Preventative maintenance relies on proper daily checks carried out by well-trained fleet drivers as part of a good overall maintenance system: a practice that helps make transport companies, as well as other driver-dependent businesses, successful.
Regular maintenance should include basic safety checks as well as structural inspections; you should test vehicles and make sure they are free from problems that could lead to breakdown, such as cracks, obvious damage, corrosion and faulty repairs.
So, just how do you organise an effective maintenance schedule for your fleet?
Safety inspections and vehicle servicing has to be scheduled at specific intervals of time in order to prevent problems and defects—preventing downtime from becoming a major issue.
You can schedule maintenance based on:
- - time—every three months, for example
- - distance travelled—every 30,000 km, for example
- - running hours of the vehicle.
Or, a combination of the three (taking into account the recommended maintenance intervals and any tachograph data).
When choosing the intervals most suitable for your fleet vehicle maintenance schedule, consider the conditions under which your vehicles are used or work; the expected annual mileage of the vehicles; the manufacturers'recommendations for the vehicle; other factors that might increase wear and tear (climate or the type of terrain where the vehicle is driven, for example) and the age and mileage of the vehicle.
Vehicle manufacturers, often, already have specific vehicle-maintenance schedules that may vary if different models of the same vehicle are produced. Make sure you have all of these details before putting in place your overall vehicle maintenance system and finalising the decisions for your maintenance and servicing schedule.
