Penske Truck Leasing has implemented fully digital and voice-directed truck fleet preventive maintenance (PM) processes for its fleet of more than 266,000 vehicles. The firm’s digital PM approach improves accuracy and consistency while reducing and eliminating paperwork, and ensuring documentation and compliance with regulations.
“Our approach uniquely positions Penske to care for and maintain the increasingly complex vehicles on the market today, and the emerging vehicle technologies that will be part of the trucking industry in only a few years,” said Gregg Mangione, senior vice-president of maintenance at Penske Truck Leasing. “We’re putting the technology our technicians need to work smarter and faster right at the point of repair to keep our customers and their businesses moving forward.”
The system in use across Penske’s network of truck fleet maintenance facilities in North America taps into a robust, high-speed Aruba indoor and outdoor gigabit Wi-Fi network; uses rugged mobile tablet devices for maintenance technicians; and supplements this with a voice-directed preventive maintenance system.
Penske Truck Leasing, Honeywell Safety and Productivity Solutions, and Vitech collaborated on the design of a voice-directed PM system that leverages a fully customized version of Honeywell’s Voice Maintenance & Inspection (M&I) solution. Vitech supported Penske’s project team as it implemented the solution for hundreds of locations and thousands of users. Vitech continues to support the solution and provide enhancements.
“We were first introduced to Penske through their logistics business unit in 2012, where we implemented voice to support their picking procedures,” said Gary Oldham, vice-president of sales for Vitech Business Group. “They experienced tremendous benefits early on and expressed a desire to explore using the technology for preventive maintenance. Penske’s foresight and intuition regarding the use of voice-directed technology in their maintenance operations have enabled them to take a leadership position in the industry.”
The system provides voice prompts via a headset to direct maintenance technicians through a PM inspection. It is the foundation of Penske’s proprietary PM process, providing the ability to tailor inspections to the specific vehicle, its age, specifications and technologies now and in the future.
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