Schnucks

The Missouri-based regional grocery store chain Schnucks faced some big challenges, including vehicle downtime, a low preventive maintenance compliance rate, and a large inventory of unused parts. With help from a new fleet maintenance manager and better utilization of RTA software, the company was able to make quick and significant improvements to their entire fleet.

Stepping Into a Time Machine

When Jacob Johnson started as fleet maintenance supervisor at Schnucks and first stepped into the shop, he thought he had walked back in time.

“They were still using paper invoices for parts and work orders,” Johnson said. “It felt like it was 30 years ago when the culture was really laid back. And that was not necessarily a bad thing.”

Schnucks runs a fleet of 70 tractors, 500 refrigerated trailers and 300 dry van trailers to 120 company-owned stores in Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Indiana. The company’s tractors and trailers are serviced by the company’s 12 technicians located at one maintenance facility at its headquarters in Kinloch, Missouri.

Because the company’s trucks run nearly round-the-clock in a slip-seat operation, the maintenance facility operates 24/7. When the trucks are not running, they’re berthed at the company yard. As a result, communication between drivers and mechanics is not as big of an issue as it is at other companies, Johnson said.

Fleet Manager Uses RTA to Modernize Shop Operations

When Johnson began working for Schnucks in January of 2023, he was brought in to help modernize the fleet and shop operation. Johnson said that, while the company was using RTA when he came on board, he soon discovered it wasn’t being used to its full capabilities.

With assistance from RTA support staff, Johnson started using RTA’s newest version, Fleet360, and found he could access work orders, repair history, and parts inventory at his fingertips.

But the part that Johnson liked the most was RTA’s ability to integrate fleet, parts inventory, and shop management. And while Schnucks still uses a third-party system for driver vehicle inspection reports, Johnson said he is considering switching to RTA’s vehicle inspection report system so the shop can access driver reports in real time.

RTA also helped Johnson get a better handle on Schnucks preventive maintenance compliance rate. “When I started, I would say we would average somewhere around 15 tractors each day in the shop on service calls,” he said. “We are closer to an 80 percent PM compliance rate now. Vehicle uptime and PM compliance play hand-in-hand.”

Johnson believes the shop attained the higher uptime and PM compliance rates by moving away from measuring a technician’s job performance based on how long it takes the person to complete the job, to how long the repaired equipment runs between service calls.

“My objective is not necessarily how long it takes to do the job, but it’s to make sure the work’s done right the first time,” Johnson said.

Grocery Fleet Cuts $450K Parts Inventory in Half

Another challenge Johnson used RTA to tackle was the large inventory of unused parts.

“I found that we might have 30 units of a part that we hardly ever used because when the sales rep came in, he probably convinced the fleet maintenance supervisor to buy a bunch of them to save some money,” Johnson said. By having the shop’s parts inventory in the RTA system part inventory module, Johnson soon discovered that the Schnucks maintenance shop was sitting on more than $450,000 worth of unused parts.

By utilizing RTA to track and reduce inventory levels, Johnson soon cut the parts inventory in half.

Now, as stock levels get low on frequently used parts, the system can automatically requisition and purchase replacements. Then, the shop always has the parts technicians need on hand–and none of the parts that are hardly used, if ever.

Using the RTA part module, the shop was also able to file 430 claims for parts still under warranty. With RTA, the shop realized $190,000 in annual savings by reducing its overall cost per mile and experienced a 96.4 percent vehicle uptime rate that year.

The Schnucks Fleet is a Running Billboard

“Mechanically, our fleet is running in great shape,” he said. “On the cosmetic side, I would really like to zero in and be able to say that our fleet is the best-looking one on the road.” Our equipment is a moving billboard that advertises and promotes our stores on the road. And I want people to see our trucks and say, ‘if their equipment looks good on the road, I can’t wait to step inside their stores,’ Johnson said.

“Now that we’ve improved performance and uptime, I’m looking to ensure our fleet represents our stores and the quality of our operation.”