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.”
