Forklift PM tickets, read against the agreement that covers each truck.

Your technician's route reaches each customer's trucks every few weeks. Every ticket carries the truck's serial number, a meter reading, the checklist, the filters and fluids used, and whatever turned up that needs more than a PM. Your service billing desk then matches the ticket to the agreement, splits what the agreement covers from what it doesn't, and sets the point when that truck comes due again.

For the test, AI reads the same closed tickets with the agreements behind them and drafts the billing for each visit: covered lines, lines billable outside the agreement at its own rates, findings left for a quote, and the next PM due by hours or by date. Every amount comes from the agreement or your rate sheet. Nothing posts, and no customer hears a word.

The interval runs on hours and on the calendar. Toyota Material Handling's guide to maintenance plans gives typical service every 250 hours or 6 weeks, every 500 hours or 3 months, and every 2,000 hours or 12 months, varying with the model, the fuel and the work. A truck running two shifts reaches the hour mark long before the date; a spare parked by the dock reaches the date first. Dealer systems lay out the schedule differently too. IntelliDealer's service agreement programs are either Actual, which brings a unit in at 250, 500 and 750 hours, or Additive, which adds the interval to the reading at the start, so a unit that began at 35 hours comes in at 285, 535 and 785. The draft names the rule behind every due point it sets.

Which meter counts is written in the agreement, not on the truck. An electric truck can keep several clocks. The manual for Yale's ERC40VH lists a pump hour meter for hydraulic run time, a traction hour meter for time the truck is moving, and a secure meter for time an operator sits with the key on, which cannot be reset; each is stored to a tenth of an hour. Crown's InfoLink data sheet describes logging login, idle, hydraulic and travel times and scheduling PMs from those readings. A ticket that says "hours" without naming the meter, a reading lower than last visit's, or a new display fitted after a repair goes to your reviewer, never into the bill.

The tier decides who pays for each line. Crown's own programs run from time and material, through planned maintenance and full maintenance, which adds all routine maintenance repairs, to complete maintenance, which also covers abuse repairs up to a threshold agreed in advance; its full maintenance leaves out wheels, tires, light bulbs and repairs caused by misuse or abuse. Toyota's guide says a planned maintenance plan generally leaves out replacement parts and major fixes. So drive tires, a lamp and a mast hose torn by a load can each bill a different way on one ticket, depending on the agreement and on what the technician wrote about the cause. The draft marks each line with the clause it relied on. Calling a repair abuse stays with your service manager.

Some findings are not billing questions at all. OSHA's truck rule says replacement parts must be equivalent as to safety with the original design, that a truck must not be altered so its parts sit differently than when it left the factory, and that added counterweight needs the maker's approval. Changes that affect capacity need the manufacturer's prior written approval and new plates; an attachment the factory didn't fit calls for marking that shows the truck-and-attachment weight; and nameplates must stay legible. A truck built for a hazardous location carries one of eleven designations, from E for basic electric to EX for atmospheres with flammable vapors or dusts. The draft passes the technician's note about a faded plate, a new clamp or a non-original part to your service manager word for word, and never decides whether the truck may run.

What your reviewer will watch. Is every ticket matched to the right customer, agreement and serial number? Is the next due point right under your schedule rule, on the meter the agreement names? Is each line covered, billed outside the agreement, or held for a quote, with the clause that says so? Are abuse calls left to a person? And is every ticket with a missing or backward reading set aside rather than billed?

Once your reviewer says yes, new PM tickets go through the same drafting for about 30 days.

Each draft waits for your billing desk to approve it before an invoice posts in your dealer management system, and any abuse charge still needs your service manager's say-so.

The comparison keeps running on live tickets, and nothing else is added until those 30 days are over.