How Telematics Can Make Equipment More Productive

Christina Andrews, Content Marketing Manager, United Rentals

Christina Andrews has been with United Rentals for over six years, working primarily on customer communications and sharing the United Rentals story.

Equipment telematics can do more to improve fleet management than many construction compa­nies realize. When used with fleet management software, telematics hardware goes beyond GPS tracking for construction equip­ment. It not only provides real-time location data but also visibility into asset utilization, engine hours, fuel usage and more.

At a time of tight construction budgets and supply chain issues that have made heavy equipment harder to purchase and more expensive, companies need to make the most of their owned equipment. Leveraging the data provided by telematics devices can help this effort.

A contractor’s construction equipment may have a telematics device with a built-in GPS sensor already installed. If not, companies, such as equipment rental service providers, can add telematics devices to almost any piece of mobile equipment and help a construction company use the data to best effect.

Here are six ways telematics can help fleet managers achieve a better understanding of their equipment’s performance, condition and utilization. With this intelligence, equipment owners can make their fleets more productive and last longer.

Find your equipment. An equipment GPS tracker, when it feeds data into fleet management software, such as United Rentals’ Total Control®, provides immediate visibility into all of the equipment on a map. This location information ends the hunt for that backhoe someone parked out of sight or moved to another jobsite.

Eliminating time wasted on equipment searches helps keep projects on schedule. GPS tracking for construction equipment can also solve the mystery of who is hoarding all the air compressors, generators or skid steers so a contractor doesn’t purchase or rent more unneeded equipment.

Optimize preventive maintenance. An effective preventive maintenance program minimizes unplanned equipment downtime, improves equipment performance and prolongs the useful life of equipment, which helps protect a contractor’s equipment budget. With telematics device data, companies can optimize equipment maintenance schedules.

A manufacturer may suggest time-interval-based maintenance for a piece of equipment, every six months, for example. But just-in-time maintenance based on engine hours or usage hours may also be beneficial. It helps ensure under-servicing heavily used equipment or over-servicing equipment used less often do not happen.

"Telematics devices, in tandem with fleet management software, can help owners stretch their fleet’s value, make their equipment more productive and stay profitable" 

Preventive maintenance is critical, but it may slip through the cracks if companies don’t have a system that reminds them. Total Control, for example, can provide service alerts to help stay on top of maintenance even when equipment teams are overwhelmed with other tasks.

Foil thieves and unauthorized users. Equipment theft is a major issue on construction sites, and recovery rates are low. Construction equipment telematics changes the equation in favor of owners.

With the help of telematics devices, a good fleet management system lets contractors draw geofences - virtually boundaries - around equipment and configure geofence alerts that tell them the minute a piece of equipment enters or exits the geofence. These real-time alerts can help companies foil thieves who sneak onto the construction site at night to steal equipment. They can also prevent subcontractors and workers who may be looking to “borrow” the equipment for other projects.

The sooner a contractor knows about a possible theft, the greater the odds of recovering the equipment and avoiding the expense and downtime related to stolen assets.

Measure and optimize utilization. How hard is that reach forklift, mini excavator or ride-on roller working at a jobsite? The more a piece of equipment is utilized, the less it costs per hour of use.

Utilization reports generated by fleet management software, enabled by telematics devices, provide valuable insights into usage trends for each piece or class of equipment.

This information can help a contractor right-size its fleet. If an excavator is rarely sitting still, that is a sign a company may need to buy or rent another one. If a boom lift is used only occasionally, a contractor may be better off selling it and renting one when needed.

Utilization data can also help contractors even out wear across a fleet. If one truck is used constantly while others haven’t moved in days or weeks, a company may want to rotate those others in to reduce maintenance demands and associated costs.

Create a data-based lifecycle plan. Even well-maintained equipment doesn’t last forever. Knowing a machine’s utilization and maintenance history may help a contractor determine when the best time is to sell it. A company may want to sell equipment before the maintenance and repair costs increase and while the machine retains some of its residual value.Building a data-based lifecycle plan that allows contractors to sell at the right time may help lower the total cost of ownership and preserve capital that can be spent elsewhere.

Build an accurate budget. With data from telematics devices, owners can build more accurate budgets for both equipment purchases and equipment operations. Tracking utilization, maintenance costs and fuel usage, which a telematics device can monitor, on every project helps companies more accurately predict costs on the next project.

Telematics data from owned equipment can also provide clues as to why budgets veer off course. Did equipment-related downtime impact the project schedule? Was the fuel burn higher than expected? More control over spending means more control over the business and its future.

In today’s increasingly competitive construction environment, every hour and every dollar saved improves a construction firm’s outlook. Telematics devices, in tandem with fleet management software, can help owners stretch their fleet’s value, make their equipment more productive and stay profitable.