6 Reasons Why ReachOut Is The Perfect Software For Heavy Equipment Repair

Heavy Equipment Repair Made Easy With ReachOut!

Heavy equipment and machinery are crucial industry assets, and their maintenance is costly and challenging. Consequently, the business stakes associated with heavy equipment are high, and as such, even a minor downtime can cause significant losses. In addition, heavy equipment repair requires special skills compared to maintaining regular equipment. Therefore, field service businesses entrusted with heavy equipment maintenance have to be always on their toes.

ReachOut heavy equipment maintenance software makes the job easy for you. Here are the key strategies to keep heavy equipment in prime working condition and how ReachOut helps accomplish the goal seamlessly.

1. Ensure Regular Servicing

Most commercial equipment undergoes shock, vibration, or collision owing to misuse by the operator. At times, the business uses heavy equipment extensively without a break to meet business targets. Regular servicing mitigates the ill effects of such actions and keeps the machinery in prime condition. Preventive maintenance minimizes downtime, improves the reliability of the equipment, and reduces machinery repair bills by about 25%. As a result, the life span of the equipment increases.

Routine heavy equipment maintenance entails lubricating moving parts, changing filters, tightening joints and fasteners, and ensuring proper alignment. It also includes regular washing and cleaning. Such efforts preempt mechanical failures, mitigate the effects of improper handling, and reduce wear and tear.

Systematic inspections and performance testing identify worn-out parts. It also unearths other deviations from the ideal conditions.

ReachOut heavy equipment maintenance software makes site inspections and audits easy. The app:

Inspection forms and checklists: ReachOut offers inspectors customizable digital forms for audits and inspections. Customized checklists make it easy to ensure the execution of all maintenance work. Inspectors may capture audio, video, and images using digital forms, and the application auto-populates the data into reports.
Automated report generation: ReachOut auto-generates reports that are tailored to the recipient’s preferences. Such reports make it easy for supervisors to track performance and top managers to decide strategy. It also automates filing compliance reports.
Stylized forms: ReachOut allows field agents to create a digital version of their existing paper-based forms. They get all the benefits of going digital without having to go through a learning curve.

2. Undertake Preventive Maintenance

Tracking equipment performance reduces the chance of intermittent failure or breakdowns due to the sudden debacle of parts.

IoT-powered sensors, connected to ReachOut heavy equipment maintenance software, track vital parameters such as low fuel and parts operating outside the desired range. Such alerts are early warning signs of imminent breakdown. Thus, ReachOut allows maintenance teams to undertake preventive maintenance before the breakdown occurs.

ReachOut heavy equipment maintenance software makes work order management seamless.

On receiving a work order, the software decides the priority and assigns it to a qualified technician.
Despatches offer the best route to the destination.
Tracking capabilities allow customers and supervisors to see technician movement in real-time and get accurate ETA.
Automated geofencing capability, custom reports, and instant invoice generation capabilities ease the administrative work connected with heavy equipment repair.
Technicians may focus their full energies on the repair task.

3. Be Prepared For Emergency Repairs

Despite the best of precautions, at times, equipment does break down. Heavy equipment may suffer intermittent failure due to the sudden collapse of parts. Software malfunction, extreme temperatures, electricity spikes or overload, and several other reasons cause unexpected breakdowns. Unplanned downtime of heavy equipment leads to significant losses.

ReachOut enables the field service team to attend to emergency repairs immediately.

Intelligent scheduling capabilities allow supervisors and admins to assign work orders based on priority and urgency levels.
The software reassigns the nearest qualified technician to rush to the emergency work site on triggering an emergency.
Dispatchers guide technicians through the best routes. At times, the shortest route may not be the fastest, owing to traffic snarls or road works.
Complete visibility into field operations, made possible through GPS-enabled field agent apps, allows managers to control the situation.

ReachOut heavy equipment management software syncs with the enterprise inventory suite. Effective inventory management significantly reduces stock-out situations. Inability to cater to service requests, especially emergency jobs, owing to the non-availability of spares is a recipe for disaster. The inventory management system alerts low stock situations for each component, enabling prompt and advance reordering. Advance reordering is especially critical during times of COVID-19 pandemic when global supply chains remain disrupted.

Robust collaboration options enable remote servicing. For example, a novice technician may connect to an expert technician located elsewhere and get the job done pronto.

4. Have Structured Documentation

Generic maintenance knowledge does not suffice for heavy equipment. Most heavy equipment comes with detailed factory manuals and manufacturer maintenance recommendations.

Manuals prescribe the service intervals, parts, acceptable operating conditions, and how to troubleshoot common failures. These recommendations cover the knowledge and experience of people working with the equipment over the years. Following such suggestions and keeping precise records are essential to operate the equipment efficiently and protect the warranty.

ReachOut’s repository makes it easy to store technical manuals, manufacturer instructions, and other resources.

The field technician app ensures field technicians have ready access to such documents.
Store detailed service records for each piece of equipment.
Maintain work logs. The automated system keeps a time log of the time a service agent spends on the worksite.
The system also stores work orders, inspection logs, and other records for easy reference. Custom reports make such data available to managers and others who need it.

5. Take Regular Feedback And Improve Communication

Equipment operators and field technicians invariably know more about the equipment and the underlying issues than any expert confined to the office. Therefore, effective repair requires seamless communication among stakeholders, including customers, field technicians, service managers, machine operators, engineering teams, expert consultants, etc.

ReachOut’s robust collaboration platform offers an integrated communication channel.

Centralized communication makes it easy to keep track of the message.
It eliminates version control confusion.
Each stakeholder makes their input easily.
The system ensures it reaches the intended recipients.
Quick reminders and push notifications ensure follow-up.

Case Study: ReachOut’s reporting features and digital forms enabled a backflow testing business in Idaho to save two hours of work per day. Read the case study.

6. Train The Workforce

Skilled workers do the job faster and better. Heavy equipment needs skilled and often dedicated workers, ready for any emergencies. A competent workforce is critical to stay competitive.

ReachOut allows enterprises to:

Maintain a skill depository of their workforce. Managers may track the qualifications of each technician, identify the skill gap, and draw up action plans for skill-upgrade, depending on business needs.
Integrate the field service suite with the UpSkill Learning management system. Enterprises may use UpSkill to create short video courses and other interventions to up-skill their field agents. Flexible training options enable technicians to up-skill themselves without taking time off from their tasks.

Field service enterprises doing heavy equipment repair need specific, equipment-level strategies for all the aspects mentioned above. Heavy equipment repairs are a cash cow that keeps many field service businesses afloat with intensifying market competition. Manage your heavy equipment maintenance services effortlessly with ReachOut. Get in touch with us to learn more.

Digitize your field service operations from scheduling to invoicing with ReachOut. Connect your technicians with the companion mobile app to execute jobs and reduce paperwork in the field. Try ReachOut now and give your customers the fast and quality service they deserve.

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Sachin Krishna

Sachin works as a part of the digital marketing team at ReachOut Suite. He believes in a healthy and resourceful web and does his own little contributions for the purpose by creating and disseminating innovative and quality content.