Customized solutions for seamless fleet lifecycle management are hard to find today especially when customers need it the most. New Jersey-based PLM Fleet offers customized lease plans designed with their customer in mind and an on-site, full-service maintenance program with a dedicated team to schedule preventative maintenance for their customers. “We come to your location for scheduled maintenance procedures, reducing down-time of units and also offer 24/7 emergency breakdown repair services,” says Keith Shipp, President & CEO of PLM, who has been with the company since 2011 and has been a leader in the industry for two decades. “PLM has over 30 nationwide branch locations offering the largest variety of refrigerated trailers, from 28-53’ in length with a variety of options. Our rental fleet is available daily, weekly, or monthly for any needs.”
PLM has over 30 nationwide branch locations offering
the largest variety of refrigerated trailers, from 28-53’
in length with a variety of options. Our rental fleet is
available daily, weekly, or monthly for any needs
It is pertinent to mention that PLM offers risk-free leases for customers, they can walk away at the end of the lease term, and PLM will take the unit back. Additionally, we can dispose of our customer’s trailers through our extensive remarketing program, eliminating disposal time and cost.
“PLM is the food safety expert. Our consultants are industry experts on understanding food safety regulations and helping customers meet government requirements to become compliant,” says Shipp. “With today’s changing industry, PLM offers online, contactless training courses available on-demand for driver training to meet FSMA requirements, last mile, and industry best practices.”
PLM has been in the transportation industry for almost 50 years, founded in 1972 as a syndicate equipment leasing company for rail, ships, trailers, containers, and aircraft. In 2000, PLM was purchased by Marubeni Corporation out of Tokyo and integrated its operations into a container leasing subsidiary. PLM introduced ColdLink® in 2006, a web-based management tool providing 2-way GPS tracking that enables its customers to gain realtime availability into its fleet and has expanded its offering to temperature tracking control and robust reporting analytics. In 2019, PLM Fleet LLC was formed due to a 50% partnership between Marubeni Corporation and Mizuho Leasing. Today, PLM Fleet is the largest technology-driven fleet management company dedicated exclusively to the leasing, rental, maintenance and management of refrigerated trailers. PLM focuses on creating flexible and customerspecific refrigerated solutions to reduce costs and risk from fleet operations saving our customers time and money. “PLM does not offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Our solutions are customized to meet our customers’ needs. Using our industry knowledge, we design a personalized lifecycle fleet management plan structured around our customers’ needs,” adds Shipp.
PLM team members take a consultative approach to analyze their customer’s fleet through consumptionbased models. “Using their fleet analytics, we design a program that meets their needs and makes optimal use of the asset. PLM uses data-driven solutions to analyze our customers’ fleet data against our benchmarked data of 12,000 assets,” says Shipp. “Comparing fleet data allows us to recommend industry best practices and use predictive analytics from maintenance and telematics data to best understand when the right time is to service and replace parts.” PLM can identify areas of cost savings and productivity by comparing your data against industry standards for managed replacement, operational savings, and leasing benefits analyzed through these models:
“PLM’s customized fleet plan includes full-service on-site maintenance plans, the largest refrigerated rental fleet to manage peak season and emergency needs, build times and full visibility and traceability of your fleet through the MyPLM portal.” For instance, a customer wanted to evaluate its fleet’s optimal lifecycle based on usage, maintenance spend, lease payments, and warranties. By analyzing historic maintenance events on the customer’s fleet and benchmarking it against PLM’s fleet of over 12,000 assets, they were able to determine the Transport Refrigeration Unit (TRU) cost per hour based on the age and consumption of the trailer. An optimal replacement window was calculated to ensure the most efficient replacement cycle. Through this analysis, the customer would cycle through their fleet and avoid the first round of major repairs, reducing downtime and keeping their fleet optimized. PLM identified potential savings of over 12% of the current cost when the plan is fully implemented.
For the days to come, PLM continues to focus on the challenges that their customers face. With ever-changing industry regulations, it is becoming more apparent that customers need to track their products in the supply chain. PLM has introduced PLM TrustLink™, a complete, connected end-toend solution, that gives visibility of your product throughout the entire ecosystem for traceability, transparency, and trust. Additionally, PLM offers an alternative energy solution in transportation by introducing a zero-emission TRU to meet the needs of our growing customers’ focus on clean technology and reducing their carbon footprint. PLM is an approved dealer of the California Clean Air OffRoad Equipment program and has worked with lease customers to reserve almost $6 million of vouchers to bring zero-emission TRUs into California fleet operations. “PLM continues to strive to put our customers’ needs first,” Shipp added. “We will be expanding our footprint of rental locations very soon to increase our customer reach.”