Eight ways AI is changing the shop

Headnote

Shops have plenty of options when it comes to Al tools, from speeding data entry to troubleshooting.

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a concept or a technology for the future. It's being used across the transportation industry right now, with plenty of solid maintenance use cases to boost shops efficiency quotient. From predictive maintenance and troubleshooting to budgeting and record-keeping, Alisrapidly improving how fast trucks and trailers are serviced and repairs are managed.

Alisa broad term, and many applications fall under the subset of machine learning. But evenin these nascent cases, the data on ATs transformative effect is compelling-while future iterations that could take over shop management are both exhilarating and terrifying.

Either way, the technology demands a closer look, so here are some of the primary areas where Alis making its mark.

Smarter scheduling

Today's predictive maintenance tools, based on historical and real-time repair data, focus on providing more profitability and uptime, identifying which assets, systems, and components are likely to fail and when.

"Fleets and service shops using these tools already see time savings through automated uploads of service records that extract asset details, repair types, and costs from any format," noted Brianna Perry, product marketing manager at Fleetio. "Beyond convenience, richer data becomes the foundation for smarter service practices."

At the heart of these AI systems is the ability to merge telematics, service histories, and diagnostic and inspection results to deliver more complete repair recommendations before issues become expensive breakdowns. But they stop short of prescribing next steps, Perry said.

"The next generation of Al tools will go further by interpreting unstructured data like scanned invoices or technician notes to pinpoint why failures occur," she added.

AI models can also analyze fault codes and identify issues before they cause downtime, leading to the opportunity to fix them before they happen, explained Paul Maida, sr. product manager at Geotab.

For example, Geotab's predictive measurement tool Electrical System Rating (ESR) scores the health of a vehicle's electrical system on a scale from 0 to 100 every day, and assigns a value of Good, Fair, Caution, or Poor to predict potential battery failures. This allows managers to proactively schedule maintenance or repair. Geotab said one fleet reported a 28% reduction in on-road battery replacements...