Down And Dirty
NormNet was included in the wrap to last month’s column and I have had an opportunity to look deeper into the topic of condition-based maintenance and prognostics and the potential savings from the technology. And at the same time, I’ve been talking to some supplier folks who are equally excited by the implications of the technology in terms of being able to manage inevitable prob- lems. The technology is never going to stop stuff from happening, but it does make it manageable and less crippling to the organization. And what has been really interesting has been putting downtime in perspective at the recent Technology and Maintenance Council spring meeting by asking fleets just what does downtime cost? That question turns out to be akin to the “How long is a piece of string?” It depends, said Brent Hilton, director of maintenance for Maverick Trans- portation, a flatbed carrier from Little Rock, Ark. All kinds of factors play into the equation. “We slice and dice it every which way,” said Hilton, effectively dodg- ing the answer but at the same time, say- ing that the number thrown out during a Mack/Volvo press conference of $60 an hour as being way too low. That press conference was to announce MVASIST, a new offering from the service people at both North American nameplates of the Volvo AB Corp. This new program, developed on a Decisiv software platform,
makes it possible to really drill down in the often acrimonious and confrontational dealer/customer experience when a downed truck goes into a truck dealership. MVASIST seeks to find what went wrong as so often things do. Basically, what the program does is put all the communications into e-mail, so there can be no doubt about who promised or agreed to what. Then it assembles all the elements of a transac- tion into the same place where all parties can review their obligations. One of the huge benefits here is there are no misun- derstandings going into a repair. As Volvo’s service guru Bill Dawson said at the MVASIST launch, negotiations — price, repair time, additional work and so on — can be negotiated before the job begins, not when the dealer invoice arrives and the fleet is trying to get the truck out of the dealership. Under the Decisiv-based system, dealer estimate, fleet PO and final invoice all agree. And so does the check from the fleet. And it can take hours out of the repair process as many of the responses are either auto- mated or dealt with promptly vie e-mails and Blackberries. Those hours are valuable. Mack/Volvo say $60. I asked around. Kevin Tomlinson, director of maintenance, South Shore Transportation and TMC Study Group chairman – Vehicle Electronics, said his estimate for downtime would be $65 per hour. Steph Sabo, maintenance manager, Norrenberns Truck Service and immediate past chairman, said they didn’t have a spe- cific number for downtime except when a vehicle is involved in a crash. As part of the insurance claim, they enter a value of $150 per hour the truck is not available for serv- ice. Marty Fletcher, now a consultant but for years the go-to guru at TMC when he was vice president of Maintenance for US Xpress, said that US Xpress charges $600 STREETSMARTS IS A MONTHLY COLUMN DEVOTED TO THE ON-HIGHWAY TRUCKING INDUSTRY. STEVESTURGESS IS EXECUTIVE EDITOR OF HEAVYDUTYTRUCKING. HIS E-MAIL ADDRESS IS SSTURGESS@TRUCKINGINFO.COM
