What fleet maintenance software has to do

General maintenance software will run a fleet badly, because a vehicle is not a chiller: it moves, it is inspected daily by somebody who is not a technician, and its record is legally inspectable. Seven requirements follow.

The seven

• •Driver inspections on a phone, with defects becoming tracked work automatically
• •Schedules on miles, engine hours and months, whichever comes first
• •Odometer and hours captured at every event, ideally from telematics
• •The full record for one vehicle producible in one click, with evidence
• •Statutory inspection and certificate expiry tracked separately from servicing
• •Parts and tyres recorded against the vehicle, with part numbers
• •Cost per mile per vehicle, without an export and a spreadsheet

The outstanding defects rule

The requirement most often missing: the next driver of a vehicle must be able to see its outstanding defects before setting off. Without it, a defect reported this morning is invisible to the person driving this afternoon, and that is a safety gap rather than an inconvenience.

Two questions for every demo

• •Show me a driver reporting a defect with a photograph, and then show me that defect appearing in the workshop and on the next driver’s screen
• •Show me the complete maintenance record for one vehicle for the last twelve months, as a document I could hand to an inspector

Those two cover most of what actually matters. A vendor who can do both quickly is worth talking to; one who needs to prepare either is telling you something.

Where fleet and facilities overlap

Organisations running both buildings and vehicles usually want one system, and that is reasonable: the same team often does both, and one record is easier than two. Just check the fleet requirements above are genuinely present rather than approximated with custom fields, because the daily inspection loop is the part that gets approximated most.