Although on a daily basis the right technical service is not much visible, it is crucial for the right operations of a transport company and influences the quality of services delivered by him. The quality of maintenance does not only influence lower costs but also safety.
Discussion on the features of a perfect garage for commercial vehicles must be started with presentation of the most important requirements and expectations for garages and haulers. Next to dominant price factor, one needs to pay attention to, most of all: the speed of service and quality of service, availability of garage chain, spare parts product range and of course customer service level.
The roads are driven by less and less vehicles which need only simple repair services, not needing any technical knowledge. It is mostly visible in the case of truck fleets, commercial vehicles and buses, as those vehicles are the most modern, so the most technically advanced on Polish roads. Modern trucks and buses are often equipped with additional devices and systems, not used in passenger cars (such as: passenger audiovisual information system, telematic fleet management systems, etc.) based on advanced solutions from electronics and IT. In case of commercial vehicles, which main task is to earn money, their users have no time to service each element in a specialized garage - this means that a good garage should employ specialists being able to repair and service the vehicles comprehensively, starting from regular service activities, through tyre change, and ending with repairs of additional equipment. It is crucial mostly because of time.
Education of mechanics.
The first and crucial factor deciding on the quality of a garage is suitable education and experience of mechanics. Despite still performing simple activities on vehicles, such as changing oil, tyres, brake pads or brake disks, etc., in many cases the work of a mechanic is to diagnose the malfunction properly, using a computer device and not necessarily by physical hard work, changing a broken part. Because of this, very often work in modern servicing garages requires the right qualifications... of a mechanic engineer, electronic engineer or IT specialist. But because of a gap generated in vocational schooling after a reform performed several years ago, additionally made bigger by migration to other countries when Poland joined the EU, today the market really lacks highly qualified car mechanics. Almost complete elimination of vocational education made the quality of staff on the market much lower, and OE garages and top quality services must train their HR on their own. It is sure today, that we need to launch vocational schooling in the profession of a car mechanic, at the level of at least a technician in schools, which will provide a possibility of having practical trainings in garages of well-known manufacturers.
Although the problem of educating staff seems to be quite far from the subject of an ideal servicing garage, in practice these are very close subjects. Suitably educated staff is the core of a perfect garage business. Modern garages are equipped with modern devices and diagnostic tools, operation of which requires professional knowledge. This knowledge can be gained at professional courses organized by manufacturers, but it is also good when the mechanic has some basic knowledge, and this knowledge should be gained during his education process. A good solution seem to be schools or classes, which appear in Poland more and more often, being under a patronage of an automotive spare parts manufacturer. This allows the students to have contact with practical side of the profession, and the manufacturers have a chance to educate their future staff, which later will work in their factories or in OE garage chains.
Servicing garage chain
The key to the right operations of a garage chain is the right location regarding territory. The location of services should be determined by the demand being a result of number of cars of a particular make in a particular region (here we are talking about OE garages). The target in this case is to minimize the cost of getting to a garage (distance) and ensuring the right work force (time of repair). The number and location of OE garages should be determined by the number of cars sold in a particular region. In case of big fleet of vehicles (e.g. in public transport) the solution is to give authorization to own service garages of the transport company. This solution has good and bad sides. The disadvantages are seen especially in Polish conditions, where transport companies have to face financial problems, and despite having the authorization they do not always keep to the guidelines for servicing, delivered by the manufacturer.
Another case is to ensure a mobile service. These days transport companies often use road assistance services. It is a convenient solution, as it guarantees repair of a malfunction on the spot, most often Europe-wide. For manufacturers and insurance companies offering assistance services this means contact with local companies - in order to ensure full coverage of the territory. As a result there might be some problems with ensuring the right quality of services rendered by subcontractors.
Tailored services
Manufacturers of commercial vehicles these days offer, so called service packages (contracts) adapted to individual needs of the customers, constructed in such a way, to keep the vehicle in good technical condition for the full working life, not only in warranty period. These services are based on philosophy of consistency and truct between the manufacturer and customer, with intention to keep the customer with the make and buy another vehicles of the same make. The packages are realized on the basis of servicing contracts, ensure numerous advantages, including, among others, clear payment rules, with no risk of extra cost, mobility guarantee for the vehicle, professionalism of highly qualified mechanics and state of the art devices, in line with recommendations of manufacturer, safety resulting from keeping the vehicle in good technical condition all the time, and higher value of the vehicle when being sold, because of regular service, full documentation in OE garage.
Customer service quality
For years, in Poland, the quality of customer service was at a really low level. Mechanics were mostly well educated in their area of work, but relations with customers were far from those which we know today and far from standards. Today, very slowly, it begins to change and repair services follow the general trends applied in services. We need to notice that market of servicing commercial vehicles in Poland is a bit different than that used in Western Europe Countries. In Poland, very few transport companies (and not only those large ones) have their own servicing garages, and the mechanics are... the drivers after hours. But because of increasing complexity of construction of the vehicles, and improvement of economical situation, more and more often smaller transport companies resign from their own garages and decide to use specialized garages.
New, better, more reliable?
