Linde Materials Handling Australia has installed a fleet management tool that increases service productivity and first-time fix rates.

A Linde statement said in-van global positioning systems and two-way data transmission terminals, which transfer data via satellite, had been installed in 120 service vans in late 2006 for "quicker response times and to improve first-time fix rates".

Linde said it understood it was the only Australian forklift fleet business using the system nationally.

James Withey, Linde general manager, service, parts and dealers, said the tool improved fleet uptime.

"There are benefits, especially for companies renting our equipment at multiple sites. We [can] see that some vehicles are exceeding their budgeted usage and others are being under-utilised. Several times we have swapped machines from one site to another as a cost-saving initiative for the customer," he said.

"On other occasions, we have detected an increase in customer damage and been able to alert the customer to a potential personnel or driver training problem."

Withey said service technicians could input and receive data.

"Each time a technician works on a vehicle, he/she inputs its hour meter reading into his/her in-van terminal and, within seconds, the data is transferred directly into a fleet management system," he said.

"Likewise, parts carried by technicians are bar-coded and details scanned and entered into a forklift's service history as they are used."

The Linde statement said the management tool had been developed in Australia. Similar systems had been successfully deployed at Linde sites in Europe.

Linde Materials Handling Australia is a division of German-based Kion Group.