How to optimize maintenance in logistics and transport?

Companies in the transport and logistics sectors are subject to severe time and material availability constraints. The maintenance of vehicles and machines and the management of the stock of spare parts therefore represent a major challenge and must be optimized for the company to remain competitive and meet the expectations of its customers. Using a next-generation CMMS is one of the main ways to optimize maintenance in logistics, transport and freight.

Improving maintenance in transport and logistics thanks to CMMS

The use of a Modern and efficient CMMS has numerous advantages to improve and optimize the maintenance of logistics and transport.

Optimizing curative and preventive maintenance of logistics and transport

By using CMMS software, transport and logistics companies can improve the curative maintenance of their equipment, vehicles or machines. All of the company's material assets can in fact be listed, and each maintenance intervention recorded in order to monitor the maintenance of each piece of equipment. In addition, communication and coordination between the different teams are much more fluid, which allows maintenance technicians to be much more responsive and significantly reduces the downtime of vehicles and other assets.

Preventive maintenance is also much more effective by using a CMMS software or application. For example, the most recent CMMS solutions allow you to set up preventive maintenance plans, in order to reduce the frequency and duration of breakdowns and unexpected downtime, which seriously disrupt the functioning of logistics flows.

Finally, the spare parts inventory management can be managed as closely as possible to needs thanks to computer-assisted maintenance management, which avoids both overstocking and the lack of parts during interventions.

Manage your spare parts stock from your mobile CMMS

Facilitate decision-making through maintenance history

By adopting a CMMS software, transport and logistics companies can have a complete history of maintenance operations for each of their equipment. This detailed history lists, for each intervention, the equipment concerned, the description and duration of the operation carried out, the technician who carried it out, and the type of maintenance to which it corresponds (curative, preventive, conditional maintenance, etc.). On some CMMS software, a label system facilitates the organization and analysis of the history.

Analyze your maintenance history in your CMMS

Thanks to this tool, traceability is significantly improved, allowing companies to optimize their maintenance processes and gain in productivity. It is a valuable aid in decision-making, for example when it comes to renewing vehicles.

Encourage the adherence of all teams

To be fully effective, any maintenance strategy requires a total involvement of all teams : maintenance technicians, but also drivers, mechanics, dispatchers, dispatchers, production operators, accountants, subcontractors, etc. This involvement is essential for the maintenance management tool used to be effective and for the information it collects to be qualitative and exhaustive.

An ergonomic and intuitive CMMS application

That is why the adoption of a ergonomic and easy to use CMMS solution is highly recommended for optimize maintenance in the logistics and transport sector. This tool must be both easy to learn and to use, but also facilitate, concretely and in practice, the work of those who use it. A CMMS application operating in a manner similar to everyday applications and flexible in use, for example by allowing the addition of all types of documents to facilitate the transmission of information, will therefore be more efficient than an archaic, complex and unintuitive computer tool.

Supply chain, innovation and industry 4.0

The current application of the latest new technologies to manufacturing, logistics and transport has given rise to the concept of the “fourth industrial revolution”, also called “industry 4.0". Technologies like automation, IoT (Internet of Things) sensors, machine learning, or artificial intelligence are transforming the way businesses produce, maintain, and distribute products and services. The supply chain is playing a central role in this revolution in production and distribution methods.

In this context, the choice of efficient IT tools that are especially adapted to current and future developments in the ways of organizing industrial and service activities is a particular challenge, especially for logistics and transport companies. Thus, the use of outdated CMMS software, which is unable to process and analyze data transmitted by IoT sensors or to use artificial intelligence resources, can quickly become a limiting factor for the improvement of the productivity and competitiveness of a company.

This is why the new generation of CMMS solutions, which fully integrate current technologies but are also designed to be able to adapt to future developments, is tending to replace traditional software in a growing number of companies, which is not in a position to meet the requirements ofIndustry 4.0.