The problem of quality of a garage is much wider than it may seem. It is worth to notice that correctly maintained vehicle has a much longer working life. Long working life (over 10 years) is not good for manufacturers, who would like to sell new models more and more often and in bigger numbers. Whilst such long working life (of a vehicle being kept in the right technical condition) has many advantages: starting from economical ones for the transport company (no cost of purchasing a new vehicles), through advantages for natural environment (energy consumption for manufacturing a new vehicle is quite high, and recycling of used one is costly and unfavourable for the environment) ending with advantages for OE garage. Of course this situation is located in the reality of constantly increased norms for fumes and European policy which force frequent change of vehicles, so that they meet the norms. Of course no-one directly forces anyone to change a good, several-year old vehicle for a new one, but road fees are based on the norms and one has to pay more having an old vehicle.
Manufacturers created a kind of conflict of interests. On the one hand they produce less durable vehicles (counting on more frequent change, justifying this with constant development and increase of safety and environmental protection, which is a very different topic, a material for another article of many pages), and on the other hand they are developing servicing garage chains and base their income on services related to maintenance and running fleets of vehicles. And vehicle users, changing their cars every couple of years and not every several years, count on higher reliability and lower cost of running. Whilst they are willing to pay more for maintenance services if they ensure them running of a vehicle for more than ten years.
Despite all these, the fact is that growing level of complication of vehicle construction these days is increasing the need for a perfect service - much more important than ever before.
Summary
The perfect service is an aim, which OE garages, independent garages and own garages of transport companies should try to reach. We need to admit that within the last few years, as regards servicing commercial vehicles, we can notice a great progress. First of all it was forced by technological development, because of which today's garages look more like laboratories full of electronics, than like old car garages, but we also need to include development connected with improvement of quality.
Today the standard is 24h assistance all over Europe, or free of charge replacement car for the time of repair. 20 years ago, a bus or truck driver, in case of a malfunction, put on his gloves and turned into a "Mr. Car-Fix-It". Today he just calls a special number and in several minutes he continues his travel in a vehicle repaired by a professional using suitable tools and spare parts.
Lucjan Krakus, Sales Director, Coframa
Lately we have noticed that garages servicing trucks and buses more and more often are interested in modern garage devices like automatic and mobile column-hoists. This means that in the past the work was performed mostly on a pit in a garage, whilst now the comfort of work of mechanics is more and more important. We can also see an interest in machines which automate tyre changing. Investment of garages in garage equipment are done to meet growing needs of customers. Our offer is comprehensive and composed of whole range of equipment, starting from simple wrenches and ending with complete diagnostic paths.
Tomasz Szmajter, Regional Sales Manager, Thermo King
The specific of work of A/C service stations in trucks, buses and rail vehicles need them to be located conveniently. There is such an unofficial rule that the driver, from any place in Poland, should have a distance of not more than 100-150km to the nearest service garage. Practically in every voivodeship there is our service station, and analysing their area coverage, we can notice that West-East line is well covered with garages because of heavy traffic of trucks. Each authorized Thermo King garage must have qualifications to service A/C systems. This can guarantee that repair services will always be on the same level which is required by Thermo King and the customer. Developed cooperation with large vehicle fleets allow performing some services at the customer's place, but mostly the simpliest ones.
Przemysła Głośny, Sales Representative SOR
On the territory of Poland we have a mobile service. In case of purchasing single buses, the maintenance is performed by a mobile servicing garage. Should the bus require a more serious repair, it is being towed to the nearest garage, on the expense of the manufacturer. When the customer has more buses, we are trying to open a garage at his premises. Additionally, in the first stage of operation of a garage, the employees can count on the help of our mobile servicing garage. In case of vehicles using modern, innovative or unusual technical solutions, such as our electric buses, customers require that in purchase contract they also have a precise description of a servicing contract. It is worth to know that in case of electric engine there are much less malfunctions than in case of Diesel engines. There are less things to break down and it is much easier to find the cause of a malfunction. Very often the diagnosis can even be made on the phone, and the customer receives a parcel with the part in a very short time, and he can replace the part himself, not wasting the time. Our analysis shows that if there were only electric vehicles, instead of Diesel ones, even 90% of garages might lose their work.
Marcin Domagała, Deputy Director, Bus Branch of Inter Cars
As a supplier of spare parts we are trying to reach all customers nationwide. We have 173 branches and we are present in almost every town. Our stock consists of over 500k items. Our central warehouses are able to deliver every kind of goods to the customer within just several hours. On average, we have 3 deliveries per day to every garage cooperating with us. The orders are placed on-line. A new solution is so-called Motointegrator. This solution is that: the customer himself chooses the goods using an e-platform and at the same time chooses the garage which will replace the part for him. Next he comes to the chosen garage in a chosen time and date, and the repair services may be performed at once - this shortens the time of repair a lot. We are doing our best to eliminate a possibility of wrong selection of the parts needed for the repair. For this purpose we are using the qualifications of our employees, who know perfectly what kind of parts are used in vehicles. Our database is constructed in such a way, that cross references are always associated with suitable OE numbers.