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Leeway on maintenance

Robert Lee wins the CM/Intertruck award for a thesis on servicing artic fleets. Isolate your cost centres, he argues, but remember that data on its own is worthless. Graham Mongomerie reports

A THESIS competition was announced last year as part of CM's 75th anniversary celebrations. One of the subjects covered was co-sponsored by Intertruck Ltd and concerned the development of an articulthed fleet maintenance programme.

The general theme was to plan an effective maintenance system for such a fleet including establishing a programme based on time, mileage or a combination of the two. It was suggested that such a scheme should be adaptable to all types of normal operation of articulated goods vehicles.

The competition has been won by Robert Lee of Waltham Cross, Herts, and in this week's CM we summarise the contents of his winning entry.

Mr Lee said that the first priority for a fleet maintenance programme is that it must be legal and provide the required records. He explained that the law provides a general basis of what maintenance is required although no one document contains the full story. At present it is covered by the Goods Vehicle (Plating and Testing) Regulation 1971 and the Road Traffic Act 1972 (sections 43-59) as amended by Schedule 3 of the Transport Act 1978. The operators' licences are covered by the Transport Act 1968 (sections 60-70) and the Road Traffic Act 1974 (Schedule 4).

Any vehicle which is required to carry a Ministry plate must have regular inspections with the principal items being found in the Goods Vehicle Testers' Manual. Mr Lee stressed that not only does the work have to be carried out but that records must be kept for substantiation.

In practice the authorities are flexible in their interpretation of the requirements, according to Mr Lee, as they relate to the actual operation, be it international haulage or local distribution.

Practical considerations Before a suitable maintenance programme can be established, specific categories of vehicle need to be identified, said Mr Lee. With his particular fleet this category is the tractive unit and semi-trailer. Some form of manufacturer recommendation usually applies to the tractive unit which can provide the basis of a system, Mr Lee suggested. He said that it is usual to have a standard A-A-B where two small services are followed by one large service.

Service intervals are often in the 6,500 to 9,500 km (4,000 to 6,000 miles) range and if a vehicle is double manned it is possible for a service to be required every week. At the other end of the scale a vehicle on local shunt work might need only one service a year if the mileage criterion was adhered to, which Mr Lee claimed was an unacceptable situation.

According to Mr Lee, the trailer manufacturers seldom give direct help as to maintenance requirements and it is thus left to the operator to define his own particular needs. Usually, he said, these centre around preventive maintenance inspections (PMI), the frequency of which can be either time or mileage based.

A further requirement, in Mr Lee's opinion, is to define whether maintenance work should be carried out in-house or by an outside commercial garage although, he said, while the work can be contracted out the responsibility cannot.

Scale After the operating areas have been considered, Mr Lee suggested that the basic objectives should be looked at and also how these are to be achieved. He emphasised that the overriding factor is that the system should be legal in all circumstances al though he accepted that a simple box file and a desk diary would suffice for a very small operator. The diary could be used to show planned timebased maintenance, show dates in and out of garages and any special notes whereas the box file would contain copies of the invoices and PMI sheets.

However, for many operators, this basic approach will be insufficient, said Mr Lee, who listed other important areas in need of detailed analysis like reliability, driver appeal, component failure and fuel and oil consumption.

Mr Lee emphasised that the recording part of any maintenance system must be able to provide those in authority with the information they require and quickly. He claimed that in the course of his research for the thesis he found that little attention had been paid to this area.

One example he quoted was where in-house systems contained pages of data, which Mr Lee claimed were of little use if a speedy impression was all that was needed. Although a study of maintenance card systems currently available showed an improvement, Mr Lee suggested that these often lacked the degree of detail needed. As a fleet grows in size, th planning of the maintenance IDE comes more difficult. operator wishes to have all hi fleet off the road at the sate time or have skilled fitters wit no work to do so, to avoid a this, Mr Lee said that a need fc forward planning is require( Thus he suggested that a nee for a two part system had bee isolated: • Recording/analysis; • Forward planning.

Lastly, Mr Lee stressed that n matter what programme is a rived at, it must be cost effectiv( and he implied that, the mor detailed the system, the highE the cost of producing it in terrr of labour, materials and dal movement.

Tractive unit

The tractive unit being a moi complicated piece of machine' than the trailer, it requires more detailed checking in r, porting system. Most drivers al required to complete some fon of record to show distance tr veiled and fuel used and Mr LE said that even if this is not if case, the law demands th some records are kept by near all drivers. These provide base from which both plannir and recording can start, said I\ Lee, as the information can L transferred on to the record Ca' on a weekly basis.

Mr Lee went on to say that h research had shown that me people require the following i formation related to the vehicles: a) time/mileage of last servicE b) time/mileage of last PMI; c) any major items of expenc ture; d) any item recently replaced; e) a detailed vehicle history.

He suggested that if (a) and i are taken together, they eqL over 60 per cent of all occasio when reference is made to ma tenance cards. Thus, said I Lee, this clearly gave a need routine maintenance to viewed with time and mileage In his opinion, item (c) is m in importance as this inforn tion is used in various ways both old and new vehicles.

