City of Meridian

Protect, Serve, and Maintain

Protect, Serve, and Maintain

 

The City of Meridian is Idaho’s second largest city and ranks as one of the Best Places to Live in America. Given its growth and popularity, the city and its police department must keep pace to protect and serve the community. With 265 city vehicles, half of which managed by the police department, Meridian needed a solution that was flexible, yet easy to use, helped maintain vehicle and officer safety, and maximized fleet up time.

The fleet maintenance software space boasts many options, but what stood out about AUTOsist to Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager Stacey Pechin was its affordability, simplicity, and the ability to customize. Pechin and Meridian first implemented AUTOsist fleet management software in 2017, and never looked back.

“AUTOsist is very customizable, and the support has been fantastic,” said Pechin. “Anytime we've had a suggestion, almost always AUTOsist has reached back out and said, ‘we heard your request, and we implemented it.’ Over the years, AUTOsist has grown and become a better system than it was when I started even.”

Yet another reason Meridian and Pechin has been an AUTOsist customer for over seven years is that all the features the city needs to manage its fleet is conveniently located in AUTOsist at a rate and function superior to the competition.

The City of Meridian is Idaho’s second largest city and ranks as one of the Best Places to Live in America. Given its growth and popularity, the city and its police department must keep pace to protect and serve the community. With 265 city vehicles, half of which managed by the police department, Meridian needed a solution that was flexible, yet easy to use, helped maintain vehicle and officer safety, and maximized fleet up time.

The fleet maintenance software space boasts many options, but what stood out about AUTOsist to Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager Stacey Pechin was its affordability, simplicity, and the ability to customize. Pechin and Meridian first implemented AUTOsist fleet management software in 2017, and never looked back.

“AUTOsist is very customizable, and the support has been fantastic,” said Pechin. “Anytime we've had a suggestion, almost always AUTOsist has reached back out and said, ‘we heard your request, and we implemented it.’ Over the years, AUTOsist has grown and become a better system than it was when I started even.”

Yet another reason Meridian and Pechin has been an AUTOsist customer for over seven years is that all the features the city needs to manage its fleet is conveniently located in AUTOsist at a rate and function superior to the competition.

“We rolled out AUTOsist across all of our fleets city wide because not only is it extremely user friendly and customizable, but it is also very cost-effective and efficient saving us thousands every year on fleet maintenance and management costs.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager

“We rolled out AUTOsist across all of our fleets city wide because not only is it extremely user friendly and customizable, but it is also very cost-effective and efficient saving us thousands every year on fleet maintenance and management costs.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager

Managing Various Vehicle Types and Maintenance Providers

Managing Various Vehicle Types and Maintenance Providers

One of the many challenges Pechin and Meridian faced before using AUTOsist was trying to manage maintenance schedules for a variety of vehicle types. The police department alone has patrol vehicles, passenger vehicles for detectives, plus trucks and SUVs for community and code enforcement. All of these vehicles need to run at peak performance, especially during the harsh winter months where road conditions are sub-optimal.

Their fleet of police patrol vehicles include Ford Interceptors, Explorers, Chevy Tahoes, and Dodge Durangos. Each of these vehicle types vary in their maintenance schedules. Pechin identified that the Chevy Tahoe burned oil and brake pads at a faster rate than the Ford and Chevy vehicles.

With this insight, Pechin created custom oil change schedules and reminders specific to each vehicle to ensure the Tahoe wasn’t running low on oil or brake pad depth, potentially compromising driver safety. To be certain, the city can track maintenance by both odometer readings and time elapsed from previous service.

One of the many challenges Pechin and Meridian faced before using AUTOsist was trying to manage maintenance schedules for a variety of vehicle types. The police department alone has patrol vehicles, passenger vehicles for detectives, plus trucks and SUVs for community and code enforcement. All of these vehicles need to run at peak performance, especially during the harsh winter months where road conditions are sub-optimal.

Their fleet of police patrol vehicles include Ford Interceptors, Explorers, Chevy Tahoes, and Dodge Durangos. Each of these vehicle types vary in their maintenance schedules. Pechin identified that the Chevy Tahoe burned oil and brake pads at a faster rate than the Ford and Chevy vehicles.

