LoginContractor Helps School Bus Maintenance Operations Cut Costs, Not Corners
A webinar demonstrated the efficiency benefits of partnering with a national contractor for school bus maintenance.
“Fleet maintenance is evolving, plain and simple,” stated Edmund Dixon, a principal consultant for the First Consulting division of Thursday’s webinar sponsor First Student. “Do you have the latest and greatest technology in your shop?”
Todd Hawkins, senior vice president of maintenance for First Student, reviewed how costs and types of repairs coincide and their effect on shop environment, technician stress and bus uptime. Scheduled, preventative and predictive maintenance, he said, helps avoid things like road calls, misdiagnoses and neglected repairs.
Jackson Diodoardo, a principal consultant for First Student, reviewed the case of a 200-vehicle fleet operated for St. Landry Parish School Board in Louisiana. The district had what Diodoardo referred to as extreme driver and technician shortages, burdensome maintenance costs and budgetary constraints.
A tiered fleet leasing plan was implemented, starting with 15 buses and growing to 30. First Services by First Student staffed the shop with its own technicians and provided training, which reduced turnover rates.
Diodoardo concluded that the district is now enjoying a reliable fleet with new technology and reduced maintenance costs.
How It’s Done
Diodoardo reviewed First Student’s size and scale across 44 U.S. states and eight Canadian provinces, while Hawkins shared the expertise and training that its technicians undergo to receive ASE Certifications as well as the company-wide policies that ensure that KPI and efficiency standards are met.
“We’re trying to turn unscheduled events to scheduled, which will save time,” Hawkins declared. “Accurate diagnosis and repair saves money.”
Hawkins reviewed the company’s asset management system, Hexagon, and revealed how First Services teaches techs to “fix something that’s not broken” by effectively leveraging predictive analytics.
“It’s not hard to buy a program and get predictions, but it’s hard to make it effective,” he noted.
Dixon shared that on-demand support is available through the Technical Assistance Center, where district staff can seek insights from certified technicians to reduce repair time and unnecessary parts usage.
“Everything we do is to provide efficiency in our maintenance operations and service with the resources we have,” he added.
Hawkins reviewed stats from the past 10 years to demonstrate how partnering with First Services can reduce maintenance costs and improve customer satisfaction.
First Services offers maintenance consulting, maintenance as a service, and fleet as a service. The latter, Dixon noted, allows that a school district to retain full control of the fleet and drivers, resulting in greater efficiency and uptime.
Hawkins and Dixon also reviewed support for technicians, which includes good wages, higher training opportunities and technology usage—the latter being popular with younger technicians.
“Paying more for a good tech saves you money in the long run,” Hawkins declared.
He encouraged districts to ensure their shops and managers are satisfactory since sending out for help costs more.
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“It really comes down to what each specific district needs and how those needs can be met, and we can partner with you to figure that out,” Dixon said. First Services will conduct audits and consultations and can be involved with any size district to the degree that the district desires, he confirmed.
Dixon and Hawkins added First Student’s scale and experience leads to providing the insights, experience and buying power that a standalone district would lack.
“Our whole life is efficiency because efficiency drives customer satisfaction. The better we do it, the cheaper it is and the happier the customer is,” Hawkins quipped. “We’re showing people what good looks like.”
Hawkins said that when First Services assumes school bus maintenance for a location, consultants work with unions and keep the existing technicians, who they continue to train. He confirmed that the turnover rate is low.
In answer to an attendee question, Hawkins confirmed First Services averages a 94-95 percent bus in-service rate.
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