A defect written down three times
The driver of a rear-end loader does his walkaround at quarter to six. He notices a bin lift ram weeping hydraulic oil and a cracked marker lamp. He writes both in the defect book in the cab, ticks the rest of the checklist and sets off, because nobody has told him the vehicle cannot go out.
The next day a different driver takes the vehicle, sees the same defects written in the book and writes them in again. The day after, a third. The workshop finds out on Friday when the transport manager collects the books. By then the lamp is still cracked and the ram has got worse.
Why defects wait
The daily check is done well by most drivers. The weak point is what happens after the pen leaves the paper.
- Defect books stay in the cab and are read weekly, if that.
- The workshop keeps its own list, separate from the drivers' reports.
- Drivers cannot see whether a defect they reported has been looked at.
- Repeated reports of the same defect look like new ones.
- Finding the check history for a particular vehicle means searching through books.
What your checks must cover and when a vehicle should not go out are decided by your transport manager and your own obligations. We deal with the record keeping and the flow of information.
What slow defect handling costs
Small defects left too long become bigger repairs and, on a refuse vehicle, a breakdown on a round means a lost day and customers missed. Vehicles off the road unexpectedly are expensive and disruptive in a fleet that rarely has spares.
There is also the cost of proving what happened. When someone asks for the check history for a vehicle, the transport manager spends hours with a pile of books. Missing pages and unclear handwriting weaken the record your business relies on.
How we build digital checks with defect routing
What we build replaces the paper book with a check on the driver's phone and connects it to whoever fixes the vehicle.
- The driver scans a code in the cab or selects the vehicle, and works through your checklist, including bin lift and body items specific to refuse vehicles.
- Each item is marked OK or defect. A defect needs a short description and a photo, and the driver marks whether they think it affects the vehicle's use; your rules decide what happens next.
- Defects go immediately to your workshop or maintenance contact by app notification or email, with the photo, vehicle and time.
- The workshop updates the defect: seen, parts ordered, fixed, with notes. The next driver of that vehicle sees open defects before starting their check, so the same defect is confirmed rather than re-reported.
- Checks and defects are stored per vehicle, searchable by date, and exportable when your transport manager needs them.
- A daily screen shows which vehicles were checked, which have open defects and which were not checked at all.
| Paper book | Digital check |
|---|---|
| Read weekly | Defects seen by the workshop the same morning |
| Same defect written by each driver | Next driver sees and confirms the open defect |
| No link to the repair | Report, action and fix on one record |
| History in a pile of books | Searchable per vehicle and date |
A quarter to six with the app
The driver notices the weeping ram and the cracked lamp, marks both with photos. The workshop supervisor sees them on his phone at six. Following your rules, he tells the transport office to swap the vehicle for the day, and the ram is looked at that morning. The lamp is replaced at the same time.
The next day's driver opens the check and sees both defects marked fixed, with the fitter's notes. At the end of the month the transport manager exports the check record for every vehicle in minutes.
Is your defect process still on paper?
- Defect books stay in cabs and are read weekly.
- The same defect is written by several drivers before it is fixed.
- The workshop list and the drivers' reports are separate.
- Finding a vehicle's check history takes hours.
- You cannot see today which vehicles were not checked.