Advanced communication terminals fitted to Linde Australia’s service vans are doing much more than just speeding up service calls to the company’s forklift customers.

They are also helping to extend the company’s leadership in material handling fleet management.

The terminals, which transfer data via satellite, are the latest evidence of Linde’s massive investment in hardware and software over the last two years.

During that period Linde has also doubled the number of service technicians it has in the field.

The personnel and technology investments have already paid major dividends for operators of Linde equipment by providing quicker response times and improved first-time fix rates.

Internally Linde has also achieved a significant increase in its productivity and a more efficient use of its resources.

Now the material handling equipment technology leader has “closed the loop” on its fleet management activities by linking its service technicians with Linde’s information technology resources.

Linde Managing Director, Carl Smith, said the in-van terminals use global positioning systems and two-way data transmission to enable efficient management of services resources.

“Providing outstanding service to our customers involves more than just getting a service technician to them promptly and fixing their forklift expertly,” he said. “Though, even on that score we are exceeding our targets. 

“The data terminals also allow us to provide the technician with specific information relevant to the site and fork truck he will be attending.”

More importantly Linde’s systems have enabled the company to gather information which enables it to become pro-active in a fleet management role.

“Each time one of our technicians works on a vehicle he enters an hour meter reading into his in-van terminal and within seconds the data is transferred directly into the fleet management system,” Carl said.

“Likewise, parts carried by the technician are barcoded and their details are scanned and entered into a forklift’s service history as they are used.

Direct data input such as parts and labour consumption and hour meter readings from mobile service technicians is aiding Linde to be more proactive.

“There are significant benefits, especially for a company renting our equipment at multiple sites, if we are able to see that some vehicles are exceeding their budgeted usage and others are being under utilised,” Carl said.

“Several times we have swapped machines from one site to another as a cost saving initiative for the customer.

“On other occasions we have detected an increase in customer damage and have been able to alert the customer to a potential personnel or driver training problem.”

The system allows Linde to proactively manage and service its own assets as well as to reduce the cost of operating assets for its customers. It also enables both parties to measure the material handling equipment specialist’s performance against agreed key performance indicators.

Over the last two years Linde has won major material handling equipment contracts with some of Australia’s best known companies. In every instance Linde’s ability to deliver exceptional fleet management expertise has been a key factor in its success.

“Companies are looking for more than just an organisation which can provide service for material handling equipment,” Carl said. “Organisations operating forklifts prefer to concentrate their efforts on driving their core business and would rather leave the management of their fleet to the supplier.

“They are looking for a company which can develop a partnership with them and one which will be pro-active to the benefit of both parties.

“Linde can now offer standards of service and fleet management which I believe are the best in the industry,” he said. “And we have plans to improve them even more.”