With this insight, Pechin created custom oil change schedules and reminders specific to each vehicle to ensure the Tahoe wasn’t running low on oil or brake pad depth, potentially compromising driver safety. To be certain, the city can track maintenance by both odometer readings and time elapsed from previous service.

“Our police officers are out there every day, and they never know when they're going to need to suddenly turn their lights and sirens on and go across the city as safely and as quickly as possible. They need their brakes to be there when they slow down,they need their cooling fan to work for their K9 and they need their engine to stay running when they're on a traffic scene.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager

“Our police officers are out there every day, and they never know when they're going to need to suddenly turn their lights and sirens on and go across the city as safely and as quickly as possible. They need their brakes to be there when they slow down,they need their cooling fan to work for their K9 and they need their engine to stay running when they're on a traffic scene.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager

AUTOsist’s Integrated and Convenient Dashboard

AUTOsist’s Integrated and Convenient Dashboard

 

Over the years, the City of Meridian has debated if it should continue to outsource maintenance to providers or hire in-house mechanics. Using information from AUTOsist, Pechin and her team can conduct break-even analysis, which continues to confirm the ideal option for them is to outsource maintenance. However, relinquishing vehicle maintenance to others means Pechin and the city must keep close tabs on each vehicle and plan accordingly to avoid prolonged downtime.

Deploying a proactive fleet maintenance approach allowed Meridian and Pechin to extend the useful life of several vehicles, delaying the need for replacement and saving the city thousands in new vehicle costs.

“What's nice about AUTOsist is I can just take the entire invoice from the tire store that did an oil change put tires and front brakes on, and I can upload the whole invoice, add an image of it, and I can separate the parts and labor, whatever items I want to track.”

The fleet relies on WEX fuel cards and driver input to collect odometer readings each time an officer fills up at the pump. The fuel purchase details, along with the odometer readings, are automatically integrated in AUTOsist, saving her several hours per week.

The AUTOsist dashboard is useful for Pechin to view what maintenance services are due soon based in the odometer integration through WEX fuel cards which show what vehicle needs maintenance within 500 miles, a custom range she can set in the system. The city uses AUTOsist to set reminders for each vehicle when service is due soon, and Pechin uses proactive measures to pull vehicles that aren’t in use for repairs and service to optimize uptime and keep officers and the community safe.

Over the years, the City of Meridian has debated if it should continue to outsource maintenance to providers or hire in-house mechanics. Using information from AUTOsist, Pechin and her team can conduct break-even analysis, which continues to confirm the ideal option for them is to outsource maintenance. However, relinquishing vehicle maintenance to others means Pechin and the city must keep close tabs on each vehicle and plan accordingly to avoid prolonged downtime.

Deploying a proactive fleet maintenance approach allowed Meridian and Pechin to extend the useful life of several vehicles, delaying the need for replacement and saving the city thousands in new vehicle costs.

“What's nice about AUTOsist is I can just take the entire invoice from the tire store that did an oil change put tires and front brakes on, and I can upload the whole invoice, add an image of it, and I can separate the parts and labor, whatever items I want to track.”

The fleet relies on WEX fuel cards and driver input to collect odometer readings each time an officer fills up at the pump. The fuel purchase details, along with the odometer readings, are automatically integrated in AUTOsist, saving her several hours per week.

The AUTOsist dashboard is useful for Pechin to view what maintenance services are due soon based in the odometer integration through WEX fuel cards which show what vehicle needs maintenance within 500 miles, a custom range she can set in the system. The city uses AUTOsist to set reminders for each vehicle when service is due soon, and Pechin uses proactive measures to pull vehicles that aren’t in use for repairs and service to optimize uptime and keep officers and the community safe.

“I used to run our mileage report manually for many years, but now that we've gone citywide with AUTOsist, we made it automatic and that's very helpful.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager

“I used to run our mileage report manually for many years, but now that we've gone citywide with AUTOsist, we made it automatic and that's very helpful.”
— Stacey Pechin, Meridian Fleet and Buildings Services Manager