The daily routine sounds boring but what job doesn’t have some routine mixed in? My compact little office is where it all happens with planning and interaction with drivers, mechanics, salesmen and bus dealers. Incoming calls and 2 way communication is normal when you have 40 or more buses running around town. The maintenance software I use is called Fleetvision and it works very well for storing information like work orders, parts shipments, equipment details, fuel usage, parts inventory control and much more.
Keeping up with preventive maintenance is not easy so having this tool on my desktop is a bonus making administrative jobs in the garage a lot more streamlined. Along with making work orders, invoicing and charging out parts the records on the database allows me to look at the history on each vehicle in the fleet. The work order history allows me to check back on a vehicle and see what repairs were made which helps with future maintenance scheduling.
The paper chase is never ending with log books and unit files. Our operation has to have a paper trail in case the hard drive crashes and for the government inspector to do audits once a year. Driver Pre-trip and Post trip slips come in every day with defects. Drivers have to fill out an inspection sheet in their log book before they leave the yard and when they get back in the evening.
You can’t beat having organized records on multiple vehicles to monitor everything that makes them tick. Fuel mileage monitoring is a very handy tool to predict fuel requirements and to help with budget planning. Fuel of course is one of the largest expenses in a fleet so it has to be looked at constantly in order to meet the budget guidelines.
Also a great website that I use on the PC is our GPS provider that gives me telematics data and location of a bus or white fleet vehicle. Telematics can read the engine control module from miles away if I’m looking for an engine code. This takes all of the pressure off guessing the issue when a bus is 10 miles out of town. The oil pressure and engine temperature gauges can also be read so I can make a decision without doubt when a bus can keep driving and come back home.
So a great tool doesn’t have to be made of metal that you can hold in your hand. It can also be software on your PC that saves time, reduces headaches and makes administration duties a snap. Thumbs up to that!
