Enterprise invests to reduce fleet downtime
Enterprise Flex-E-Rent, Enterprise’s UK commercial vehicle rental division, has invested more than £1m in new equipment to reduce commercial vehicle downtime.
The new investment in state of-the-art diagnostic and workshop equipment includes specialist tooling and direct system links to OEM partners, as well as roller brake testers and ancillary equipment maintenance such as tail-lift weight testing.
It boosts Enterprise Flex-E-Rent’s in-house workshop capability by 30% across all of its 28 depots throughout the UK.
This new investment will shift costly vehicle off-road time (VOR) away from unplanned, reactive maintenance events towards scheduled maintenance, which involves regular servicing or compliance checks such as MOTs. It will help to increase capacity across Enterprise’s 65,000 vans, trucks and specialist commercial vehicles.
It has been estimated that downtime costs UK fleet operators well over £2bn per year, and that fleet vehicles which are part of a maintenance programme are proven to experience 20% fewer unplanned downtime days.
Enterprise uses a range of metrics for VOR, including tracking the percentage of fleet off the road and key-to-key time.
James Walker, group service maintenance and repair manager at Enterprise Flex-E-Rent, said: “Managing vehicle downtime is that much harder since Covid, coupled with other macro-economic and supply chain issues. A UK-wide shortage of parts, technicians and new equipment means keeping vehicles on the road is now more challenging than ever before.
“We are adapting and investing to keep pace with customer demand at a time when rental is becoming a core strategy helping commercial operators ensure flexibility and quickly add or reduce capacity.
“We know vehicle downtime has a significant impact on our customers and our customers’ customers – so improving key-to-key time is vital. This new investment in technology enables us to improve preventative in-house maintenance, reducing costly unplanned and reactive off-road time.”
