COMPANY Car Today’s Innovation Awards 2021 has given Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions its Service, Maintenance & Repair prize, the fleet car magazine praising the company’s proactive downtime management process.
Hitachi’s 24-hour, seven days-a-week system has been designed to keep downtime to a minimum, and claims to achieve a 99.6% vehicle availability figure. With vehicle downtime an increasingly serious issue for fleet managers, Hitachi’s suite of systems helps install confidence in availability across the fleet.
The downtime management process is supported by both a workflow management system and an incident management system.
The workflow management system has been designed to escalate any issues with a team of engineers to support diagnosis issues, service failure investigations, parts delays, and supplier improvement plans/audits.
Hitachi’s incident management system includes a customisable dashboard, configured to the customer’s needs, with real-time supplier feeds. It also tracks breakdown incidents when reported, intervening with support for customers if required.
According to the company, Hitachi’s targeted approach with 11 of its customers resulted in savings of £9 million across maintenance, tyres, out-of-contract recharges, and reduced downtime.
Hitachi Capital Vehicle Solutions was also ‘Highly Commended’ in the Company Car Today Innovation Awards 2021 Green Award.
The Broker News funder supporter was praised for its work with electric vehicles, including heavy involvement and investment in the Gridserve public charging network, which has taken over the Electric Highway charge points. Hitachi has also incorporated home charge points into leasing costs where required by fleets, and has rolled out significant numbers of charging units at workplace and depot sites.
