CASE STUDY: BELLA LOGISTICS CORPORATION
As humans, we’re inspired to invent new solutions that solve a problem or fulfill a need.
In this case Bella Logistics, a leading FedEx ground fleet contractor for multiple FedEx locations in Virginia and North Carolina, often struggled with their own logistics issues related to maintenance of their fleet of trucks. Understanding that unforeseen downtime related to weather, collision, and even driver behavior causes downtime, unbudgeted rentals, and other challenges to meet FedEx KPIs, Adam Miller, Owner of Bella Logistics found that even routine maintenance often snuck up on him and his managers, causing disruption within his operations, personnel issues, and even distractions to him from running his business.
When Adam dug further into it to determine the real impact to his bottom line, he found that routine maintenance (or poor maintenance) was in fact the most common disruption to his operations, in this order.
- Downtime: Every day a truck is not generating revenue, Bella Logistics loses money. Enlisting a manager, or the owner himself to get in line behind retail customers at tire shops, oil changes, or brake shops with a truck, sometimes for two or more days waiting for routine service, costs them lost revenue and manpower costs that could be better deployed to managing the business.
- Tires: The most common and costly maintenance item in more ways than one.
- Downtime at tire shops
- Low tire pressure (causes rapid tire wear and poor gas mileage)
- Low quality tires cause faster than normal wear
- Lack of tire availability at the local tire shops cause excessive downtime
- Poor quality of the tire installation and related safety issues (i.e. lugnuts found not properly tightened)
- Excessive hidden tire installation fees
- Brakes: Reactive instead of proactive brake inspections. When your driver suspects a brake issue, it’s too late.
- Downtime at brake shops
- Worn break pads not reported during tire changes result in rotor damage costing 10’s of $1000’s per year.
- Wrong brake pads installed by shops are major safety concern and cause rotor and caliper damage
- Brake pads installed backwards by shops
- Caliper pins hammered in causes brakes to bind up
- Rotors installed with hammers, permanently damaging the new rotors
- Oil Changes: Due to the start/stop nature of last mile delivery trucks, increased stress on engines increases the importance of regular oil changes.
- Downtime at oil change shops
- Gas mileage is impacted by over used oil
- Engine wear occurs at an elevated rate
The solution:
From these issues, WHEEL’D was born. An onsite tire and preventive maintenance service that is designed to benefit fleet owners. What’s unique about WHEEL’D that other mobile maintenance services don’t provide is the “whole vehicle” approach we take to ensure our customers’ fleets are route-ready. From tire, oil, brake, and full walk-around inspections, our WHEEL’D territory managers get to know your fleet personally. What’s best is that when issues are found, you and/or your managers are notified immediately, by text message, with images, so that the issues can be addressed by WHEEL’D or another provider of your choice before you experience potential downtime.