Fleet compliance software for service and maintenance fleets.

The problem

What makes service and maintenance compliance hard

• 01

  Nothing external forces the records

  Without licensing undertakings, record-keeping depends entirely on internal discipline. It is the first thing to lapse under pressure, and the lapse is invisible until it is being examined by somebody with the benefit of hindsight.

• 02

  The van is a workshop as well as a vehicle

  Racking, tools, materials and sometimes gas or chemicals ride in the back. Load security, weight and the condition of the racking are genuine safety issues that a vehicle service does not look at, and an overloaded van is a problem a driver rarely recognises.

• 03

  Employees driving their own vehicles

  Engineers and technicians using a private car for work bring their own vehicle, their own insurance and their own MOT, and the employer's duty does not disappear because the vehicle does not belong to them. Most organisations have no evidence at all for this part of the fleet.

• 04

  Drivers who never see a depot

  Vans go home with engineers and go straight to the first job. There is no yard, no gate and no point in the week where somebody hands in a sheet, so paper checks fail quietly rather than visibly.

• 05

  Equipment on the vehicle with its own rules

  Tail lifts, cranes and access equipment carry their own thorough examination requirements under separate legislation from vehicle maintenance. A van can be fully serviced and still have a lift that is out of examination.

The answer

How FleetOptix helps

• Nothing external forces the records

  Checks, defects, service history and driver records sit in one system that chases what has not arrived, so the discipline is in the tooling rather than in somebody remembering.

  Incidents and reporting

• Drivers who never see a depot

  The check is submitted from the driveway or the first job on a phone, so the record does not depend on anybody visiting a yard. A nil return is a record in its own right.

  Walkaround checks and defects

• The van is a workshop as well as a vehicle

  The check carries the items you put on it, so racking condition, load security and equipment can be part of the daily round rather than things nobody formally looks at.

  Maintenance and roadworthiness

• Employees driving their own vehicles

  Licence, entitlement and expiry dates sit on a driver record whether or not the vehicle is yours, so the part of the fleet you do not own stops being the part you have no evidence for.

  Drivers and licensing

• Equipment on the vehicle with its own rules

  Service and examination dates are held against the vehicle and its equipment, and sit on the same calendar as the work, so something due is visible before it is committed to a job.

  Scheduling and planning

Who it is for

The people doing this job

• Fleet and operations managers

  Often running the fleet alongside another job, with no statutory framework and no compliance department behind them.

• Health and safety managers

  Carrying the driving-for-work risk as part of a much wider brief, and usually holding the least evidence about it.

• Service and engineering managers

  Scheduling engineers to jobs, and the first to feel it when a van is off the road.

• Engineers and technicians

  Driving to the first job from home, with the vehicle as both transport and workshop.

  What is walkaround check?

• Finance and procurement

  Holding the lease and service contracts, and asked after an incident what the maintenance history was.

Questions

What service and maintenance operators ask

We are not operator licensed. Does any of this apply to us?

The licensing regime may not, but the duty to keep vehicles in a roadworthy condition and to manage the risk to employees who drive for work does. That duty is tested after something has gone wrong, which is why the record matters more here than the rule does.

Can it cover employees using their own cars for work?

Driver records are held per person, so licence and entitlement evidence can be kept for people driving vehicles you do not own. Evidence about the vehicle itself — insurance, MOT, condition — is only as good as what is recorded against it, so decide what you will ask for before relying on it.

Do drivers need an app?

Checks are completed and submitted from a phone, which is what makes them work for a fleet with no yard. A defect reaches whoever manages the vehicle with the van and the driver already attached.

Does it book or manage servicing with our garage?

It holds the record — service dates, what was done, what is due — rather than acting as a booking system with your supplier. The work stays with your garage or lease provider.

Is it worth it for a small fleet?

The duty does not scale with size, and a small fleet usually has nobody whose job this is. That is normally the argument for keeping the records somewhere that chases them rather than relying on somebody to remember.

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