Top 5 Tips for the Ideal Fleet Shop – If you’re a fleet manager, you may have your own opinions about what the ideal maintenance shop looks like to you. Some of the top common goals may be safer and more ergonomic working conditions for employees, improved productivity with lower costs, and increased focus on green initiatives. How you accomplish all these things will vary by fleet and fleet shop manager.
Check out these top five tips for the ideal fleet shop.
- Establish a physical layout that will best fit your fleet’s needs: Make sure it’s wide enough and long enough, with plenty of space for operation, storage, etc. You may have been so focused in the past on fitting your trucks and tools into your shops that you forgot about adding space for vehicle maneuvering, storage and technician work areas.
- Add plenty of lighting, both artificial and natural: Adding overhead, ambient and task lighting is critical, as is letting in as much natural light as you can through the ceiling (think skylights). It’s also a good idea to paint the walls white to brighten up the interior.
- Maximize productivity: When you think in terms of productivity = money, the goal becomes clear. In fact, assume your technicians’ time costs you a dollar per minute. This is why you should design everything in your shop to accommodate efficiency. For example, you can build work benches between bay doors featuring a vise grip or grinder. Stock them with all the tools the technicians will need on a typical day so that they don’t spend a half hour searching for the tool they need or an adequate work space.
- Keep it clean: A tidy shop will improve productivity and safety. Paint the floor a bright color, and keep each bay stocked with brooms, mops and shovels. Reduce slips and falls by frequently cleaning the floors.
- Incorporate technology: Nearly paperless environments can increase efficiency and reduce the risk of human error. Equip your shop with the state of the art computer systems your technicians need to diagnose and repair trucks, with real-time access to information. Add electronic workstations in each work area that provide easy access to repair orders and vehicle histories. Wi-fi enabled laptops and hand-held diagnostic tools are also good to have, depending on the extent of your budget.
Rest assured, Taylor Oil incorporates efficient, safe and technologically advanced fleet shops to keep our oil trucks operating properly and making deliveries on time. As a result, we can get our trucks to your job site quickly to fill all of your equipment, tanks and vehicles. Request Fuel today.