Workshop Scheduling: How to Schedule Your Fleet Maintenance, MOTs, Servicing and Insurance

Having an effective workshop schedule that is easy to follow and access is vital in ensuring efficient fleet management. Keeping track of when each vehicle in your fleet is due routine maintenance, or when it is time to pay their insurance, can be difficult, especially if those important dates are noted on paper. By using safe and secure fleet management software, you can digitally schedule all upcoming deadlines, creating alerts to make all relevant people within your company aware.

In this guide, we will explore how to effectively schedule a wide range of important dates for your fleet, including maintenance, MOTs, servicing and insurance.

How to Effectively Schedule Fleet Maintenance

Keeping on top of your fleet maintenance is essential in ensuring your vehicles are running safely, decreasing downtime and breakdowns. Fleet maintenance can be presented in the form of preventative maintenance inspections (PMIs), MOTs, services and tyre changes, and can be scheduled efficiently using a digital timetable that is easily accessible to drivers, fleet managers and mechanics alike.

In order to plan and establish your fleet maintenance effectively, there are various steps you should take, including:

• Creating a checklist for mechanics to follow. Processes will already be in place for MOTs and servicing.
• Establishing processes for drivers to submit reports. These can allow drivers to identify potential hazards, and can be reported in the form of daily checks.
• Arranging a set place for maintenance to be carried out.
• Setting up a record-keeping method. Our fleet management software at AssetGo can safely store all data from your daily checks and regular maintenance, all of which can be easily accessed.
• Working out service intervals.
• Investing in a fleet management system.

Your maintenance schedule should include a checklist that should be followed when a vehicle is being inspected. Parts of the vehicle that should be checked include the brakes, oil levels, lights and electrical systems. The various maintenance schedules you should be aware of as a fleet manager include:

• Preventative maintenance
• Corrective maintenance
• Pre-determined maintenance
• Condition-based maintenance

To find out more about the different types of maintenance, and how it can be effectively scheduled, please read our previous guide here.

Organising your Fleet Vehicle’s MOTs

All vehicles, from cars to Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) need a valid MOT or annual test. A Class 4 MOT is needed for vans, PSVs with eight seats or less, and private passenger vehicles with nine to 12 seats. If the PSVs require a seatbelt installation check, then a Class 4A MOT is needed. A Class 5 MOT is needed for PSVs with 13 to 16 or more seats. HGVs weighing over 3,500kg, alongside buses and trailers, need an annual test rather than an MOT; smaller goods vehicles weighing between 3,000kg and 3,5000kg need a Class 7 MOT.

MOTs for your fleet of vehicles can be effectively organised and scheduled using fleet management software. If the dates of your MOTs differ, it can be hard to keep track of when they are needed, and driving around without an MOT or annual test is a criminal offence. Not only can you input the dates so you can book your MOT ahead of time, but you can store the data of your daily checks and PMIs to keep a record of your vehicle’s defects and issues.

Scheduling your MOTs is incredibly important, as they are a legal requirement and need to be carried out annually. MOTs can also keep your drivers and other road users safe.

To find out more about scheduling your MOTs, you can read our previous guide here.

Booking Your Fleet in for Servicing

Servicing is usually carried out on vehicles after a certain age or when they have carried out a specific number of miles. For vehicles such as HGVs and PSVs, regular servicing and maintenance is a legal requirement, and must be carried out to remain compliant.

HGVs must be serviced every four to 13 weeks, whereas vans need to be serviced once a year as a general timeframe. PSVs must be serviced every 10 to 12 weeks, with this number dropping to six weeks if the vehicle is 12 years old or more. Forklift trucks must undergo a Thorough Examination (TE) every year, and serviced every two months. Alongside servicing, drivers should aim to carry out their daily checks, and fleet managers should organise PMIs.

Much like MOTs, scheduling your servicing is incredibly important in terms of safety and compliance. As servicing is more frequent for HGVs and PSVs in particular, it needs to be scheduled on time and regularly. With a fleet management system like ours at AssetGo, you can have alerts sent directly to your phone via the app when your vehicles are due their service, so you never miss a vital deadline.

To find out more about scheduling your fleet servicing, please read our previous guide here.

How to Arrange and Schedule Fleet Insurance

All vehicles within your fleet must be insured, whether that is individually or as a fleet. Your insurance must be renewed every year, which is why it is important to schedule your upcoming payments and renewal dates.

As well as comprehensive or third-party insurance, HGVs, PSVs and work vans could also benefit from extra insurance policies, such as public liability insurance to protect businesses from any claims members of the public may make against them or their drivers. Although forklift trucks that are only driven in a warehouse or on business premises don’t need insurance like road-use forklifts do, fleet managers will still need to invest in public liability or employers’ liability coverage. All vehicles can be insured separately or as a fleet, meaning different types of vehicles can come under the same insurance policy.

Our CMS system at AssetGo can not only schedule your insurance renewal dates, but can safely store all insurance policy documents, making them easily accessible to the relevant people within your company. You won’t have to note down your insurance dates on a paper calendar, which can easily become lost or damaged; by using the AssetGo fleet management system, you can ensure all dates are digitally saved.

You can find out more about fleet insurance scheduling in our previous guide here.

Want to find out more?

Get in touch with our experts today and request a demo

Contact Us