PRETORIA –Mercedes-Benz Trucks, part of Daimler Trucks and Buses Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, has introduced another innovation in the ambit of telematics that adds further benefit in the digitized world of efficient trucking. The new, revolutionary service product – Mercedes-Benz Uptime – marks another major advance. Intelligent connectivity powered by Fleetboard significantly increases vehicle availability.

If maintenance and repair requirements are identified, the customer’s Mercedes-Benz service partner will inform the customer in person and provide support with an optimal solution, tailored to the customer’s business needs. Mercedes-Benz Uptime benefits the customer by accessing the vehicle data in real time, as well as providing the vast experience of the specialised teams at Mercedes-Benz Trucks and the comprehensive telematics know-how of Fleetboard. This allows fault patterns to be pinpointed and clear recommendations to be made, designed to ensure maximum vehicle availability.

Mercedes-Benz Uptime can significantly reduce breakdowns and other unplanned downtime. Planned workshop visits can also be combined for greater efficiency, improving vehicle scheduling and fleet availability.

Real-time support for customer repairs.

In many instances a failure to carry out maintenance in a timely manner can increase wear to the vehicle and result in damage or a breakdown. To prevent this Mercedes-Benz Uptime provides customers with timely information and concrete instructions via the customer portal on necessary repair measures for the truck which can easily be carried out by the customers themselves, thereby avoiding unnecessary workshop visits and repair costs. These include, for example, manual regeneration of the diesel particulate filter or replenishing the operating fluids such as AdBlue and coolant.

Efficient management of repair and maintenance work.

Any repair and maintenance requirements detected at an early stage are automatically reported to the customer’s selected Mercedes-Benz Service Partner. Based on this information, the Service Partner bundles the pending repair and maintenance tasks and contacts the customer to make an appointment, optimally tailored to the customer’s schedule and maintenance requirements. Real-time transparency on the condition of a vehicle allows the workshop to prepare for the visit, ordering the required parts in good time, scheduling workshop capacity and drawing up the repair order. The workshop visit and associated downtime are minimised as a result.

Avoiding vehicle breakdowns.

If a truck is in acute danger of breaking down, the customer is informed by the Mercedes-Benz Customer Assistance Centre (CAC) without delay. If an immediate repair is required, the CAC will help arrange a workshop appointment that is optimally tailored to the vehicle’s route and transport assignment. The CAC will check first that the resources are available at the workshop so that the vehicle can be repaired straight away. The result: the customer can avoid a potential breakdown, the truck is repaired quickly and the transport assignment can be carried out on schedule.

Mercedes-Benz Uptime works through a special customer portal. It provides a complete overview of the overall status of the vehicle in real time; all current messages from Mercedes-Benz Uptime are displayed in a clear format.

If, in addition to Mercedes-Benz Uptime a customer uses Fleetboard, relevant information is also displayed in the Fleetboard cockpit along with the current services offered by Fleetboard.