Fleet Management System that makes sense
Formbird FLEET’ our in house developed fleet management system is “just another Formbird app“ built on the Formbird PLATFORM. Already well on the way to managing the complete lifecycle of 1500+ fleet assets at the Bundaberg Regional Council. Council has a very diverse fleet that includes Garbage trucks, graders, whipper snippers and over 200 light vehicles.
Our lead on the project, Paul Arkell, has drawn on his background in workforce management at water utilities, to build in features that help manage complex vehicle fleets. The app has been designed to allow users to manage the complete end to end lifecycle of fleet assets. Some of the key features include comprehensive maintenance management functionality, risk-based replacement forecasting and the ability for users to manage their fleet in a paperless environment.
Development of ‘Formbird FLEET’ continues at a cracking pace. Paul has paid particular attention to preventative maintenance functionality to meet both current industry requirements and emerging requirements such as forecasting PM services due based on the consumption of fuel consumed. Taking FLEET to the next level he has borrowed from the broader field of Asset Management.
Paul Arkell said “With Formbird as the basis we are able to take well-established concepts and apply them to all asset classes, to manage ‘planned work’ based on time and consumption. Using the data to then both manage, predict and balance resource requirements.
Here’s a breakdown of the new functionality
MAINTENANCE / SERVICING PLANNING
For generating triggers for a Service:
- Create documents which describe a Service
- Attach those documents to a configurator
- Document that does all the work
- Output from Configuration – instances that triggered by a Service
Group Service ( A / B / C services) or ad-hoc services
- A – Most basic service (e.g. 10,000km service)
- B – Most basic service + additional work
- C – A Service + B Service + additional work
OUTPUT
– Create the Maintenance Plan for each vehicle in the Fleet with their Service Schedule. Will automatically generate Service Requests and Work Orders.
– Will generate the Parts ordering for those Services
PLANNING
This tool will estimate the due date of a Vehicle’s Service – it will take the earliest of the following intervals Service
- Interval Time
- Service Interval Primary Meter (e.g. hours in operation)
- Service Interval Secondary Meter
- Fuel Meter (based on Fuel imports)
Can create lead times to notify Workshop Manager of pending Services.
It also helps to predict concentrations of upcoming Services. This visibility allows the Workshop Supervisor to manually adjust (smoothing) the workload schedules.
UTILISATION
Essentially a record (based on any input in the system e.g. time or meterage) that could trigger a knowledge of where the service is up to. The system is working out averages of previous consumptions and predicting forward when the next actual Service date will come up. Even though there is a ‘lead time’, the system gives the Workshop Supervisor the opportunity to predict well ahead (based on consumption) and re-schedule a Service to avoid crushes or voids in servicing planning e.g. ‘smoothing’ the service scheduling to match staff and parts availability.
Note Well – this functionality is as applicable to Formbird FOCUS3 Users too for the Maintenance Planning for consumption-based devices!
