Whether you’re managing a fleet of vehicles on a big construction site, or running a service and delivery business, tracking exactly when your vehicles arrive or leave a site provides benefits ranging from security to accurate job costing. And each of those benefits impacts on your bottom line.
What is a site?
Sites are work zones that you define in your telematics system. An electronic ˜fence’ created with telematics software, like a sophisticated version of an Etch-a-Sketch drawing! Sites are also known as geofences in some telematics systems.
Creating a site is simple. You locate your job site or other work zone on a system map “ either by address, longitude/latitude or scrolling to the appropriate map location “ and use the tools provided in your telematics system to outline the perimeter. Then close the box, name it, assign it to the vehicles or machines of your choice, and you’re ready to go.
Once you have defined a site, you can put live alerts in place. Sites with live alerts mean that each time a vehicle or machine enters or leaves a site, it triggers an alert through the software system.
Power up your telematics capabilities with the ˜Fab Four’: after hours use detection, theft alerts, cycle time reports, job costing.
1: After-hours use detection
It’s 6 pm: do you know where all your vehicles or equipment are? With sites, the telematics system can be configured to send alerts to designated personnel if a vehicle or machine exits the site after a pre-defined curfew, whether for authorised or unauthorised use.
This capability is useful for monitoring operators, subcontractors or staff:
- Discovering if unauthorised use of equipment is occurring “ for example, someone may be using a ute to tow a trailer over the weekend.
- Determining whether operators with a split shift leave for the second site on time,
- and Tracking the actual location and use of equipment that staff borrow with permission.
Vehicles or machines that leave the site can be found via GPS on telematics system maps, helping managers work out whether the machine has been appropriated with or without permission.
2: Theft alerts
A vehicle or machine that moves outside site boundaries may have been stolen, particularly if the movement occurs in the middle of the night or on a Friday afternoon when the theft is unlikely to be noticed until Monday morning. The same alert system kicks into gear, indicating that a truck or a grader is not where it is supposed to be.
The result is an early warning system that allows businesses to respond quickly to theft, and to alert the police. If, for example, a company car is stolen, the GPS information transmitted from the car to the back-end telematics software allows it to be traced and the location of the vehicle pinpointed. Route and location information can be shared with police, allowing much quicker recovery.
3: Cycle time reports
In some construction environments, using sites with live alerts offers the opportunity to measure the time it takes to do a particular job. Quarry operators can compare how long it takes different operators to move between the quarry face and the crusher; asphalt plants can monitor the loading/delivery/return cycle; and so on. This data – available from either standard or custom cycle time reports depending on the telematics system “ can help increase fleet productivity without adding assets or people.
In a quarry scenario, for example, the data may reveal that trucks are sitting at the load site or dump site for longer than necessary, indicating that there are too many trucks in the cycle or not enough loaders available. Or it may show that one driver takes 10 minutes to travel between the load-out area in each pit and the dump hopper at the primary crusher while another takes 12. Over the course of the day, the 12-minute driver is costing the site manager two trips a day. Managers then have the information they need to reallocate assets or bring slower drivers up to speed.
4: Job costing
Finally, if your telematics system offers job costing reports, using sites makes it possible to accurately track actual equipment and vehicle usage and associated costs by job site. That not only eliminates both guesswork and paperwork involved in attempting to manually calculate utilisation per job “ particularly when machines are moving from site to site “ but also avoids under-reporting by job superintendents, attempting to make their projects appear more profitable than they actually are. It also allows contractors to accurately assign costs for each job site for internal rental purposes. There is simply no more accurate way to document equipment utilisation by job site.
A key fringe benefit of these job costing capabilities is the availability of accurate data for future job bids. Knowing how long a bulldozer ran to build a shopping centre parking lot, helps shape a bid for the next parking lot of similar size ,without underbidding or overbidding that would either cause a contractor to lose money or lose the job.
The bottom line
Companies with telematics systems often underestimate the benefits of using sites, but they can have a substantial impact on the bottom line. If you have or are deploying a telematics system, remember: getting smart with sites helps improve the bottom line.
