A whiteboard in the workshop with last year's dates on it
The workshop has a whiteboard. On it someone has written each tractor, the telehandler, the combine and the quad, with the date of the last service. Some of the dates are last year's. One says 'done at harvest?'. The service intervals are in the operator's manuals, measured in engine hours, and the hours are on each machine's clock.
Nobody reads the clocks regularly. The main tractor that does the drilling and the cultivations clocks up hours quickly in autumn, while the older one on the feeder wagon does fewer but every day. Services happen when someone remembers, when the dealer rings, or when a warning light comes on.
Why services are missed on farms
It is not that nobody cares about machinery. The kit is expensive and everyone knows it. The problem is that hours pile up out of sight, at different rates on each machine, and the information lives on the machine rather than in the office.
| Machine | How its hours build up | Why services slip |
|---|---|---|
| Main tractor | Heavy use in bursts at drilling and cultivations | The service falls due in the busiest weeks |
| Loader or feeding tractor | Steady daily use | Nothing marks the interval, it just passes |
| Telehandler | Daily yard use, heavy at harvest | Shared by everyone, owned by nobody |
| Combine | Intense for a few weeks | Pre-harvest service is remembered, others are not |
| Quads and small kit | Low hours, long intervals | Forgotten entirely until a fault |
Then there is the rest of the service schedule: greasing, filters, belts, and the checks that are due by date rather than by hours. The dealer may service some machines under a contract, while your own staff do others in the workshop, and neither record talks to the other.
The cost of a missed service
Your manufacturers and dealers set service intervals, and whether a missed service affects a warranty or a finance agreement is a question for them, not us. The practical costs are familiar: a breakdown in the middle of drilling or harvest, a machine off the road waiting for parts, a contractor called in at short notice.
Less dramatic, but real, is the value of the service history. When a machine is sold or traded in, a complete service record helps. When it is missing, nobody can show what was done.
A service record per machine that watches the hours
What we build is a service tracker that knows each machine's intervals and gets regular hour readings without anyone having to remember.
- Each machine is set up with its service schedule from the manual or dealer: intervals in hours or by date, and what each service covers.
- Drivers log hours on a phone when they start or finish with a machine. A photo of the hour meter is enough; the reading is taken from it and checked against the last one.
- Where your machines have manufacturer telematics that allow access to engine hours, we pull the readings automatically instead.
- Each machine shows hours since its last service, hours to the next, and a forecast date based on recent use, so a service due in the middle of drilling shows up before drilling starts.
- Workshop jobs are recorded against the machine when done, with parts and oil used. Dealer services are added from their job cards or invoices.
- A weekly list goes to whoever runs the workshop: services due soon, overdue, and machines with no hour reading for a while.
It can be a small app or built on tools you already use, such as Microsoft 365 or Google Sheets with a phone form. The size of your fleet decides which makes sense.
A week in the workshop with the hours in view
On Monday the workshop list shows the main tractor will reach its service interval in the middle of next week's drilling, based on the hours it did last week. The service is done on Friday, a few hours early, rather than in a field on a wet Thursday. The telehandler is overdue; the list says it has had no reading for three weeks, and the photo taken that afternoon shows it is well past.
When the combine is traded in, its service history prints as a single report with every job, part and date.
Signs your machinery servicing needs tracking
- Service dates live on a whiteboard, in a diary or in someone's head.
- Nobody knows the current hours on each machine without walking out to it.
- Services fall due in the busiest weeks and get pushed back.
- Dealer and workshop service records are in different places.
- You have had a breakdown that a missed service may have contributed to.