Greyhound Lines

Regardless of which part of the transportation industry a company operates in, maximizing fleet reliability is typically one of the biggest factors in driving down costs and improving margins. Equipment failures are felt by nearly all aspects of an organization, from the customer experience and impacts to net promoter score (NPS), to the internal logistics and incremental expense of reclaiming downed equipment, to the fleet management team that must maintain additional units so that spares are available at a moment’s notice. Thus, the inevitable question arises, how can one sustainably improve fleet reliability? While no single answer applies to every organization, here are five key concepts that have proven to yield positive results when implemented and adhered to.

Preventive Maintenance Inspection and Service Program

This is the foundation of any reliability program and what most people might envision when considering maintaining any fleet type. While all PM programs should cover the standard scheduled maintenance services prescribed by the OEMs and any governing compliance standards, it should also include additional inspection points and services based on an operation’s specific use case, equipment and part life cycle stages, relevant seasonality impacts, and historical failure analysis. This is the single best opportunity to identify and resolve reliability concerns before an asset goes back into operation and should be a fluid program that evolves with new equipment, technology, compliance requirements and current fleet performance issues. Quality PM programs take time and resources to develop and implement but can drastically improve overall reliability metrics when performed by properly trained inspectors.

Adequate Fleet Planning & Maintenance CAPEX

While less intuitive than the PM program, having an adequate fleet plan is crucial to long-term fleet performance. Fleet plans should allow for enough equipment to run the day-to-day services, account for any necessary strategic spares, and most importantly, provide downtime to perform all PM program inspections, services, repairs, and incidental items brought up during daily operations. This is especially necessary in operations that run 24/7 as there will always be a demand for equipment. Failure to plan accordingly can lead to pressures to postpone maintenance services, which is a direct path to reduced reliability and increased downstream cost.

With larger fleets, an experienced engineering and management team is necessary as their expertise ensures the PM program and SOPs are accurate, comprehensive, and effective—a role whose importance cannot be overstated.

 Where the fleet plan defines how many assets are required to run an operation, the maintenance capex plan maintains a balance in fleet life cycle stages and facilitates the replacement of obsolete assets. Maintenance capex plans are most useful for larger fleets and strategically spread replacement costs evenly yearly. Failing to replace assets on a regular schedule can result in poor fleet performance and subsequent bulk asset replacements, which then causes “fleet bubbles”—a multi-year cyclical situation that can repeatedly overburden maintenance organizations and subsequently drive abnormal annual P&L performance and poor reliability performance. Once created, these “fleet bubbles” can be extremely difficult and costly to get out of.

 Continuing Education and Training

Technological change is ever-present and fleet technology is certainly no exception. Today's mechanics must be as adept at using diagnostic computers and understanding diagrams and system interactions as they are in making the repairs. Adequate training is often the only difference between a “part changer” that takes multiple repairs to resolve a problem, and a mechanic that properly diagnoses the issue and makes the right repair the first time. Leverage OEMs to provide on-site training, familiarization with new systems and features, and OEM resources for manuals and specifications. With a maintenance capex plan in place, it will be easier to keep up with technological changes rather than absorbing several years of enhancements. In addition, regular internal training is a great practice to review new SOPs, changes and additions to existing SOPs, and drive discussion and focus on any fleet performance trends that arise. An engaged workforce with the proper tools and training will deliver the most reliable, cost-effective fleet.

Data Analytics—Reactive or Proactive?

Fleet failure investigations and data analytics are critical in detecting emerging patterns and process deviations and can even uncover potential engineering concerns.

Reactive: Performance failures should be investigated to uncover the root cause and determine whether they were a normal break-fix part failure, a premature part failure, or poor workmanship. With this data available, PM programs can be adjusted, training can be reinforced, and premature failures can be further monitored and escalated to manufacturers to uncover potential issues during the manufacturing process.

Proactive: Machine learning algorithms can be applied to historical performance and real-time telematics data to detect emerging patterns and bring attention to rising performance issues before a failure occurs.

Data analytics is the driving force behind continual improvement, and any failure mitigated or prevented goes straight to the bottom line!

Engineering

With larger fleets, an experienced engineering and management team is necessary as their expertise ensures the PM program and SOPs are accurate, comprehensive, and effective—a role whose importance cannot be overstated. They act as liaison with OEMs when design flaws arise and coordinate resolutions to improve performance on existing fleet. They also evaluate specifications and design changes for future equipment purchases to improve fitness for use and overall reliability. Lastly, they are the subject matter experts and are instrumental in training the rest of the organization and ensuring the maintenance program is standardized across all locations.

In conclusion, while there is no “easy button” for improving fleet reliability, when an organization has a data-centric, customized PM program that well-trained mechanics performs under the guidance and mentoring of an experienced engineering function. When a fleet plan allows time for proper maintenance and a capex plan provides routine obsolete fleet replacement…well, these are time-proven concepts to create a sustainable, low-cost, reliable fleet.