Customer Equipment Solutions Case Study

Onsite Equipment Service Preserves Uptime for Mobile Fleet

For a welding company that covers a wide service area, prompt, onsite maintenance and repairs was a game-changer.

CS Welding, a Canadian structural steel fabrication company, partnered with United Rentals’ Customer Equipment Solutions (CES) to address the challenges of maintaining a mobile equipment fleet. By outsourcing preventative maintenance and repairs to CES, the company improved operational efficiency, minimized downtime, and built a trusted partnership that ensures timely, high-quality service and compliance with safety regulations.

Maintaining a highly mobile fleet of equipment, such as boom lifts and telehandlers, across vast distances is challenging, especially while ensuring timely preventative maintenance, repairs, and inspections. These tasks that are critical to safe and efficient operations but fall outside the core expertise of CS Welding.

“I know I can phone them or shoot them an email and ask for help with an issue. Usually, they're there for you that day or the next day,” said Sinclair.

For many companies, maintaining owned equipment is a major challenge. While staying on top of preventative maintenance, repairs and required inspections is critical to safe, efficient operations, equipment service typically isn’t a core competency. When the fleet is mobile, maintaining equipment is even more difficult and burdensome.

CS Welding, a Canadian company that specializes in structural steel fabrication, was searching for an equipment maintenance partner that could provide equipment services in the company’s shop and on project sites -- and do it quickly and reliably.

The company, which serves customers in the oil and gas sector and in agriculture-related industries, offers 24/7 mobile welding, repair, maintenance and onsite fabrication and covers a vast area in Alberta. The work often involves traveling from jobsite to jobsite and bringing equipment such as boom lifts, scissor lifts, and forklifts to enable materials moving and working at height.

In terms of equipment service, “I can't do it,” said Chad Sinclair, the company owner. “For one, I don't have time because generally I'm not there; we've got too many jobs on the go. And I wouldn't expect one of my welders to try and fix a piece of equipment. They might do it wrong and make it worse.”

Timely onsite repairs a “game changer”

United Rentals’ Customer Equipment Solutions (CES) offered exactly the type of support the welding company sought, including preventative maintenance and timely repairs both in the shop and on remote, far-flung project sites.

When a telehandler broke down on a jobsite in Saskatchewan, three hours from the shop, a CES field technician was quickly dispatched to the site. He diagnosed the problem, ordered the necessary parts, and returned the next day to perform the repair. On the same day, a boom lift malfunctioned at the same jobsite and was fixed on the spot. Rapid onsite repairs allow work to continue with minimal interruption.

United Rentals’ responsiveness is one of the company’s strengths that stood out for the customer. “I know I can phone them or shoot them an email and ask for help with an issue. Usually, they're there for you that day or the next day,” said Sinclair.

Trained technicians get it right the first time

Another strength the customer valued was the quality of the service work, which is performed by factory-trained service technicians who get the job done right the first time.

“The mechanics are phenomenal,” said Sinclair. “It's not like, ‘Well, we think it might be this, it might be that.’ No, they've got an answer for what is wrong with your piece of equipment.”

Offloading the maintenance and repair burden

Preventative maintenance is performed on a regular schedule, which United Rentals creates and maintains—not a simple feat with equipment that’s constantly on the move. Proactively performing preventative maintenance can help to reduce downtime and to extend the life of owned equipment, making the fleet more profitable.

By working with CES, the company no longer has to spend precious time trying to create maintenance schedules or maintain, repair, and inspect its fleet. Outsourcing equipment service to United Rentals has allowed it to focus on running the business and generating more revenue.

An ongoing partnership built on trust

CES has built a trusted partnership with the customer by being there when and where service is required and always delivering on the customer’s needs. Those needs extend to timely aerial lift inspections, which help ensure the safety of lifts and keep the company in compliance with regulations, avoiding potential fines. United Rentals, a one-stop shop, also supplies factory-direct parts and rental equipment as needed.

“United Rentals’ CES is the right choice for us,” said Sinclair. “It saves us a lot of downtime. The equipment, when it comes back, is fixed, it's operational and it's always safe for my guys. And that's the reason we use CES.”

Contact the United Rentals Customer Equipment Solutions team for help with all your fleet maintenance needs.