer:

There are many variables when calculating the number of technicians required per number of trucks. The type of fleet business you are in effects this number greatly. It takes more labour hours to maintain a garbage truck compared to a highway tractor due to the added labour of the hydraulic system, which would not be performed on a highway tractor. You also have added labour to maintain the braking system on a garbage truck. This is due to the stop and go conditions compared to a highway tractor. The number of technicians required also depends on the age of your fleet. A new piece of equipment will require less labour hours, but each year the equipment ages this cost rises.

Once the maintenance expenses begin to affect your corporation's bottom line, it is time to look at replacing the equipment. Setting this benchmark again varies by the type of business you are in and the cost to replace the piece of equipment.  We believe in sitting with the corporate ownership and setting this benchmark together to avoid any unnecessary surprises.

Industry standards are normally one technician to keep 12.3 trucks on the road. My suggestion is measure the amount of overtime hours being paid out. Is unnecessary shop time being paid out?  Are present jobs being performed within industry standards?  Overtime has a very negative effect on the maintenance costs of the equipment. Simply calculating out the numbers being paid might justify hiring another technician then.  You now have a very affective measuring tool. Be sure the shop work order is not being abused. The goal is to have every hour paid to a technician billed to a piece of
equipment showing "true" hours. Lastly, a technician who takes twice as long to perform a job than industry standards can also return untrue and higher than normal maintenance expenses to a piece of equipment. Training or replacing the technician is the answer to this possible dilemma. Once you have all this in line then you can measure true required over time hours being paid out....maybe it is time to add more technicians after this is calculated.

I hope this helps my friend.

Bruce R. Boyce
Founder/CEO
Manufacturer Direct Ltd.
Toll Free: 888-567-1007
Cell: 403-988-3069
brboyce@mdltd.ca
www.mdltd.ca

Answer:

Thank you for the question

Rick

We understand that a fleet's manager approach to tire management can significantly impact the bottom line. Well run programs can save a fleet thousands of dollars, but a tracking system alone is not the answer because as I am sure you are aware a Fleet manager can get so caught up in tracking tires that “he can lose himself in it all” We believe that detecting underlying issues such as balancing, wheel alignments, heat, under inflation, over inflation and scrubbing is part of the total tracking package.  That being said, it can get very labour intensive because you need to get the proper information to combat against all the issues.

Many of today's maintenance programs offer a tire tracking software of some sort which are becoming very user friendly, but come at the cost of effectively monitoring your total pool. Investigating why your costs are what they are and getting your drivers to do the Pre and Post's are also vital. I would suggest speaking with you tire supplier and see what they offer or have on hand.  In our opinion this is a decision that must be made by the individual fleet manager and his needs, but I have heard good things about www.tire-track.com as it integrates easily to most fleet software.

Hope this helps

Answer:

Q: What has the OEM engine Mfgr. offered the user to ease the DPF regeneration process on pre 2010 HD trucks? Any other help with this major maintenance cost??Also TRU reefer units entering Calif. after 12/31/09,with emissions compliance??

A:Hello Al

This is a complex question that has many in the industry panicking as most budgets overlooked the major costs associated with the DPF technology needing to be replaced or cleaned. Currently many of the OEM's are realizing that fleets need to be proactive with their DPF filter program because of the high costs and unexpected expenses that will be put on a fleet from being reactive. That being said some of the OEM's are offering exchange programs to lower their customers costs as having scheduled downtime is a lot better than having unscheduled downtime which is the real reason fleet managers lose their hair. Another issue is the fact that even after a new or cleaned DPF filter is ready to be installed back on the truck it still needs to be reset. Finally the last issue is the DPF filters getting cleaned properly? The knowledge on cleaning these filters properly is not widely known which makes the individuals or OEM's that do know even more important step in helping lower the costs associated with this technology.

In our opinion the best way to deal with this major cost is to speak with your dealer or OEM rep and developing a plan to service the DPF filter properly. Since the knowledge is limited on how to handle these correctly, the most efficient way to plan around this cost is for a fleet to be proactive. It is imperative that the filter is clean correctly and the reset is done to spec or you will have even more costs and down time then you would have.

In closing there was a very good article on Fleet Maintenance titled the "The Cleaning Crew" which I believe would be a great benefit to read and should answer any other questions you might have on this topic.

All the best

Answer:

Charles

With the recent California regulations on skirting and tires many fleets are scrambling to find what will work the best in fleet with the lowest cost of ownership. Luckily we have had the chance to speak with 100's of fleet's managers on the issues as well as witness first hand what has been happening in this market since 2006. The first products on the market where made of aluminum and plastic, which is still the case.  The bench mark in the industry has been wind tunnel testing, not real world which they soon learned was much different as many of the products designed where damaged, ripped off bent etc.

Fast forward to the present.  Now that the industry ran into all the issues described above, the manufacturers decided to build a skirt that bent and could take abuse. Well as they say "close but no cigar". These products still hang to low, get damaged, bent etc. They have only extended the cost of ownership with this idea. The only product/company that we know that has addressed all the issues correctly is Silver Eagle Manufacturing. These skirts are a new patented double wall technology which is made of air craft grade aluminum and sits 18 inch's higher then everyone else returning the same fuel savings. This company has been in the industry 73 years, where most have only a few years. In our opinion Silver Eagle is the best solution as everyone is sitting at the 5-6 % fuel savings.

I hope this helps