When owning, operating and leasing hundreds of thousands of trucks nationwide, keeping your fleet on the road and running smoothly is paramount to success.
Traditionally, trucking companies have worked on fleet maintenance using two methods of oil changes every 5,000 miles, based on odometer readings or after performance failures. In both cases, maintenance is often too slow, costing the company's revenue and customer costs.
This is where artificial intelligence can help. By using AI to collect and analyze data from different systems on the truck, businesses can track performance in real time, gain insights when parts or systems need repairs, and get ahead of revenue-raising disruptions.
Penske Truck Lease, which operates a fleet of approximately 433,000 free lease vehicles, has achieved success with this AI-supported approach to maintenance.
“The best option for us to handle maintenance is to do it on a preventative basis before things get into trouble,” Tim Haynes, Vice President of Digital and Customer Data at Penske, told Business Insider. “This keeps the truck on the road and that's our goal for everyone involved.”
Data-driven decisions
Penske's truck maintenance system is called Fleet Insight. It is equipped with telematics devices, or iPhone-sized hardware that collects data and sends it to Penske headquarters via cellular networks, and Penske's proprietary AI called Catalyst, which analyzes real-time data from over 200,000 trucks.
Certain tracks are equipped with several telematic devices, depending on the age and the typical terrain you encounter. Over the course of the route, devices on the truck's wiring harness can collect and record thousands of data points regarding engine performance and temperature, fuel economy and braking incidents.
When this data is sent to Penske's headquarters, the AI engine sifts it over an abnormality that suggests that the maintenance check is delayed. With this technology, Penske plans to collect 300 million data points every day, and more than 100 billion data points this year, Haynes said.
The information is uploaded to Penske's server, and the AI engine looks at the data points and looks for patterns that suggest a major maintenance issue is imminent. The AI engine then warns the fleet manager, who warns other humans on the field, Haynes said. Together, the group is expected to understand how to solve potential problems.
“The goal is to see maintenance issues before they become more serious,” Haynes said.
Helping customers lease to keep costs down
Penske uses these devices to help local trucking companies leasing their vehicles. Haynes, for example, said Pensuke could call a local trucking company and suggest maintenance for a particular truck based on its proximity to the nearest Pensuke shop of the vehicle.
Darigord, one of the clients of Pensuke, a dairy cooperative in the Pacific Northwest, leased 111 tractors and 184 trailers from Pensuke, using Fleet Insight Technology.
Brian Harper, leader of Darigold's fleet operations, said the co-op uses Pensuke's system almost daily and checks its leasing fleet for things like tires and hoses.
Once Darigold employees identify problem tractors, they can use Penske's AI to understand the cost of tractor stopping.
He added that Penske is providing benchmark data that will inform you of how Darigold manages fuel across the fleet. For example, if Darigold sets a fuel utilization target of 6.2 mpg and the Penske system shows that industry comparisons are 7 mpg, Darigold can investigate the reasons behind the unperformance and identify fixes to improve fuel efficiency.
“It will create new dynamic ways to benchmark fleet performance, unearth new ways to improve efficiency, and arm you with insights to make more confident decisions,” Harper told BI. “These tools have completely changed the way we manage and monitor our fleet.”
Another Penske client, Honeyville, uses Penske's Catalyst AI to monitor lease maintenance issues to transport bulk grains across the country.
Marcasa Ahlstrom, corporate transport manager at Honeyville, said he previously manually sifted through performance and fuel efficiency data.
“Since we started using Catalyst AI, we've improved response times to problems so that our efficiency goals can be reached faster,” Ahlstrom wrote in a recent email to BI. “Catalyst AI allows you to dial down to preventive fleet maintenance routines, which helps you maintain fleet performance and identify potential issues before they become costly issues.”
Haynes said the data points Penske offers AI technology represent a widespread change in the industry to leverage data to make better decisions and plan for the future.
“As vehicles change and technology change, we can now gather a lot of data, apply our expertise to this and see that we are ahead of the issues that may arise,” he said. “It's a powerful way to get closer to future maintenance issues.”
