Intro

Material handlers are constantly striving to increase their operations’ efficiency and meet the rising demands of warehousing and 3PL, manufacturing, and agriculture.

Your operations’ productivity hinges on the health of your equipment. If preventative maintenance or repairs are not handled properly, your risk of downtime increases. That’s why more material handlers are entrusting their equipment maintenance to an external maintenance provider.

In this post, we’ll walk you through reasons to consider outsourcing your forklift maintenance as well as how to evaluate fleet maintenance providers.

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Why Handle Forklift Maintenance In-House?

The decision to outsource your forklift preventive maintenance or keep it in-house is not always straightforward. Both outsourcing services and using an in-house technician have advantages, but the right approach will depend on your business’s unique resources and needs.

If you already have a skilled and trained mechanic on staff, they can provide numerous advantages.

• Company loyalty: As an employee, your in-house technician will have a personal investment in your company’s success. This, combined with their familiarity with the company’s needs and goals, may enable them to work hard to provide the best care for the equipment.
  
• Immediate response: If a forklift breaks down or malfunctions unexpectedly, you won’t need to make an appointment. Your in-house mechanic will be available to begin work on repairs whenever they are needed.
  
• First-hand equipment experience: An in-house service technician will be uniquely familiar with their own machines. Combined with proper training, they will have the knowledge and skill needed to resolve equipment issues and provide recommendations.

Why Outsource Forklift Fleet Maintenance?

Skilled in-house technicians are an asset for many companies. However, there are many financial and strategic reasons to outsource your equipment maintenance to qualified maintenance experts.

The Hidden Costs of In-house Maintenance

While in-house maintenance may initially seem less expensive than outsourcing, it’s important to look beyond the hourly rate. There are several direct and indirect costs of in-house maintenance that can have ramifications for your business.

1. The labor burden. Do you have the time and expenses needed to source, hire, and retain a qualified technician? During skilled labor shortages, the search for the right technician can take a while. Plus, when qualified technicians are in demand, you will need to provide competitive health insurance, vacation time, workers’ compensation, and access to up-to-date equipment.
   
2. Training expenses. Once you hire a qualified mechanic, how do you keep them trained? If you want your technician to keep up with the latest safety standards, equipment, and technology, be prepared to pay for continual training resources.
   
3. Cost of infrastructure. An in-house shop requires dedicated floor space. Moreover, to properly equip your technicians for the job, you’ll need to purchase adequate technology and diagnostic equipment including computers, software, lifts, correct cables, and specialized tools.
   
4. Parts inventory & storage overhead. To maintain an in-house shop, you’ll need to keep parts such as fluids, filters, and common wear parts in stock and establish a system to accurately track inventory usage.
   
5. Administrative time. Prepare to dedicate time and labor for proper maintenance record-keeping, scheduling, compliance documentation, and vendor management.
   
6. Unplanned downtime. The most significant cost is the time lost when a forklift breaks down. Every hour it takes a technician to troubleshoot, find and receive replacement parts, and make repairs is an hour of lost productivity. This can result in overtime, missed or delayed shipments, expedited fright, customer penalties, and even reputational damage.

Peace of Mind with Outsourced Forklift Maintenance

Outsourcing maintenance can be more cost-effective and provide your business with many strategic advantages. But one of the most valuable benefits is peace-of-mind.

Here are several benefits of outsourcing forklift maintenance that can strengthen your confidence in your forklift fleet and operations.

1. Decreased expenses and financial headaches. Outsourcing your maintenance eliminates all the overhead and personnel expenses required to run an in-house maintenance shop. Arranging a maintenance contract makes budgeting more predictable with fixed monthly payments.
   
2. Access to specialized expertise and latest technology. A certified forklift technician will already be trained and experienced with a wide range of equipment. They will be up to date with current industry practices and safety standards, and they have access to the latest diagnostic tools and repair technology — all of which will get your equipment back on the floor faster.
   
3. Ability to focus on core operations. By outsourcing your equipment maintenance, you can devote more of your time, attention, and internal resources to your business’s core operations and customer service.
   
4. Scalability. If you want to add five more trucks to your fleet, you don’t need to worry about hiring another technician to handle the increased maintenance. Instead, just adjust your service contract accordingly.
   
5. Better data for planning. A dedicated maintenance provider should keep records on your trucks’ performance, repair needs, age, and health. They should also provide you with recommendations and access to the data. With more data, you can better plan your capital needs, such as when to repair or replace a truck.
   
6. Increased safety. While an in-house technician may evaluate their own equipment with the company’s goals in mind, a third-party expert will conduct an inspection without preference. This perspective can lead to more thorough inspections and objective recommendations, which can maximize safety.
   
7. Stress-free preventative maintenance. Keep your equipment running in peak condition and extend its lifespan with preventative maintenance. Recommended service intervals will vary depending on the industry, equipment type, and operating conditions. In-house mechanics may struggle to keep up with regular maintenance, especially when facing other more pressing emergencies. However, external maintenance providers will prioritize each truck’s service and preventative maintenance as scheduled.
   
8. Maximized uptime. Experts can identify and solve issues before they escalate into major problems, leading to fewer unexpected breakdowns. If a truck does break down on the job, a dealer can provide a rental during the repair to keep your project going.
   

Finding The Right Fleet Maintenance Provider

When you’re ready to outsource your forklift maintenance services, you’ll want to place your fleet in the care of a provider you can trust.

How do you find a strong, reliable service partner? Here is a practical checklist to help you evaluate and compare different fleet maintenance providers.

• Technician expertise. What are the technicians’ qualifications? Ask about the technicians’ certifications, their experience and training across specific equipment makes and models, and how often they receive mechanical and safety training.
  
• Response time commitments. How quickly the maintenance provider promises to arrive to respond to emergencies and to provide routine services should both be specified in the Service Level Agreement (SLA).
  
• Service delivery model. Find a maintenance provider who will provide services efficiently. Those who provide on-site services, shop support for complex work, and resident technician options will cause minimal disruptions to your business.
  
• Data transparency, reporting, and access. Does the provider handle your data accurately and securely? Can they provide you with complete access to your data through an online portal? Quality maintenance providers will be able to tell you a myriad of data about your fleet, such as:
  • a detailed work history,
  • costs by asset/repair type,
  • preventative maintenance compliance tracking
  • trends/root-cause analysis, and
  • repair-vs-replace insights.
    
• Contract flexibility and pricing model. Does the fleet maintenance provider offer preventative maintenance contracts, guaranteed or fixed price forklift maintenance contracts, or a hybrid of both? How easy is it to customize or scale your plan? Make sure you know what is covered as well as how predictable your total costs will be.
  
• Value-add services. What else can a service partner offer you? Ask about telematics integration, fleet right-sizing consulting, operator training and assessments, safety audits, and single-source support across locations.
  
• Customer communication and satisfaction. How hard will the fleet provider work to make sure you have peace of mind? Your experience will be better with dedicated account management, workmanship guarantees, loaner programs, proactive updates, and methods for providing feedback.
  
• Reliable coverage. Confirm the provider’s ability to serve multi-site or growing fleets in their geographic region with consistency.