How Ajax fleet team won back margin in their parts process

It all started with a question in a department meeting – a question that had no answer.

“Why did we order two switches for $800, when only one failed?”

The heavy silence spoke for itself.

No one knew.

For Dan Maitland, whose job is to keep equipment running on time and on budget as the fleet manager at Ajax Paving Industries of Florida, based in North Venice, this was unacceptable.

While it’s not that big of a deal to let one duplicate order slide, the reality is these types of situations are fairly common for most heavy equipment fleet teams.

“Why were these parts ordered?”

“Who approved it? Was there a justified reason?”

“When will the parts get here?”

“What’s this invoice for?”

The questions cycle on and on.

The fact is, those $400 duplicate parts, wrong orders, and urgent requests quickly add up … until heads are scratching about why parts costs are $40K over budget at the end of the month. And if the fleet team is over budget, the ripple effects are far-reaching.

“As a fleet, we want to be predictable with our costs because we have a set budget,” Maitland says. “If we're hitting our budget, that means our estimators are hitting their margins — and can secure more jobs.”

Therefore, it’s critical that fleet teams find ways to increase equipment uptime while strategically managing costs. Maitland knew an efficient parts process sat at the complicated crossroads of reaching this goal.

But how could he lead them through what he couldn’t see?

“As a fleet, we want to be predictable with our costs because we have a set budget. If we're hitting our budget, that means our estimators are hitting their margins — and can secure more jobs.”

Fleet Manager, Ajax Paving Industries of Florida Dan Maitland

Parts: The ‘final frontier’ for fleet management

For years, the parts process for heavy equipment fleet teams has remained a black box. 

It’s an area of the fleet team that’s often overlooked, since parts eventually get to the machine. However, because it’s an entirely manual, offline process, it’s usually not without errors, delays, extra costs, and a complete lack of insight as to who made what decisions and why.

Bigger line items on the budget with more apparent problems tend to obscure these issues from view. Any bumps and snags are just the cost of doing business, right?

Maitland had a different perspective.

“If the parts department is 10% of your operating budget, you might not give it 100% of your attention,” he says. “But that 10% has the ability to down the machines and ultimately impact your goal of making your fleet more reliable.”

One small part can have huge implications. For Ajax, when a paver goes down, it can cost up to $15K an hour.

But the parts process historically has been death by a thousand cuts – it’s not one single problem that creates chaos.

It’s a staggering pile of problems:

• Miscommunications
• Hunting down parts numbers
• Lack of parts cost visibility
• Endless phone calls
• Dozens of vendor portals
• Back orders
• Sourcing alternative options
• Manual data entry
• Unavailable parts runner
• Missing tracking information
• Matching invoices… and more

All of this causes confusion and frustration for fleet managers such as Maitland, who need a clear line of sight to make informed decisions.

Though phone calls seem like a simple, quick fix – either to vendors or to track down answers internally – that is usually not the case.

“I think there's a misconception that when you call somebody and you talk to them on the phone, that as soon as you hang up, there’s immediately a course of action,” Maitland says.  “We just assume the person is jumping right on it, and we're the only customer that matters. But that person might put it on a sticky note, get three other calls, or be with somebody.” 

While it may be standard practice to reach for the phone when a member of the fleet team has a need or a question, the downside is that there is ultimately no record of what happened on those calls.

“There's infinite things that could go wrong with the parts process,” Maitland says. “That’s why I was attracted to finding a new solution, because parts procurement is the final frontier for fleet management to solve.”

Dan Maitland, fleet manager for Ajax Paving Industries of Florida, sought a single place to monitor all parts activity for their 750 assets.

Finding where technology can help

Maitland, whose experience was in the rental equipment industry before coming to Ajax about nine years ago, realized his fleet team couldn’t keep doing what they’re doing and expect a better result.

He needed a single place to get a bird’s eye-view on all parts activity for their 750 assets.

With more than 45 vendors though, that seemed impossible. Each vendor had a different communication preference, whether that’s phone calls, emails, or text messages, and a different ordering system.

But who could bring all that together? Dave Reed, the parts inventory specialist for Ajax, was already overwhelmed with just handling the flood of daily requests from their crews and three shops. Hiring someone to aggregate and manage all this was not an option either.

Maitland wondered if there was a digital solution to help them streamline and surface insights from their parts process.

“People are the scarce resource right now, so we’ve got to do more with less,” he says. “That’s where technology comes in — it’s being more efficient.”

That’s when Maitland learned about Gearflow Parts Hub Pro.

Gearflow Parts Hub Pro digitizes the entire parts procurement process end to end, seamlessly connecting fleet teams to work better with each other and their vendors in one centralized platform.

