The Shop uses the equipment to collect the data, interpret the reports and perform the actions authorized by the owner.
Predictive Fleet Technologies
UTC 2022.08.17 15:38
The Shop uses the equipment to collect the data, interpret the reports and perform the actions authorized by the owner.
Finance negotiates the contract with PFT, pays the bills and invoices the owner for reports and services provided.
We call the customers of EP ‘Service Companies’ since these customers provide technical engine services for engine/vehicle owners. A fleet may have an internal service department or outsource this type of service. One of the services that the company provides is using the EP kit to obtain needed reports from EP to help them determine the status of the engine and help diagnose any issues. The company may well charge the owners for reports.
The company maintains the subscription for report generation and authorizes users to perform the various processes needed.
The term ‘Fleet’ might need some explanation: it most commonly is a Legal Entity in the country or state/province that the organization is licensed by. It has one language for official reports, one timezone for synchronizing past and planned events, one units-of-measure (UoM) system and one currency for valuing assets.
The Fleet is chartered to operate equipment powered by internal combustion engines. The engines might be deployed in/on:
The assets can be assigned to ‘Home locations’ and Vocations to more effectively manage operations of sub-fleets under an ‘umbrella’ organization that manages finances.
Employees (people authorized to make transactions in a Fleet including Drivers/Pilots/Mechanics) may be full-time, part-time, or under contract through another company. One person may work for more than one Fleet, but can be logged onto only one Fleet at a time.
The Remote Data layer for a fleet are where the fleet management can authorize the interface to data sources to send data and the EA modules to process data sent for your assets. The vendors that provide the data and the formats/edits performed on the data are prescribed in the Global EA Admin functionality. This Remote Data layer connects your fleet to the specified vendor for the desired data transfers.
Example data transfers are for:
The Management of various departments of a fleet are where the standards of performance and standard operation procedures are defined to guide the smooth and efficient operations of the fleet. We collect these functions in what we call the ‘Cockpit‘ layer.
The Cockpit layer contains things like:
The EA customer is a fleet which is typically the operational arm of a transportation company employing trucks, semis, trailers to move goods and people between locations.
The Operations departments of a fleet are where the ‘real time’ data is generated and uploaded to the EA system. This data is needed to provide performance statistics, detect variance from plans to suggest corrective action or change of plans going forward.
The data included here come from sensors and transactional entries:
The Global EA Admin is responsible for the development of software and processes for the effective use of data in presenting better fleet business decision options for implementation by EA customers. This group has people skilled in things like:
The Engine Angel department of PFT is responsible for the software and processes for the effective use of data in presenting better fleet business decision options for implementation by EA customers.
In addition, EA is responsible to provide the ‘as made’ data for engines, vehicles, trailers, spare parts, and other environmental data important for good fleet decisions. EA provides onboarding tools to collect and integrate previous fleet operations data to get the ‘as-is’ picture of the assets.
The Engine Angel Distributors are responsible for informing fleet owners/operators on the features of EA and EP and the corresponding benefits.
For likely prospects, the distributors then work with fleet management and staff to define an onboarding process with employee roles with necessary adjustments with the fleet’s business processes.
The distributor and EA Admin develop an onboarding project and estimated cost of implementation with a schedule worked out with the fleet to present a realistic implementation Roadmap with costs and expected benefits.
The EP Distributors inform Engine repair and service shop owners about the features and value of EP with the hope of converting them to EP customers (‘companies’ in this discussion). This often requires a demo. The Distributor negotiates the payment terms for the EP kits and subscriptions for the reports.
After the sale, the Distributor is responsible to work with the EP customer to explain the process and train the technicians on how to effectively use the system. Any unique agreement is setup in the system with an appropriate ‘Price Key’.
The Distributor is the primary contact for business or EP usage questions. Global EP Admin is responsible for technical questions, resolution of data questions, and suggestions or requests for new functionality, including incorporation user feedback for updating engine data and rules.
The Engine Polygraph department is responsible for the software development & processes delivered through EP, incl. the EP website, Documentation, User Manuals & Frequently Asked Questions. (FAQ)
PFT is also responsible for collection, presentation and use of much data on the ICE engines. We are not the original source of this data, so please inform us of any missing data or errors that you detect.
Our mathematical models & Diagnostic rules are generated from sensor data and interpretations by experienced mechanics. Please provide feedback with details when you observe situations that conflict with our reports and recommendations.
The Global EP Admin is responsible for providing the ‘as built’ engine data for the models maintained in the system and the software to generate the reports.
As the system grows, covering more industries and countries of the world, additional engine models, translations, diagnostic rules will be added.
We do request feedback, especially for cases when actual engine repair shows that our data or diagnosis was wrong or incomplete.
EP is supported through Distributors. There is a training requirement and need to tailor your shop procedures to effectively implement EP for your business model.
The customer office needs to have a financial admin to take care of the payments to PFT for service and the invoices you give your vehicle/engine owners for the reports you supply them. In addition, you need someone to manage the authorizations of your technicians to use the system to collect signatures and provide services based on the analysis.
The technicians collect the data and request the reports appropriate to the job.
The Vehicle owner might be a individual or a Fleet that may be contracting you as a service provider. In the case of a 3rd party arrangement, the Fleet may configure their Engine Angel system to accept reports from your EP system and integrate the results for their engines. (The Fleet identification and Vehicle/engine identifiers need to be coordinated.)
EA is also supported through distributors. There is a significant on-boarding process to collect information on your assets, employees, facilities. In addition, the history of maintenance, repairs and inspections and asset ECM histories are needed to initialize the models. Assets are assigned a vocation while both assets and facilities are assigned a home base.
Employees are assigned roles that activate permissions for data entry & correction by business process. The overall concept is that most data is visible to all employees. Roles are organized into two ‘levels’: a Cockpit for managers and supervisors to view performance and control things like alert triggers, workflow sequences, work order/inspection formats; and an Operations layer for drivers, technicians, procurement, dispatch, etc. who operate the assets to generate revenue. There is another layer in the system to control the interfaces to external data sources like ECM trip data extractors, EP from 3rd party shops, engine oil test results, exhaust gas analyzers, work order, procurement, inventory management laptop applications.