TMC/Decisiv's VMRS System Service Data Report – Q1 2022 Now Available!

ATA’s Technology & Maintenance Council (TMC) is issuing to its fleet members the fifth in an ongoing series of benchmarking reports designed to track key performance indicators for commercial vehicle parts and labor based on the Council’s Vehicle Maintenance Reporting Standards (VMRS), as prepared in partnership with Council member Decisiv. This report indicates combined parts and labor costs rose in the first quarter of 2022 more than 16 percent as compared to the first quarter of 2021.

The maintenance labor and parts data benchmarking report is organized by VMRS System Level Coding based on fleet and service provider data from hundreds of thousands of maintenance events that take place within the Decisiv platform. The report  tracks parts and labor expenditures and trends throughout North America, sorted by geographic location and dozens of VMRS-coded vehicle systems (e.g., brakes 013, tires 017, exhaust 043, etc.) This report helps TMC fleet members benchmark their overall parts and labor costs against actual costs captured in the Decisiv SRM platform.

“This partnership between TMC and Decisiv offers Council fleet members a great benefit to help them benchmark their overall parts and labor costs against actual costs captured in the Decisiv SRM platform, said TMC Executive Director Robert Braswell. “We’re very excited to join with Decisiv to make this important information available to our fleet members.”

The TMC/Decisiv report, entitled “Parts and Labor Cost Analysis for the North American Commercial Vehicle Market” presents summaries compiled from more than 300,000 monthly service maintenance and repair events conducted across nearly 5,000 service locations in the U.S. and Canada.

The latest quarterly report detailing Q1 2022 parts and labor cost data is unsurprising. Considering the impact of inflation across all economic sectors, higher prices for commodities driven by pandemic related supply chain issues, and the effect on the workforce that has amplified an already long standing technician shortage, significant increases are not unexpected.

Year-over-year from Q1 2021 and Q1 2022, combined parts and labor costs were up 16.1%. Parts costs between the two quarters rose 16.02% and labor expenses jumped 16.22%. Those changes reflect continuing cost increases from Q4 2021 to Q1 2022 of 5.5% for parts, 4% in labor and a 5% rise in combined parts and labor expenses between the two previous quarters.

As costs skyrocket, no VMRS System Level Code category is being spared. All of the nine codes tracked by Decisiv for the report realized year-over-year increases in combined parts and labor expenses ranging as high as 24%. The categories with the largest increases included Tires, Powerplant and Brakes.

While it is possible that some of the increases reflect additional mileage from extending trade cycles until new vehicles are built, there is no doubt that higher parts and labor costs are the main reasons.  Still, a positive sign can be seen in this otherwise concerning data. Specifically, over the past five quarters there has been a consistent parts/labor cost ratio;  Part costs at roughly two thirds, and labor costs at one third, of combined expenses.

“Commercial vehicle maintenance and repair costs continue to be battered on several fronts, but effective service management practices have kept things in balance,” said Decisiv President and CEO Dick Hyatt. “That’s an important aspect of ensuring high levels of shop throughput and productivity, which are key to returning vehicles to service faster. The ability to track this data also shows how using SRM is helping drive consistency for fleets in difficult times and for the future.”

The new Decisiv TMC North American Service Event Benchmark reports are possible because of the rapidly growing amount of data being collected by Decisiv on over 13,000 daily service and repair events for the more than 7 million commercial assets being managed on Decisiv’s SRM platform operating across the U.S. and Canada. The summaries are compiled from more than 300,000 monthly service maintenance and repair events conducted across nearly 5,000 service locations.

TMC fleet members will receive the report electronically via email.  For more information on joining TMC, call (703) 838-1763 or visit http://tmc.trucking.org.

By providing leadership support and opportunities to collaborate, TMC helps members develop the industry’s best practices that address the critical truck technology and maintenance issues that have the greatest impact on truck fleets. For more than 60 years, TMC’s member-driven Recommended Maintenance and Engineering Practices have been setting the standards that help trucking companies specify and maintain their fleets more effectively. Follow TMC on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

American Trucking Associations is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. Through a federation of 50 affiliated state trucking associations and industry-related conferences and councils, ATA is the voice of the industry America depends on most to move our nation’s freight. Follow ATA on Twitter or Facebook. Trucking Moves America Forward

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