Jason Pintinalli
Paradigm Technology

Vehicle maintenance is a two-edged sword.

On one hand, to ensure maximum uptime and remarket value, every vehicle in your fleet needs to receive proper, scheduled maintenance.

On the other hand, making sure this gets done - and gets done efficiently - can be complicated and labor intensive.

Unless your organization has the staff and the focus to implement its own maintenance management program, you could remain stuck in a costly balancing act. Fortunately, Distinctive Systems offers the ideal alternative - the Vehicle Maintenance System.

Distinctive Systems' VMS is a system specially designed for bus operators of all sizes. Developed using Microsoft Visual Studio, and based on the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 database engine, VMS is a client/server system powerful enough for even the largest operators. VMS is also ideal for use with any operator-maintained fleet of specialized vehicles, vans or cars.

VMS allows an unlimited number of activities to be assigned to a given vehicle make and model, with each consisting of any number of user definable preventative maintenance items and statutory safety inspections. Each vehicle has its own activity cycle that defines the order in which services and inspections are to be carried out with intervals in days, miles, hours or fixed dates as appropriate. Activities become scheduled activities when they are assigned to a date, which can be done either individually or automatically to any date in the future.

VMS includes a comprehensive defect recording system. A defect goes forward to become an unscheduled activity which can either be assigned to its own date and time, or be attached to an existing scheduled activity.

VMS also includes a graphical bay planner for allocating scheduled and unscheduled activities into workshop, paint shop or cleaning bays. Activities can be moved to a different bay or time using drag and drop. The highly visual graphical presentation makes the optimization of resources especially easy.

VMS consists of a central vehicle maintenance module, plus optional modules for inventory, accounts payable, invoicing and accounts receivable. Users also can link VMS to Coach Manager CBS - Distinctive's SQL Server based charter booking system.

VMS features
* Unlimited user definable activities each with unlimited user definable maintenance items, statutory safety inspections, readings, costs, parts, bay facilities and skill requirements

* Faults, comments and work carried out can be recorded against each activity

* Activity cycle for each vehicle allows activities to be scheduled by distance, days, hours or fixed date

* Activities can be scheduled individually or automatically up to any future date

* Unscheduled activities can be assigned to their own dates or attached to scheduled activities

* Defect reporting system with user definable defect types, stored common descriptions and full implementation of statutory reasons for failure

* Graphical workshop optimizer facilitates smoothing of daily workloads with automated rescheduling of subsequent activities

* Highly visual bay planner with drag and drop allocation of color coded activities into user definable bays

* Six-month view of scheduled activities emulates traditional wall planner

* Job cards with user definable layout printed automatically for each activity

* Comprehensive standard and user definable reporting facilities throughout the entire system with onscreen previews, printed reports and data export

* Single- or multi-user Microsoft SQL Server 2000 client/server system available with multiple operating bases

* Microsoft SQL Server 2000 backup and restore facilities with scheduled backups

* For more information, call (866) 782-4636, send e-mails to Info@ptcllc.com or go to www.ptcllc.com.