Vehicle uptime and efficiency have always been critical for commercial fleets, but this has lately become much more so.
The supply chain was put under significant strain during the outbreak because of the increased demand for transportation and delivery of supplies. New autos have been difficult to get owing to supply chain issues.
These advances have required fleets to keep their present fleet of automobiles in service for an extended period of time. It is more crucial than ever for fleet managers to keep track of the vehicle’s age and mileage.
“If you put yourself in the position of a fleet manager, they walk in every day and they have, let’s say, 100 drivers getting into trucks and they have all these goods that are packed into the back of the trucks they need to get to different points throughout the day,” says Shiva Bhardwaj, founder, and CEO of Pitstop. According to the expert, if two of the cars went down at the same time, your business’s daily operations would be utterly interrupted.
“If you put yourself in the position of a fleet manager, they walk in every day and they have, let’s say, 100 drivers getting into trucks and they have all these goods that are packed into the back of the trucks they need to get to different points throughout the day,” says Shiva Bhardwaj, founder, and CEO of Pitstop. According to the expert, if two of the cars went down at the same time, your business’s daily operations would be utterly interrupted.
Utilizing Digital Solutions
The majority of the labor has been done manually, including supervising vehicle maintenance to avoid breakdowns and calculating total cost of ownership to decide when they should be replaced.
According to Bhardwaj, pen and paper account for a substantial percentage of this industry — approximately 70 percent. “At the present, individuals undertake this type of job sparingly and manually.” As a result, it’s more of an experience-based generalization.
Fleets, on the other hand, are increasingly employing systems that provide digital tools and information. Pitstop’s cloud-based analytics platform, which also uses artificial intelligence (AI) and data from linked automobiles, allows fleet managers to detect and avoid vehicle problems.
Using the platform’s predictive analytics, fleet managers can schedule vehicle downtime for essential repairs, preventing unanticipated breakdowns.
Delivery Notification to Fleet Managers
Modern autos, according to Bhardwaj, include an average of 100 modules that use sensor data to drive switches, motors, and other equipment.
When data is broadcast to a platform like Pitstop, predictive analytics may be applied to it. The data points can be fed into prediction models that advise the user of the state of the vehicle’s subsystems and their likelihood of failure.
This information is delivered to the fleet manager via notifications that are designated as critical, major, or minor based on whether vehicles require maintenance or may encounter downtime.
The platform is powered by data from thousands of autos. For example, it may calculate the amount of energy lost through the brakes after determining how much braking a vehicle has done while pulling a specific weight. The rate of brake wear on other comparable vehicles may then be compared.
Although automotive original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) provide service schedules based on time and mileage, a vehicle’s needs may vary depending on how it is used.
“Everyone uses these resources in various ways.” According to Bhardwaj, they would dress differently as a result.
Calculating the Total Cost of Ownership
This data may also be used to evaluate a vehicle’s performance by looking at its fuel and maintenance costs. Thanks to AI insights, the fleet manager may assess the total cost of ownership for the automobiles.
Because it understands the condition of every system on a vehicle, the platform may provide insights that aid fleet management in determining which cars to pull off the road for repair and which vehicles to remove from their fleet because their expenditures are growing.
So you tell them, “Here are three automobiles we need to take care of,” Bhardwaj explained. The other automobiles are constantly watched and studied, and if an issue emerges, it will be highlighted so you may take necessary action. As a consequence, rather than worrying about the future, you may focus entirely on the few items that are genuinely at risk.
