Are You Still Using Paper to Run Your Rental Operations? (VIDEO)

Paper is the enemy of an efficient rental operation. 

It is a 5,000 year-old technology invented in ancient Egypt with the launch of Papyrus tablets.

A rental equipment lifecycle typically has, on average, ten transactions involving paper.

Every paper transaction is an opportunity for errors to creep in

It is easy to mix up two digits of an equipment serial number on a hand-written pick list, resulting in the wrong equipment being marked as on-hire.

It is also impossible to enforce compliance on hand-written forms, meaning essential information such as fuel and hours readings is missed.

Every paper transaction introduces unnecessary costs and delays.

One customer measured the average time to enter a hand-written return picklist into the rental management system as three days.  Paperwork created a three-day delay in invoicing customers and the loss of hire revenue for high demand equipment.

Some of our customers were forced to hire a small army of paperwork administrators.

Administrators had one job, to keep the rental operation moving and had the frustrating task of reading the growing mountain of operational paperwork and updating the rental management system.

Every paper transaction carries risk.

The pandemic highlighted the importance of avoiding unnecessary face-to-face contact, which is not easy when co-workers exchange papers.

There is also the risk of lost and damaged paperwork.

One customer was motivated to go digital when a pallet of completed paperwork was accidentally left in the rain, and the outer layer of customer orders was destroyed!

The leadership teams of our rental customers decided to replace paper with a digital operations platform.  Taking that first step can be challenging, especially if paperwork has been underpinning your operation since it began.

That’s why we have created a four-part guide to implementing paperless rental operations.

• Part 1 discusses the importance of clear and measurable goals, with suggestions on how to choose the right goals.
• Part 2 introduces the five principles for running a low-risk, low-cost paperless operations trial.
• Part 3 explains why user involvement is so important and explains how you can bring users with you.
• Part 4 describes how you and your team can measure project success.

At the end of this journey, the paperwork required to run the logistics and servicing of your rental fleet is replaced with a range of rental apps that communicate in real-time to your Rental Management system.

Your ‘Papyrus’ tablets are now Apple or Android tablets and mobile devices!

The positive impacts on your rental business include:

• Faster equipment turnaround times
• More billable services
• Fewer customer credit notes,
• More efficient workforce (in the depot, the field and back-office)
• Reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.