ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Volvo Construction Equipment Rents has contracted with SmartEquip to deploy its e-FleetPro Enterprise electronic parts and service support system to all Volvo Rents equipment rental centers.
“Our Volvo Rents operations have reached critical mass, requiring that their service operations operate at the highest possible efficiency in order to guarantee that the fleet is utilized to its full extent,” said Barry Natwick, Volvo Rents president and CEO. “SmartEquip provides the tools to control costs while increasing efficiency and utilization. As a single conduit for parts and service support integrated to the rental center and corporate business systems, e-FleetPro will connect our independently owned and operated franchises with our key suppliers for parts and whole goods selection, availability checking and purchasing — all in a seamless workflow that benefits the rental store and the manufacturer.”
SmartEquip also announced an alliance with MicroLogic, a leading provider of wireless management solutions to the rental and construction industries. MicroLogic will be integrating its iSite program with SmartEquip's e-FleetPro program.
MicroLogic's iSite is an integrated fleet management system that collects on-board information and transmits the exact location, run-hours and key operating metrics of rental and service fleet equipment in near real time. iSite monitors equipment usage and provides maintenance notification to increase asset utilization and revenue.
The combined system delivers a connection between the rental fleet owner, the equipment and the manufacturer, designed to enhance fleet uptime and rental revenue, reduced maintenance costs through electronic preventive maintenance scheduling and increased equipment life. Information gathered by on-board sensors can notify service managers of maintenance or repair requirements and trigger a service work order, while displaying local, regional and national parts availability at the rental company and at the manufacturer. The system also links the purchase order system of the rental company with the order-fulfillment system of the manufacturer, resulting in a point-to-point, streamlined maintenance, service and parts-purchasing pipeline.
“Our vision has always centered around the notion of equipment relationship management, where the machine ‘raises its hand’ or in this case, ‘raises its antenna’ to report operating conditions, engine hours, fuel consumed, over speeds or any other significant event,” said SmartEquip president and CEO Alex Schuessler. “Using this information to trigger maintenance and service transactions, check parts availability and order electronically … dramatically [reduces] the fleet owner's cost of ownership.”
The common e-FleetPro/iSite interface will initially be offered to MicroLogic and SmartEquip customers using Wynne Systems RentalMan, and then expanded to other rental and fleet management systems.
