The Manufacturer Recall business process requires a recall letter to be sent to the correct contact (either the fleet manager for contract hire or the driver for Personal Contract Purchase) for the recall of the vehicle. If a vehicle has an outstanding recall against it, then the maintenance controller should be able to bring the item to the notice of the repairer when authorising work. When completed the notification of when the work was carried out and by who, needs to be held against the vehicle.
Note: An ASCII import routine may provide the most effective means of importing the recall records as a spreadsheet is usually provided from the manufacturer concerned. At present this electronic import isn't utilised within the Kestrel system and this process assumes the manual creation and update of information; the electronic import option is being considered for future development.
In order for this function to operate the following two files need to be set-up and processing must then be carried out within the maintenance approval:
This first file holds the recall reference and description.
This second file records the details of the action against those registrations that have been highlighted as requiring a maintenance check and is described below.
Typically, a manufacturer recall is sent to leasing/hiring company notifying them of the need to ensure that a certain batch of vehicles are checked at the earliest opportunity. Therefore, the final part of the process must ensure that recall letters are generated to that effect (the destination address will depend on the customer and type of contract product, either directly to the driver, the company fleet manager or possibly in-house if the leasing/hiring company are managing a customer's fleet) Controlling this process within Kestrel can be done utilising the format stationery / reporting functionality with the logic determining where the letters are sent can be held as selection rules.
The recall should be flagged as Outstanding until a maintenance controller updates the vehicle and the work is flagged as completed. For any vehicle with a recall outstanding the main maintenance authorisation form will bring the item immediately to the users attention for action.
The Vehicle Recalls set-up form is accessed via Maintenance Control / Miscellaneous Options / Vehicle Recalls and is used to create, edit and delete vehicle recall records which contain numerous details relating to the recall itself. There is a prompt to select a vehicle registration number and allocate this vehicle against an existing Manufacturer Recall record from a drop down list. The functionality exists to amend, add or delete vehicle entries against the manufacturer recall table.
The recall item is held as Outstanding until the maintenance controller Completes the vehicle recall record within this tab.
To create a new vehicle recall record select the Create Command Button.
To view or amend an existing vehicle recall record the following procedure should be used:
The cursor is located in the Registration Number field prompting selection of a vehicle registration number. A single-left-click of the ellipsis button to the right of this field displays a Vehicle Recalls List Box that enables selection from the current vehicles. Having selected the required vehicle by highlighting with the mouse, the OK command button is used to confirm this selection and return to the Vehicle Recalls form.
The cursor is then located in the Recall Number field prompting selection of an existing previously created Manufacturer Recall record number. A single-left-click of the ellipsis button to the right of this field displays a Recall Numbers List Box that enables selection from the current manufacturer recall records. Having selected the required recall record by highlighting with the mouse, the OK command button is used to confirm this selection and return to the Vehicle Recalls form.
Details Group
Displays a number of details relating to the selected vehicle recall, which are as follows:
Agreement No: The agreement number associated with the currently selected vehicle registration. This field cannot be edited.
Recall Description: Displays a free-format meaningful textual description for the selected Manufacturer Recall number e.g. FO4219. This value is taken from the currently selected Manufacturer Recall number. This field cannot be edited.
Recall Issue Date: The manufacturer's (etc) recall date. This value is taken from the currently selected Manufacturer Recall number. This field cannot be edited.
Recall Manufacturer: The manufacturer name for which the recall is to take place e.g. Ford. This value is taken from the currently selected Manufacturer Recall number. This field cannot be edited.
Completed Date: The date on which the vehicle recall is deemed to be complete. This field is populated by a date being entered in the Completed field by the maintenance controller within the Recalls Tab of the maintenance control form.
Completed By: The user id of the person who has completed the vehicle recall. This field is populated with the user id of the maintenance controller who enters the Completed date in the Recalls Tab of the maintenance control form.
Repairer Name: The repairer who has carried out the work that is required against the vehicle record. This field is populated automatically by the completion routine taken by the maintenance controller within the Recalls Tab of the maintenance control form.
Recall Notes: This may be used for entering notes as to why the vehicle is being recalled, etc, in reference to the manufacturer recall document/file.
Recall Letter Sent: A date field populated when the recall letter has been generated to the appropriate recipient.
Tip: The recall letter is generated in Timed Operations overnight following completion of the Manufacturer Recall and Vehicle Recall tables and the selected vehicles being deemed at this stage to be Outstanding. Controlling this process within Kestrel can be done utilising the format stationery / reporting functionality with the logic determining where the letters are sent can be held as selection rules.
Buttons:
A number of command buttons are available. Some buttons are context sensitive and are greyed-out and only become available dependent upon the particular process that is being accessed. The full list of command buttons is as follows:
Exit: Exits the Vehicle Recalls form and returns to the Miscellaneous Options Menu.
Help: Provides online access to a context sensitive Help form.
Create: Enables the creation of an additional Vehicle Recall record. Mutually exclusive option buttons allow this to be done in one of the two following ways:
- Blank: Used if a new Vehicle Recall record is to be set-up without utilising existing criteria.
- Copy: Copies the values within an existing "nearest match" Vehicle Recalls record so that only required values need be edited.
Amend: Provides the facility for editing the set-up options of the current Vehicle Recalls record. No edits can be made to a record until the Amend button has been selected.
Delete: Deletes the currently selected Vehicle Recalls record.
Confirm: On first accessing the Vehicle Recalls form this command button is greyed-out. Following selection of the Amend button the Confirm option then becomes available to enable any edits to be confirmed.
Cancel: On first accessing the Vehicle Recalls form this command button is greyed-out. Following selection of the Amend button the Cancel option then becomes available to enable any edits to be cancelled.
Message: This is not a command button. This box is a way of displaying messages with regard to the status of the current record e.g. Record Secured OK.
Ad-hoc: Selection of this button displays a further form that provides an Ad-hoc Report Generator for the creation of quick query reports to form.
Setup: Selection of this button displays a further form that provides an itemised display of all the selection criteria for the current Vehicle Recalls record.