Equipment technicians representing utilities and co-ops, contractors, rental companies, dealers, and Terex service centers and fleet technicians received hands-on service training at the Terex Utilities Service School held in June at Lake Area Technical College.

During the three-day event in Watertown, S.D., 45 participants rotated through six stations. Stations included training on specific aerial devices and digger derricks. Participants also received general instruction on maintenance and inspections.

While the training is geared for technicians, many individuals who have responsibility for various aspects of spec’ing, parts management, or even sales, can benefit.

“Participation in this service school provides familiarity with inspection and testing procedures,” said Brian Kiley, a manager with James A Kiley Co., a final stage manufacturer of Terex equipment in Somerville, Mass. “Using proper testing procedures will help keep units in peak condition, and less likely to breakdown. People who service these units would benefit from this school, however, I think it also would benefit anyone who sells Terex Utilities equipment,” he said.

Michael Hartin and Aubrey Fortenberry are fleet coordinators for CoServ Electric, the second largest electric cooperative in North Texas.

“We are not necessarily technicians or mechanics ourselves. We are coordinators. We deal with everyone in the company, the linemen, the managers of the line department,” said Fortenberry. “We can now go back to fleet managers and our Terex Sales Reps to communicate problems in the field, which might be resolved with an add-on we can recommend for future trucks,” he said.

In addition, Hartin and Fortenberry expect to be able to improve troubleshooting procedures with the information they learned. “We can now correct some problems ourselves that we previously would have sent to the shop,” said Hartin.

“We learned how to use some of Terex’s newer technology to help identify if the problem is the unit or the chassis. This helps us get the right mechanic out to the job. Now we can correctly troubleshoot, carry a little bit more parts inventory at our shop, and get the machine back out there a little quicker,” Fortenberry said.

“When the people who are responsible for maintaining equipment get together in a room, they share common pain points as well as best practices. They learn from each other as much as they learn from our instructors,” said Jason Julius, Terex Utilities, Technical Support and Training.

That’s precisely the reason engineers from Terex Utilities always sit in on these sessions, which fleet coordinators from CoServ noticed. Terex engineers heard first-hand the problems customers were experiencing. “They listened and often asked questions. They are retaining that information for future products, or they offered solutions because they saw something we were doing that could be corrected,” said Fortenberry.