Every fleet management system is built on two master catalogs: makes and models. They are the foundational tables that define which vehicles exist in the fleet, with what technical characteristics and which maintenance rules apply to each one.
Without those catalogs properly loaded, no other module works well. Preventive tasks are not triggered when they should be, fuel transaction validation fails, and reports by model come out inconsistent. Most implementations that degrade over time do so because of masters that were loaded poorly at the start.
It is the catalog of every make operating in your fleet. It is the simplest table in the system and also the one most often overlooked.
Each entry has the normalized make name, the vehicle category and the reference to the official service network in the country.
Name normalization is the critical part. If a fleet has units entered as Toyota, TOYOTA and toyota, the system counts them as three different makes and every grouped report comes out wrong. It is the most common source of error in poorly built masters.
It is the catalog of the specific models operating in the fleet. Each model belongs to a make and adds the technical and operational information that the whole system then uses:
These data are the basis of almost every calculation. Expected fuel efficiency feeds the detection of irregular fuel transactions. Tank capacity validates each fill-up. The maintenance plan triggers preventive tasks. The license class determines which driver can drive which unit.
A poorly loaded model master makes everything else run on the wrong parameters.
Because they sit at the base of the data pyramid: everything built on top depends on them being right.
Preventive tasks are triggered according to the plan associated with the model. If the model has no plan, they are not generated.
Fuel transactions are validated against expected fuel efficiency and tank capacity. Without those data, the automatic checks have nothing to compare against.
Reports by model —cost per kilometer, efficiency ranking, model comparison— are grouped by this catalog. Without a clean catalog, they group incorrectly.
Driver assignment is validated against the license class. Without that data, anyone can end up assigned to any unit even if it is not legally allowed.
Renewal plans are projected by model. Without masters, the projection is done unit by unit, which multiplies the work and the errors.
1. Duplicate makes due to spelling variations. Toyota, TOYOTA, Toyota Argentina. They are counted as different makes. The fix is strict normalization at entry.
2. Models not differentiated by year. The same trade name can span three decades with significant technical differences. Loading them all the same way causes plan and fuel efficiency errors. It is best to load them by generation or by range of years.
3. Expected fuel efficiency copied from the manufacturer without adjustment. If the manual says twelve and the operational reality is nine and a half, loading twelve makes almost every fill-up look suspicious. It has to be calibrated with your own data.
4. Rounded tank capacity. If the actual tank holds sixty-eight liters and seventy is loaded, a sixty-nine-liter fill-up shows up as suspicious because of a one-liter difference. It is best to load the exact value.
5. Maintenance plan not linked. The model is loaded but has no linked plan, so preventive tasks are never triggered for those units. It is caught with a cross-check at the end of the loading process.
Gather the manufacturer’s data. For each model: exact tank capacity, fuel efficiency under standard conditions, official maintenance plan with its time and mileage intervals, license class.
Normalize the names. Define the official naming convention for each make and model, document it and use it without exceptions.
Calibrate expected fuel efficiency. Only after accumulating real operational fill-ups. With that data, the effective fuel efficiency per model is calculated and the master is updated.
Link the maintenance plan to each model, with the plan, service and task hierarchy properly configured, and verify that the first preventive tasks are triggered where they should be.
Cross-audit. Count units by model and compare against the actual inventory. A miscategorized unit causes problems every day of its operating life.
It is an up-front investment of work that pays off many times over in the following years.
If the model already exists in the master, the unit inherits all the parameters: maintenance plan, expected fuel efficiency, tank capacity. No additional configuration is needed.
If the model is new, it has to be loaded first, and if the make does not exist either, that has to be loaded before. That inheritance logic is what makes adding vehicles fast and consistent. Without well-populated masters, every new vehicle is a full manual configuration, and every manual configuration is an opportunity for error.
In the Maintenance module and in the general settings:
Are your vehicles properly classified by make and model?
In VEC Fleet, each model defines the expected fuel efficiency, tank capacity and maintenance plan that all its units inherit.