In newer vehicles major co ponents are not expected to f If they do, Mr Lee argued tha dicates a design fault, poor hide specification or bad drivg and that the task of a system not to determine what the oblem is but to bring it to light. He suggested that the compoTits deemed to be of major sigficance are: gearbox, clutch, gine, front and rear axle. As aid to non-technical staff, Mr e's system grouped these mponents together under an tra heading of "Major Comp." So as to provide a rapid recall; new components (areas (c)

d (d)).a colour code was introced to show the difference beeen routine replacement and Placements of special interest.

e routine sector was assigned .1 colour black with any new, arly new or reconditioned part ing given the colour green.

fhis system, admitted Mr Lee, to a certain extent open to inpretation and needs care with administration. Thus the !rice] staff completing the -ds require guidance as to Dw much of something has to new" to require a green en n Mr Lee's experience it has 3n shown that with the close operation of the technical ft a suitable conclusion can reached in most areas.

he last area he considered luired a separate colour was rk which was not paid for. Jelly this was for accident or ft items which were replaced ier the direction of an inance company and were asned the colour red.

nagement information Mr Lee's opinion, few cornlies work with no financial trol with this control norly taking the form of a budHe emphasised that it is imta nt to isolate the cost :res to help the operating ipany/division to keep within et targets.

he card system already ;ussed contains all the basic rmation . required, claimed Lee, and provides a founda of solid data to advance ler. However, there is more than that required by law so st trade-off is needed to jus it. "Data on its own is thless," he said.

le recording of component re can profitably be exled in one important area, irding to Mr Lee, namely 3.

though he accepted that lern tyres usually give good ,ice, he maintained that, n premature failure occurs prmal operation, some com

■ ation is required. Where an early inherent fault has occurred, a credit of 100 per cent is often given. Mr Lee said that this clearly shows that a high return can be achieved if care is used in keeping a track of tyres.

All this, Mr Lee considered, warrants a more detailed record of tyres than can be shown on the card. This includes details of purchase, tyre number, vehicle mileage, when fitted, etc. Mr Lee recounted his experience where one leading make of tyre had failed regularly with bead cracking. "By claiming on them a stream of cheap new tyres was obtained," he said.

Two important advantages are gained by keeping track of component failures, he said. First, manufacturers usually want to know how their products perform and are helpful if problems arise; secondly, owners want vehicles which do not require non-routine maintenance. If certain types are unreliable, Mr Lee argued, then they can be excluded from future options.

As stated earlier, most drivers are required to keep track of the amount of fuel and oil drawn each week thus allowing the consumption to be monitored. Mr Lee stressed that any deviation from normal requires investigation as it could be caused by, for example, engine malfunction or an unlawful reason.

In his experience Mr Lee has found it satisfactory to prepare a statistical summary sheet for a fleet on a monthly basis, broken down in vehicle types.

This showed vehicles on longdistance trunking and other basic data. By marking the same data on the vehicle cards, Mr Lee claimed that it is possible to detect slow trends, not always evident from one set of figures.

Secondary documentation In Mr Lee's system, the maintenance card is backed up by secondary paperwork and a filing system. Outside commercial garage invoices are straightforward, he claimed, merely requiring storage in a box file after entry on the maintenance card. However, he accepted that inhouse paperwork is greater in quantity and thus more difficult, eg: A) Vehicle history file B) Driver's defect note C) PM! sheet D) Job card Mr Lee suggested that the vehicle history file (one for each vehicle) should be used for any loose relevant records and old maintenance cards. Apart from job cards which should be held under a separate numerical cover, all PMI and defect notes should be kept in this file in date order.

In Mr Lee's opinion a similar method of controlling and recording maintenance is required for the trailer with the recording principle being a reworked unit maintenance card. Owing to the comparative lack of components, Mr Lee claimed that it is possible to have both a smaller card and provide more detail in those areas which are recorded using the same colour coding.

Servicing frequency Having established a suitable recording system, Mr Lee turned to the question of how often do items receive routine maintenance. He suggested that it is possible to plan routine work either on a time or mileage basis or a combination of both and where a vehicle undertakes similar work every day, with a known mileage, this can be transferred to a time basis.

On the principle that is is not wise to have all one's eggs in one basket, most fleets have diversified. Mr Lee claimed that the only safe way to carry out servicing is on a mileage basis, but he stressed that there is a need for a safety device for low mileage vehicles such as a service on a time period which could act as a "long stop."

The use of the PMI based on time means that no vehicle can pass longer than the standard without a check, claimed Mr Lee, so that, no matter what service is carried out, no vehicle will pass on to the road in an unsafe state.

So far as forward planning is concerned, Mr Lee said that in the case of small fleets a great deal can be achieved with the use of a desk diary which can be backed up by reference to the current mileage 'recording of vehicles and projections as to their future use.

With a larger fleet, however, this is less practical and Mr Lee put the case for visual displays where a board is divided into columns vertically one for each week.

Markings can either be permanent or temporary in the form of magnetic or ink markers. As in Mr Lee's experience few people can write in straight lines, he suggested that horizontal guide lines should be provided.

Mr Lee stressed that new entries on the board should be made before the old entry is removed. Otherwise he argued a distraction half way through an entry change can eliminate an entry from the board completely.

A great benefit of this type of visual display, said Mr Lee, is that should an entry not be moved along the board it begins to stand out, thus drawing attention to the fact that a vehicle may lapse into a dangerous state.

The amount of advance warning required for maintenance needs has a direct bearing on the accuracy of the pre advice, said Mr Lee who had found that two weeks' warning of maintenance is the maximum that still facilitates reasonable accuracy.

As the size of the fleet grows so it becomes increasingly difficult to track all the required data, and Mr Lee suggested that computers can be used for local data processing at a reasonable cost. He cited "VEHICL" marketed by International Computers Ltd as a good example which, although designed for prime movers, can be adapted to show maintenance for trailers as well.

In Mr Lee's opinion the person who can offer vehicle spares control, stock control in general, vehicle maintenance and costing and tachograph reading all in one computer will "have a winner" as he considered there is a strong latent demand for an all embracing system.

However, he admitted that until computer development moves on or large size forces an operator in that direction then a manual system along the lines of the one submitted for his thesis still offers the best solution.