REMAN, REBUIL D, REPL ACE
July 2018 | VehicleServicePros.com 39
claims will correspondingly shift to the parts
manufacturer.
“At Volvo, we have authorized repair
centers across North America,” says Sherman
Williams, director of remanufacturing and
proprietary product development at Volvo
Trucks North America. “Th is allows us to
meet the service needs and available parts
demand of fl eets across the country. By delivering
replacements rapidly,
the risk to the end-user
in terms of downtime is
minimized.”
Increasing
operating costs
due to regulation
MERA members also see
material costs for both new
manufacturing and remanufacturing
increasing as state
and federal government regulations
continue to implement
“better brake laws,” restricting
the use of certain materials,
along with mandates
for alternative powertrain
systems in vehicles to meet
emissions goals.
Th ese, and other regulations,
could raise maintenance
costs for fl eets as next-generation
materials are used in
place of traditional materials
and processes. Additionally,
servicing these advanced
systems will require additional
technician training
and experience, which could
ultimately be passed along to
the fl eet.
However, Jay Pagano, general
manager at Global Parts
Network, has a silver lining
for fl eet operators.
“Costs for certain repairs
may actually be reduced over
time as more commercial vehicles
come standard with air
disc brakes and lightweight
braking systems, such as those
being produced by Bendix,
Haldex, Meritor and others,”
he says. “It will be interesting
to see how these newer technologies
impact the market.”
Addit ionally, MERA
members believe regulations
or laws regarding technology
such as Advanced
Driver Assistance Systems
(ADAS), automated driving
and platooning systems may
impact maintenance costs,
should these items become
standardized or required for
commercial vehicles in the
coming years.
Technician shortage and
service time allocation
Lastly, MERA members project, like many
other groups, a shortage of skilled service
technicians. However, by implementing a
repair program that utilizes diff erent part
options with high availability, a technician
of lower training level can rapidly install a
part via a method called swing-exchange,
instead of repairing or rebuilding a part at
the service center.
Th is allows technicians to move effi ciently
from one service to the next, without sacrifi cing
the quality of the repair or attention to detail.
Fleets can then better assign technician schedules
and produce the same amount of work
with less labor.
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