When a business is fabricating, transporting and erecting structural steel, it needs to know the location of vehicles and machines, and that they are safe to operate.
John Jones Steel works with large construction firms in Canterbury and throughout the South Island, on projects including new office blocks, transport interchanges, and distribution centres.
The company operates a diverse fleet of almost 150 vehicles, including transporter trucks and trailers, semi-trailers, Hiab trucks, mobile cranes, elevated work platforms (EWPs), scissor lifts, and utility vehicles.
All of them are tracked using Navman Wireless Qubes (for powered vehicles) or Qtanium 100s (for non-powered assets).
“When we place an order for a new vehicle or machine, we also place an order for another GPS unit,” says transport maintenance manager, Gerrit Roderkerken.
John Jones Steel installed Navman Wireless in early 2014 because of stringent certification requirements.
Many of the vehicles and specialist assets need certification for safety at regular intervals, so the company needed to track, accurately, maintenance for the whole fleet.
Previously, they used in-house software to complement a largely manual process. But now using the GPS system, Roderkerken can log completed maintenance and set alerts for future maintenance requirements, so vehicles or assets can be recalled to the workshop as required.
“As we have many different types of vehicles and machines, there are several different certification processes required. Navman Wireless keeps track of them all,” says Roderkerken.
Managing director, Frank Van Schaijik, says that one of the industry trends they have noticed is that the main contractors are now more interested in how John Jones Steel keeps track of certification.
“In the past, we would tell the prime contractor that our vehicles and machines were all certified and provide a copy of the current certification,” says Van Schaijik.
“Now, given the increased focus on safety and compliance, they ask how we keep track of maintenance on site and what processes we have in place to flag any issues,” he says.
Being able to see the locations of all the vehicles and machines at a glance is a huge advantage for John Jones Steel.
“When our fleet was smaller we could keep track of them all, but now with nearly 150 vehicles and assets, we need a way to see where everything is,” says Roderkerken.
“Before we got GPS tracking, sometimes we’ve had to phone around to find out where a particular piece of equipment was. Now we just look it up on the tracking software. When we send guys out of town – say, if they are taking a piece of equipment to Invercargill – we can keep an eye on their progress, and let the contractor know when they will arrive.”
Improving the utilisation of the machines and vehicles in the fleet is another benefit for John Jones Steel.
“We can use the software to look at which devices are being used. If a machine is on a construction site and it hasn’t been used for a day, I can ring our guy there and ask him what’s happening. If it’s not being used, we’d rather have it back on our site or out on another job.”
Also, John Jones Steel uses Navman Wireless to charge out equipment accurately, when it is on a client site.
“We need to track the hours that a machine is working on the job, so we can charge it out to the main contracting company,” says Van Schaijik.
He says the GPS fleet management system has been a useful tool in tendering for new work.
“Using the reporting functions on hours of usage for each machine or vehicle, we can collect accurate information about hours worked for existing jobs. This reporting feature allows us to provide a much more precise costing when we are bidding for future jobs,” says Van Schaijik.
“In a tendering situation, a contractor often wants a breakdown of costs. Even once we’ve won a tender they might question the machine hours, so with the GPS tracking system, we can show them the reports, which quickly resolves any queries.”
Claiming back the RUC is a significant benefit of the GPS fleet management system, says Roderkerken.
“We have a lot of machines and vehicles working on construction sites, which of course is off-road, so we can claim back some of the RUC,” he says.
“One of the things I like about Navman Wireless is that there are no affiliations or side businesses. We’re not tied into any automatic RUC charging, so we’re completely in control.”
Navman Wireless has also helped John Jones Steel with its health and safety responsibilities as an employer.
“Vehicles and machines are considered part of the workplace, so the monitoring and oversight provided by Navman Wireless help us make sure our workers are safe,” says Van Schaijik.
“We can also keep an eye on things like over-speeding, and use our health and safety meetings to remind our employees to drive to the posted speed limit.”
