Prescriptive Maintenance—A Cutting-Edge Approach to Maximizing Vehicle Uptime

+   PRESCRIPTIVE MAINTENANCE—A CUTTING-EDGE APPROACH TO MAXIMIZING VEHICLE UPTIME

Traditionally, fleet maintenance programs have been rather reactive and preventive. Parts and components on vehicles are serviced regularly in-part to increase their longevity, and they’re replaced as they wear. With the use of telematics becoming increasingly commonplace, however, fleets have started to transform their preventive maintenance programs into predictive maintenance. For example, ZF trailer connectivity provides error code alerts in real-time, and allows fleet managers to visualize and evaluate the need and urgency for maintenance.

While predictive maintenance continues to ramp up, early adopters are beginning to evolve even further with a move to prescriptive maintenance. They use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to calculate the probability and urgency of repairs, and then leverage this information through integrations into their own fleet management systems (which include further context on vehicle location, proximity to service center(s), parts availability, etc.). This helps fleets to proactively service each vehicle at the optimal time (while also enabling service centers to improve their staff scheduling and parts inventories), ultimately reducing the number of times a vehicle needs to be pulled out of operation, thereby maximizing uptime.

This technology will play an even more crucial role as ZF helps the industry achieve higher levels of vehicle autonomy. With no driver on board to monitor vehicle systems, parts, and components, the autonomous fleet of the future will share a constant flow of data with the prescriptive maintenance solutions—providing a fleet manager and the surrounding transport ecosystem with analytical knowledge and decision-making benefits.

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