October 6, 2004 • For contractors, rental companies, and equipment distributors, monitoring fleets for hours of operation, location, and maintenance is no simple task. Either someone in the company must keep regular tabs on the equipment that's out in the field, or the customer is relied on to report operating hours and location. In both instances, equipment owners must leave a large margin for error • especially if the information has been gathered by hand. But as tracking technology becomes more available and affordable to the lifting equipment industry, machine owners are taking a second look at wireless equipment management systems.
One such system is Qualcomm®, which provides the GlobalTRACS™ system to fleet managers. This system collects the engine hours and location data through a piece of hardware installed on the equipment. Then it sends the information automatically or on-demand to the Network Management Center, which transfers the data to the customer location via the Internet or existing business operations systems.
According to Dudley Setzer, the director of business development for Qualcomm Wireless Business Solutions, since GlobalTRACS' introduction in 2003, nearly 100 fleet owners have signed up for the service with fleet sizes ranging from just a few machines to several thousand. “We have seen adoption of all types of fleets and all types of equipment • heavy off-road all the way down to skid steers, aerial platforms, and portable power and pumps,” Setzer said.
Among the fleet owners is ACME Lift Co., Phoenix Ariz., which provides rental companies with aerial work platforms for re-rental to independent and large rental companies that want to supplement their existing fleet or test out new equipment before buying. ACME Lift uses GlobalTRACS to monitor its equipments' locations and collect engine hours. “It gives us a much more realistic sense of what's happening to our equipment,” said Woody Weld, president of ACME Lift. With the information collected and sent wirelessly, the company can reduce labor costs, minimize data entry errors, and increase the speed of billing and maintenance. “We operate this business in 48 states and move machinery from customer location to customer location,” Weld said. “We now have a tool to help our customers realize more revenue from our re-rented equipment, and we have timely data on which to make important operational decisions.”
Yet another GlobalTRACS user is Red Mountain Machinery, with offices in Chandler, Ariz., Escondido, Calif., and LasVegas, Nev., which started using the service to keep the machine's operating order at a premium while keeping costs low. According to Jay Dee Sale, Red Mountain's director of parts and service, the company could have equipment in 100 different locations at any given time, so the key challenge is keeping track of where each piece of equipment is, and the hours it is running to accurately schedule preventive maintenance and reduce more costly long-range maintenance problems.
Sale said the company relied on its customers to collect that information before installing the GlobalTRACS system. “Sometimes that would inconvenience our customers, or if we couldn't get the information from them, we'd have to send someone out to get the hours information ourselves,” he said. “This increased our tracking costs, and the data was not always accurate.” After installing this system, he said the company doesn't have to inconvenience its customers or pay travel time to employees to get the information.
Most recently, Brandeis Machinery & Supply Co., Louisville, Ky., a subsidiary of Bramco LLC and one of the largest distributors of construction equipment in Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee, said it plans to outfit its entire fleet with the GlobalTRACS equipment management system. “In addition to giving us the ability to better monitor our fleet and perform scheduled maintenance in a timely manner,” said Charles Leis, president and chief operating officer of Bramco, “deploying Qualcomm's GlobalTRACS solution will enable us to increase efficiency and productivity, ultimately allowing us to provide better service to our customers.”
Several other companies supply similar equipment monitoring products to the construction industry, including Teletrac and @Road. Teletrac, Garden Grove, Calif., is a real-time vehicle tracking, communications, and security product that uses a wireless device with Nextel GPS tracking software to keep tabs on equipment in the field. Take construction equipment supplier Brigg's Equipment, Houston, Texas, for example, which uses Teletrac to see the location of each service vehicle on a computerized map. It also allows dispatchers and drivers to communicate with each other, which increases productivity by dispatching the driver who is closest to the customer. Reports also help with billing discrepancy's because it shows exactly how long each service technician is at each customer's site. “I give the customer a copy of the report, and I've never lost a case yet,” said Tim Kolajajck, Brigg's Equipment service manager.
Lastly, @Road, Fremont, Calif., helps companies by automating time and task management, driving route efficiency, optimizing scheduling, controlling authorized use of mobile assets, and automatically sends, receives, and integrates workflow information. One company reports saving $61,000 a year in administration fees because the system takes less time and manpower to schedule appointments and dispatch technicians.
While wireless equipment management system features for monitoring fleets are different, one thing is for certain: They all help fleet owners save money and increase productivity.
