THE ANSWER IS PROGNOSIS

"Prognosis" or predictive analysis is leading to higher uptime in VE Commercial Vehicles' truck and bus fleets. Ashish Bhatia looks at the actionable big data at the core.

- Ashish Bhatia

Connected Eicher trucks and buses are a phenomenon that has been around for a while. With data and learnings on the Euro6 engines supplied to Volvo Group, traced back to 2013, in 2020, Eicher first gave a glimpse of the ‘Eutech6’. It underlined the uptime solutions that add to the overall value proposition for BSVI vehicles. In flat three years, which includes the pandemic-marred fiscals, Eutech6 backed by 13 Uptime centres has graduated from diagnosis-led approach to also include prognosis-based, active interventions for the benefit of fleet operators. Imagine, Ramesh Sanyal, plying on a long-haul route in the far North East, gets a call. He pulls over. This call, from the Eicher Uptime Centre to his surprise alerts him of a probable engine seizure on his connected truck before the breakdown occurs. It saves Sanyal and the fleet operator from a forced downtime and prevents losses had the engine health gone unnoticed. With this prognosis and remote diagnostics capability, the pilot can make a pit stop at a designated, closest VE Commercial Vehicles (VECV) service centre for due precautionary measures or through Do-It-Yourself (DIY) ability to address the issue.

VECV is banking on uptime solutions, to address the increasing complexity and digitisation posing challenges; consolidation and modernisation with the growth of new-age transport companies; improving road infrastructure resulting in higher vehicle utilisation; emerging e-commerce industry and the revolution in logistics industry; thin margins for transporters known to shift focus from cost to productivity enhancement and the vehicle acquisition cost itself going up. Today’s customer expects on-demand service, shorter duration for planned services, minimum planned pit stops, quicker TAT, and a competitive operational cost.