Federal regulations stipulate that drivers preform pre- and post-trip inspections and file Driver Vehicle Inspection Reports (DVIRs) when they find a problem on a truck. What you do with the information you get from DVIRS can have an impact on your service costs.
The DVIR covers a variety of items on a truck including brakes, lights, tires, windshield wipers, mirrors, wheels and rims, and more. It can be completed with pen and paper or via an electronic device.
No matter which method your drivers use for completing their DVIRs, they contain a wealth of information about the health of the trucks in your fleet. Their most obvious benefit is that they make you aware of an existing problem allowing you to fix it before the truck is on the road and breaks down, or is pulled out of service during a roadside inspection because of a CSA violation.
Of course, this depends on someone within your organization carefully reviewing DVIRs each and every day. The added bonus here is that if drivers know you are paying attention to things they are highlighting on their DVIRs, they are more likely to spend time carefully inspecting their trucks and not just giving them a cursory look and checking off boxes.
If you mine the data from your DVIRs, you will see the real value they have. Analyzing DVIR data will allow you to spot wear and failure trends. You can then use this information to schedule service campaigns to correct issues in similarly spec’d assets before they are even noticed by the driver. Proactively taking care of a potential problem gives you more control and helps you keep your maintenance and repair costs in check because you will likely avoid on-road breakdowns. As we all know, these breakdowns are the most time-consuming and expensive.
Information from DVIRs can also be combined with other data you collect from service events, whether you do your own maintenance and repair or outsource it. Bumping failure and wear trends up against vehicle specs will allow you to tweak specs during your next new vehicle order. You’ll be able to use the information you have gathered to spec components that are better suited for your application which should give you a lower total cost of ownership.
While normally a fairly simple form, used properly, the humble DVIR can help you reduce your repair costs.
