Customer Equipment Solutions Case Study
United Rentals’ Customer Equipment Solutions Solves Mobile Equipment Maintenance Challenges for National Builder
An aerial lift maintenance and inspection program reduced risk, cut spending and brought the company into compliance.
Challenge
A fast-growing national contractor was struggling to manage its mobile fleet of aerial lifts. With no maintenance program in place, the company often relied on rental equipment instead of repairing owned equipment when it failed, which drove up costs. The company also needed help creating an inspection program and tracking its equipment, including which units worked and which didn’t.
Solution
United Rentals met the contractor’s mobile equipment needs with a one-stop-shop approach. It developed a custom maintenance and inspection program and leveraged its national network of technicians to perform the work. It also installed telematics devices on the owned equipment to give the contractor full visibility into equipment location and utilization through Total Control®.
“A big part of it is ease of mind. We no longer feel like we have to focus on the tracking and maintenance of our equipment. We’re leaving that to the experts.”
– Chief financial officer
A leading steel building company faced a problem many successful national contractors encounter: As their footprint expanded, managing mobile equipment became a significant challenge.
Its owned fleet of 50 aerial lifts was scattered across dozens of locations in major metro areas. Finding skilled technicians and flying them to fix a scissor lift in Texas one day and a telehandler in Seattle the next would have been costly and inefficient.
The challenge was so great that the company, which was focused on business growth, hadn’t adequately serviced its fleet in years. When a unit broke down, they often rented an equivalent unit, which drove up costs. In addition, the company did not have an equipment inspection program in place, which exposed them to safety hazards and the risk of fines.
United Rentals, which already provided well-maintained rental equipment for the company, offered to take over maintenance and inspections of the owned equipment through its Customer Equipment Solutions (CES) offering. The customer jumped at the opportunity.
Access to 5,500+ factory-trained technicians
United Rentals’ CES team quickly put a proactive maintenance plan in place under a National Services Agreement. The contractor gained access to a network of more than 5,500 factory-trained technicians operating in 49 states.
In addition to restoring the equipment to peak condition, the technicians focus on identifying wear on parts to help prevent unplanned downtime and costly repairs. They service equipment at the company’s locations and 20 jobsites.
“The technicians with CES are very responsive,” said the company’s chief financial officer. “They also understand our goals.”
United Rentals also instituted an inspection program for the aerial lifts in compliance with American National Standards Institute (ANSI) guidelines. Team members travel to active jobsites to perform the inspections and maintain accurate records for accountability.
Visibility into equipment with telematics Total Control®
To enable the customer to track each piece of equipment and address low utilization caused by broken equipment sitting idle, United Rentals installed GPS-enabled telematics devices to every lift. It also provided the company with Total Control®, United Rentals’ cloud-based worksite management platform.
Through a single dashboard, the contractor can now see the exact location of all owned and rented equipment. That visibility helps ensure that no machine goes to waste. Utilization data allows the contractor to reduce idle equipment, right-size its fleet and plan more accurate equipment budgets.
Stronger compliance, less expense, lower risk
Partnering with a single vendor for maintenance and inspections made service seamless. Maintenance costs became predictable. Rental costs came down. Equipment is now safer, compliant and ready to operate when it’s needed. It’s also visible.
“A big part of it is ease of mind,” the chief financial officer noted. “We no longer feel like we have to focus on the tracking and maintenance of our equipment. We’re leaving that to the experts.”