Baking & Snack - April 2004 - 92

FLEET MANAGEMENT

Staying on
the Road
Preventive maintenance on delivery vans
increases fuel efficiency, and new features
make working on fleet vehicles easier
than ever.
BY SHANE WHITAKER
he bread and buns are staged on the loading
dock, ready to be delivered to your customers. So what's the hold up? Maybe it's
a broken radiator hose, or perhaps a brake
job that was scheduled to take an hour but has lasted
the better part of the morning. The repairs will make it
impossible for a driver to hit all of his stops in time. Can
you afford to put off customers because of broken-down
delivery vans?
Too often this is the scenario faced by a baking plant,
especially with an aging fleet. It's not feasible for bakeries
or snack food manufacturers to just purchase new delivery vans on a whim; thus, companies must do all they
can to extend the life for each of its vehicles. A key to this
is preventive maintenance.
Owning and operating a fleet costs a lot more today
than in the past, according to Robb MacKie, vicepresident, government relations, with the American
Bakers Association and liaison for its Fleet and Distribution Committee. The No. 1 reason for this, he said,
is added fuel costs. Therefore, it makes even more
sense (and cents) for bakeries to properly maintain
their vehicles to achieve the greatest fuel
efficiency, he added.

ᮡ This walk-in van chassis
has been modified in recent
years to reduce the amount of
maintenance. It features computers on the brakes, transmission and diesel
engine that give it a longer life.
FREIGHTLINER CUSTOM CHASSIS CORP.

92 / BAKING & SNACK / April 2004

Drivers should perform daily checks to make sure
that fluids are not leaking and that tires are not low on
pressure, as improperly inflated tires leads to poor fuel
economy. "Keeping tires properly inflated and balanced
goes a long way to extending their life," Mr. MacKie said.
"And when you're talking in some cases as many as six
tires on a vehicle, it's a big cost, second only to fuel."
The Fleet and Distribution Committee has met with
a number of tire manufacturers to talk about what is the
proper tire depending on a bakery's region and about
tire design issues, he said. "Tire companies are trying to
respond and provide tires that wear longer and are easier
to maintain," Mr. MacKie added.
Walk-in van suppliers also are responding to their customers' needs for vehicles that are easier to maintain.
COMPUTER WORLD. Seven years ago, according to the
product manager for a supplier, the company's premium
walk-in van chassis didn't have a single computer on
it. "Everything was mechanical - the engines, the
transmissions, all components," he said. "Today,
when that same chassis leaves here, it will have
as many as four computers onboard before the
body is installed. After the body is installed,
there can be two or three additional computers, depending on the options customers order."
The chassis features a computer for brakes,
one for the transmission control unit and at least

Baking & Snack - April 2004

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