Who’s ‘Managing’ Your Trucks?
Don’t let a 15-dollar-an-hour service writer control the destiny of your fleet.
Jim Winsor
Executive Editor
What follows is a true story. And it could just as well be happening in your fleet. Names and fleet have been eliminated in order to protect the guilty and the naive.
A regional LTL common carrier sent a tractor under warranty to its local dealer to have its speedometer recalibrated. Apparently it was inaccurate to the point that drivers complained or were getting speeding tickets.
That tractor sat for nearly two days waiting its turn (Mistake No. 1: No one followed up).
The dealer’s service writer finally called back and said they couldn’t (or wouldn’t) recalibrate it. It was an electronic speedometer (they all are now) and “he thought” the tractor would have to go to the engine dealer for recalibration (He was wrong; it needed a speedometer head or a sending unit).
No appointment was made (Mistake No. 2) and the tractor remained dormant in the engine dealer’s queue for another day before getting into the shop. There it was determined the “fix” would require a new speedometer or a sending unit (I never found out which). The tractor was returned to the truck dealer. Nobody from the dealership called the fleet and no one from the fleet called the dealership (Mistake No. 3).
The dealer’s parts department didn’t have either part in stock (not surprising). It was late in the afternoon and the parts manager said he couldn’t order what he needed in time for next-day delivery (assuming the regional parts depot had one and could have sent it for overnight delivery).
Another day lost, (Mistake No. 4) plus an argument over whether or not this was a legit warranty repair (the fleet said it was; the dealer said “we don’t know; we’ve got to call the regional service manager.”)
There was absolutely no urgency to resolve the matter or get the truck repaired and back to the fleet. And no one in fleet management got steamed up enough to raise hell (Mistake No. 5) until someone in operations realized the tractor had not been dispatched (or seen) for four days, and started asking questions.
The maintenance director and shop manager were both red-faced to say the least. Or at least they should have been.
Bottom line: That tractor produced no revenue for a full week. Had this fleet been tight on equipment, it would have been forced to rent a tractor (at least $100/day plus mileage). That could have been $700-$800 before it was all over.
So what’s wrong with this story?
Just about everything. This comedy of errors probably started with the fleet’s maintenance shop manager having no action plan. Just send the tractor on in to the dealer.
The dealer’s service writer, probably overwhelmed with work and trying to keep customers’ happy, let the “minor” speedometer issue slide. He should have known parts would be needed, checked with his parts department and given them a “heads-up” to place an order if a speedo head or sending unit wasn’t in stock.
The fleet’s director of maintenance somehow wasn’t in the communications loop (or said he wasn’t told) until operations people asked about the missing tractor days later.
Sounds to me like he allowed himself to become removed from day-to-day shop and equipment activities; maybe he was buried in his computer, crunching numbers – or whatever.
The message here is the absolute necessity for good communications – both within the fleet and with the dealer’s service manager. And at the dealership, communication between the manager, the service writer and the parts department.
Frankly, I don’t know why heads didn’t roll. Hopefully everyone learned a lesson, albeit the hard way.
There’s more to be written about fleet relationships with dealers, parts and warranties. But I’ll be visiting those subjects in a future column.
