Lift Truck Equipment: Shift Toward Maintenance

Lift Truck - Fleet Management

For much of their history, lift trucks were managed and maintained in-house, with minimal post-sale assistance from dealers.

Now that many lift truck users have entered into maintenance agreements with dealers, equipment users no longer have to oversee the minutiae of fleet maintenance.

By the same token, dealers and service providers are now challenged to efficiently manage services and parts supplies to ensure the uptime their clients demand.

As original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) develop fleet management solutions, dealers and service providers also leverage many of the same technologies, reporting metrics and inventory management tools.

Parts supply chain management can be complex, but according to the industry experts, the best service providers should focus on the following goals:

• improve the accuracy of their storerooms’ parts;
• remove obsolete parts;
• increase fill rates; and
• use scheduled maintenance programs and OEM fleet management programs.

A portal to productivity

To assist their customers as they monitor their inventories, some dealers offer technology that not only tracks the usage of parts by technician, but also provides customers access to a Web portal, particularly if they have larger inventories to observe. From the portal, customers can also develop usage and inventory reports to identify trends and evaluate the performance of the service provider.

“Technology, such as data gathering systems and connected devices, further enhances the value of OEM fleet management,” says Tracy Minto, director of parts sales for Yale Materials Handling Corp. “For example, telemetry allows dealers to schedule period maintenance around actual equipment usage. Before that, they’d make assumptions based on average use figures.”

The online portals are especially useful for customers who have their own service departments, and are interested in acquiring more influence over their budgets and parts inventories, as well as more visibility to their parts spend, Minto adds.

“The portal provides a self-service tool that gives customers the ability to look up parts online, view manuals, and check availability and query pricing from any location,” says Minto. “A centralized portal to manage parts procurement also enables consistent pricing, consolidated purchasing and the ability to track annual parts spend. Ultimately, the effect is improved visibility and predictability for parts budgeting.”

Related: Lift Truck Data Helps to Shape Power Consumption Options

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