If employees are the lifeblood of a business, its assets are the heart. For success, both elements must work in tandem. This might look different for each business. For example, employees using shop-owned tools and specialized machinery, or driving fleet vehicles to and from a job.
With the potential dangers involved, field service businesses follow standard safety procedures to promote their employees’ health. But what about the health of those crucial assets? Savvy business leaders understand that proactively caring for assets is not unlike visiting a doctor for a routine check-up. Regular visits keep things running correctly, catch symptoms early, and allow for new plan implementation. The same principle applies to visits by the mechanic to check on fleet vehicles. Today, we’ll discuss asset performance management and how preventive maintenance can keep costs down while increasing productivity.
Preventive maintenance is the act of proactively caring for an asset through regularly scheduled upkeep. Given that assets are one of any field service management company’s largest expenditures, it is in your best interest to keep them in peak condition.
An example might include changing the oil in a fleet vehicle every 3,000 miles or rotating the tires every 10,000 miles. It can also involve sharpening tools on a weekly or monthly basis to avoid the tool becoming dull from use.
The opposite of preventive maintenance is corrective or responsive maintenance. One must respond when breakdowns occur in real-time.
Prioritize regularly scheduled preventive maintenance to ensure the health of assets, employees, and your bottom line. Failure to do so can lead to a cascade of costly issues. This usually starts with asset breakdowns, accidents, and the downtime associated with unscheduled repairs.
For example, a technician is driving to their next job and the fleet vehicle suddenly breaks down. Now, a different technician must go instead, launching a chain of delays and rescheduled appointments. This unplanned downtime is expensive, from the repairs to the wasted billable hours and gas. but it’s harmful to your reputation.
Using that same example, it’s also possible that failing to properly maintain a fleet vehicle could harm your employee. Drivers are more likely to be injured in an accident when they’re driving vehicles with underlying problems. For example, slick tires or stuck windshield wipers are more dangerous in the rain than tires with tread and functioning wipers.
Of course, a vehicle that breaks down will also need to be repaired. That cost, compounded with lost revenue from the unexpected downtime, could significantly impact your business.
We’ve already talked about some of the cons of what can happen if you don’t proactively maintain your assets, but it’s important to mention the pros of doing so as well. The first advantage of preventive maintenance is that your assets will last longer and perform better. Of course, your employees will be more proficient and capable of completing tasks on the first try.
Preventive maintenance also reduces the prospect of an asset’s sudden failure. By spending money upfront in regular increments (money that can be budgeted and allocated appropriately)you may be able to avoid paying a large repair bill at the most inopportune time.
Perhaps the most surprising reason why a field service management company wouldn’t take part in asset performance management and preventative maintenance is that they aren’t sure how. Fortunately, a solution exists with the help of technology and field service management software that makes it easier than ever.
Our cloud-based software solution is a robust platform that is customizable. We can tailor it to your needs in four weeks or less. Included within our solution is a module for preventive maintenance.
We help you prolong the life of your assets and boost productivity by keeping unplanned downtime to a minimum. If you’re interested in seeing what we can do for you and your assets, book a free demo today.
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