Midland Pallet Trucks, one of the UK’s leading providers of lifting equipment, is encouraging fleet managers and equipment supervisors to find the inefficiencies in their apparatus and iron out the flaws using their business data, to create a workforce of lifting equipment that will boost productivity as well as profit.

Businesses collect masses of data nowadays, and the Midlands pallet truck experts are encouraging businesses to use all of this information to predict trends in things like truck breakdowns, and to analyse which of their trucks are unnecessary to the fleet. In breaking down the data they collect, industrial companies can be prepared to react in the face of a problem, as well as building a fleet of trucks that is best suited to the demands of their particular workplace.

Phil Chesworth, Managing Director of Midland Pallet Trucks, says, “When we work in environments where heavy-duty equipment is commonplace, we need to find ways to ensure that our apparatus is fully functional and totally efficient. The amount of data we generate in this day and age gives us an intuitive way to monitor our equipment – we can predict breakdowns and analyse truck efficiency using the information we collect, and then use these findings to make informed decisions about the future of the fleet.”

e adds, “Every industry is using this kind of intelligence in some way – whether they’re analysing sales patterns to inform marketing decisions or monitoring medical records to ensure the right access to pharmaceutical products. Fleet managers and businesses that utilise pallet trucks should also be using the information they gather to supplement their decision-making abilities and empower them to create a highly efficient, productive fleet.”

There are four steps to recognising problems with a fleet: suspicion, information, recognition, resolution. The suspicions can come from any member of the workforce – from a manager who has noticed that the fleet isn’t as efficient as it used to be, to a member of the floor team that works with the truck every day. The next step is information – the truck should be analysed. When was the last maintenance session? In what way is the truck failing its operator? Where are the parts sourced from? What tasks has the truck been carrying out in the time since it was last serviced?

With this information, the recognition of a problem begins to emerge. Using the information gathered, equipment managers can begin to suss out the reason for the truck’s underperformance, or its lack of suitability for the role it performs. Once the business recognises the problem, they can begin to address it, whether it’s through changing the maintenance provider, upping the number of services the truck undergoes or swapping the unit for another model entirely.