ANALYTICS

A large school district vehicle maintenance operation has an excellent performance dashboard with relevant and timely metrics that monitors and provides feedback to both the operation as a whole and the mechanics. The dashboard had metrics for bus accidents by type, repair and inspection times, inventory, number of error free repairs, maintenance cost per mile, maintenance cost by type and age of vehicle, fleet miles per gallon……But there was one metric that was unusual. It was unique and when understood it, it was visionary.

Amongst the many monthly metrics was this one: The number of days the maintenance shop had without a “non-scheduled repair”.

With a fleet approaching 200 vehicles, the average age of the fleet of about 8 year and drivers conducting a pre and post vehicle inspection daily, the questions were:
• “How is the number of days without an unscheduled repair meaningful?”
• What did this actually measure?

The answers were enlightening.

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