Impact of low quality diesel on the performance and maintenance costs of transportation equipment: a case of study (#734)

Authors

Lopez Flores, Walter Jeremías

Serrano Morel, Carlos Norberto

Paz Hernández, Sayra Kassandra

Abstract

The quality of diesel is a critical factor for the performance of transportation equipment in companies, since using low-quality diesel can generate failures in the injection system, clogging of filters and other problems that imply an increase in maintenance costs and a decrease in performance, affecting the efficiency and profitability of companies. For this case of study, performance data and maintenance costs were collected from a Honduran transportation company that suspected that its diesel supply after a change of supplier was causing quality problems in its vehicle fleet, so a convenience sample of five teams which were monitored for two months: before and after the change to determine if there were statistically significant differences between both, finding through a t-Student test (t(8) = 0.9518, p = 0.3691) that there were no differences in performance and with a Mann-Whitney U test (z = -1.991, p = 0.0465) that in maintenance there were and both visually and with a probability P(A > B) = 0.12 it was shown that were higher in the second, so it is concluded that in the short term the performance of the equipment was not affected but there was a statistically significant increase in the average maintenance cost, which indicates that the new supplier is dispensing diesel from low quality so it is recommended to change it.