With Parts Hub Pro, fleet teams can:

• Work with all their vendors across their mixed fleet
• Eliminate miscommunications with instant messaging tied to every parts request and order
• Get insights, such as time and cost savings, that drive continuous improvement

So how does it work?

First, Ajax uploaded its entire fleet to Parts Hub Pro, so every parts request is linked to its corresponding machine and serial number, along with all their vendor contacts.

Service technicians then submit either a part number or description via the Parts Hub Pro mobile app the moment a part is needed. They can also upload pictures and set when they need the part by, the location it’s going to, and the vendor that will receive the request.

With the Parts Hub Pro app, technicians submit either a part number or description the moment a part is needed.

Then, the vendor gets the detailed request via email or text notification with all the information, including machine serial number, that’s necessary to quote. All the vendor needs to do is enter price and availability in a simple web form. There’s no cost to the vendor, and they do not need a Gearflow account.

The Ajax fleet team can now review and approve the quotes they receive in one place and easily submit purchase orders back to their vendors. The entire team is alerted in real time every step of the way and can send and respond to any team or vendor questions via Gearflow Messages, which creates a historical record of activity that lives with each request and order.

If a vendor is backordered, the Ajax fleet team can instantly submit the request to the Gearflow Supplier Network, the largest curated network of parts vendors throughout North America, to quickly source alternative options.

Once an order is ready, the fleet team gets notified that it is available via will-call, delivery, or shipping. For same-day local pickups, Ajax can dispatch a driver through Parts Hub Pro with Gearflow Courier powered by Curri, a last-mile delivery service for the construction industry.

When an order arrives at the machine, Ajax service technicians verify its accuracy and mark it as received right in the app. 

Dave Reed, parts inventory specialist, now has time to improve vendor relationships and proactively identify ways to make Ajax more competitive.

A game-changer for their parts process

As the primary person Ajax’s 250 monthly requests flow through, Reed was skeptical at first about how Parts Hub Pro could work for him. The fleet team already had a process – even if it kept them extremely busy.

Each day, field crews would relay parts requests to their maintenance scheduler, who would compile them while juggling his other tasks and filter them to Reed.

“Then the following morning, I would get that request and look at it,” he says. “So actually, we were already a day behind with ordering these parts.”

This didn’t leave him with much spare time to try something new, and he was worried he could fall even further behind if any changes to the process didn’t pan out.

But within the first week of running all their parts requests through Gearflow Parts Hub Pro, Reed could see his schedule opening up. The fleet team had cut back-and-forth calls to their vendors by 50% and were processing requests in less than half the time.

“I wish I had this kind of tool earlier in my career,” Reed says. “The amount of time we’re gaining back is game-changing.”

With the extra time Reed has available, he’s able to spend it improving vendor relationships, checking the accuracy of orders, and looking for new ways that the fleet team can make Ajax more competitive.

“I’m all for bettering our company and making things easier for the next person in line,” Reed says. “This software is so simple to use, that I just want it to be set in stone that this is going to be part of our process from here on out.”

Kristian Crews, field heavy equipment technician, says Parts Hub Pro allows him to stay more focused on repairs.

The technicians are finding they are spending less time conveying and chasing parts requests as well. Kristian Crews, field heavy equipment technician for Ajax, says Parts Hub Pro has allowed their team to be more organized and focused.

“I'm the only mechanic for my area, and I have the biggest area in the company,” says Crews, who covers 10-12 crews in his territory. “Parts Hub Pro is definitely helpful for me, because I'm not trying to track all these parts down on my own. Once we put in the request, it makes it so the parts team is then working directly with the vendors, and that actually takes a huge load off your shoulders because you're able to move on to the next project.”

Crews says he appreciates how straightforward the app is, so it’s easy for technicians to use.

“The app is pretty cut and dry, and that's the best thing about it,” he says. “It's not complex in any way, and it saves a bunch of time because you can just enter the parts you need right on your phone, take any pictures, and add them to the request. It's a really nice system to be honest.”

All in all, Ajax’s parts process transformation has been dramatic. In just 75 days, the fleet team has:

• Reduced order fulfillment time by 70%
• Eliminated 6 months of part lead time
• Saved over $20K in parts costs

Now, both Maitland and Reed are armed with the insights they need to become invaluable leaders for Ajax that can drive uptime and control costs before things go off track. They can proactively work with their vendors on what parts to stock, know which machines are dragging down their fleet, and identify ways to better manage their repairs and maintenance.

Ultimately, Maitland and his fleet team are no longer operating in the dark. 

They have turned a parts process that was once a black void shrouded in chaos and costs into an opportunity for future growth and success, and the team is freed up to pave the way for Ajax to make more money and win more jobs.

“This is where a digital solution comes in handy,” Maitland says. “It’s about making our jobs easier, saving money, and being more transparent. This is why we’re partnering with Gearflow Parts Hub Pro.”