Truckfile explains how its digital maintenance systems help workshops and fleet operators meet higher standards and say goodbye to the paperchase of traditional record-keeping.
For more than 12 years, Truckfile has been helping workshops to keep their customers compliant and manage their service information easily and efficiently. The advent of the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency’s (DVSA) Earned Recognition scheme means that, especially for fleet operators who maintain their own trucks, there’s even more good reason to get on board with the latest technology.
For vehicle servicing agents, Truckfile controls all functions of their workshop – from shift management, to allocation of jobs to individual members of staff, to tracking the progress of jobs from start to finish. Technicians can use the Truckfile app on a handheld device in place of a paper job sheet, with all records stored automatically and securely.
Track record
Intercounty Truck & Van, like all Mercedes- Benz truck dealers, has been using Truckfile for the last 10 years to maintain and store service records for all customer vehicles it looks after. Aftersales Director, Brian Patterson, commented, “Truckfile is completely integrated into our system, to the benefit of both operators and our own staff. It’s simple for the workshop technicians to use and provides a comprehensive, transparent and easily- accessible set of records for everyone who needs to see them.”
Paul Slater, Manager of Intercounty’s Boston branch, added, “Truckfile allows our technicians to use handheld devices to quickly go through the checks required whenever a vehicle comes in to the workshop. The system automatically updates to record all work done and, unlike sheets of paper which can easily be lost or damaged, those records are stored securely and indefinitely.”
For fleet managers, meanwhile, Truckfile provides absolute proof of vehicle maintenance and legality, with a history that can be traced from initial acquisition to end of working life. The system is accredited by DVSA and can equip businesses with all the tools to become exemplar operators within the Earned Recognition scheme. Among the latest customers to sign up to the benefits of Truckfile is vehicle logistics specialist Beamish Transport, of Chester- le-Street, County Durham.
Beamish runs a fleet of 50 trucks on car and caravan transporter duties. All but one are 6×2 tractors – mostly from DAF and Volvo – which work with trailers by Transporter Engineering, Rolfo and Belle. The trucks are maintained in the company’s own workshop by Service Manager Jordan Sharpe and his team of eight technicians who work across two shifts.
“We’ve been using Truckfile for just over three months now and it’s already become an indispensable part of everything we do,” said Jordan. “We decided to invest in the technology because we wanted to get on the Earned Recognition scheme. To do that we needed a reliable method of digital record-keeping that was also going to be easy to use.
“Truckfile fits the bill perfectly. Even some of our older guys, who were not used to working with computers, have taken to it really easily. The system is very intuitive to use and just makes everyone’s lives so much easier. It’s quick, clean and there’s never any worry about bits of paper going missing.”
He continued, “The customer service from the Truckfile team has been excellent too, helping to train and support our staff in the use of the system. It was very reassuring to know they were there, in our first week of using the software, to ensure there were no teething problems – but in the event everything went as smoothly as we could have hoped.”
Earned Recognition relies on operators installing a system that will monitor their compliance against a set of key performance indicators – and automatically report any exceptions directly to DVSA inspectors. Crucially, these can be viewed and in many cases addressed by the operator before the notification is sent. And because the reports can be assessed by the agency online, there’s less need to stop trucks for roadside checks.
Truckfile was formed in 2006 to create a user-friendly fleet and workshop management system for the commercial vehicle and transport sectors, and has around 200,000 individual vehicle records stored for 23,000 users.
