If your construction business owns a fleet of equipment, you may wonder how to improve maintenance management. This can be a stressful, time-consuming process.
Preventing equipment breakdowns can help you save thousands of dollars in repairs, downtime, and overall costs over its lifespan. Using telematics to monitor equipment makes it easy to catch and resolve issues before they develop into costly breakdowns.
Reduce Idle Time
Idle time can be a significant drain on your construction business. Even one hour of idle time per year adds up to a lot of lost revenue. It may not seem like a large amount at first glance, but when you multiply that by all the assets sitting idle between jobs, it can make a big difference in your bottom line.
Many factors can cause idling, but some of the most common are traffic congestion and weather conditions. By using GPS tracking to determine the most efficient routes, you can keep your drivers moving at peak efficiency. This will reduce their idling time and ensure your customers receive their products on time.
Another way to reduce idling is to train your drivers on how to use their vehicles in the most fuel-efficient manner. This will reduce idling times and increase the life of your equipment. You can also reward your drivers for idling less by creating contests for those with the lowest idle times.
Reducing idling isn’t just a money-saving benefit for your fleet – it also improves the environment. In fact, it’s estimated that idling engines consume about 29 percent of transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions, so reducing this by just a small percentage can have a huge impact on your company’s sustainability efforts.
Fortunately, reducing idling can be easier than you think. There are a number of different technologies that can help, including GPS tracking and telematics.
To find the best solutions for your needs, working with a reputable GPS tracking provider is important. Look for a service that can help you manage your vehicle fleet by providing a range of features, from real-time updates to detailed reports.
You should also check to see if the tracking service can track the performance of your vehicles and engines, which is critical in ensuring they don’t need maintenance. This can save you a significant amount of money on fuel and repairs over the lifetime of your vehicles.
Using a GPS tracking system is also a great way to protect your fleet from unauthorized usage. For example, if your employees are taking their work cars on personal errands or doing side jobs during the day, you can easily detect that with powerful alerting and reporting tools.
Increase Fuel Efficiency
Fuel is a big concern when it comes to keeping trucks and construction equipment running. In fact, according to ATRI, fuel made up 19 percent of operational costs in 2020. With gas and diesel prices soaring, businesses must find ways to reduce their fuel expenses and save money.
Fortunately, GPS tracking can help improve fuel efficiency in several different ways. It allows fleet managers to monitor driver habits like idling and curbing and identify problem areas for improvement.
Idling is a huge issue for fleets because engines can use up to a half gallon of fuel per hour. With a GPS tracking device, you can keep track of the time spent idling, helping to ensure your drivers aren’t wasting fuel.
Acceleration and braking are also major driving habits that affect fuel economy. Rapid acceleration and braking can consume 20% more fuel than driving at a steady speed. A telematics solution can even detect when a driver exceeds posted speed limits and send alerts to the driver encouraging them to slow down.
Improving driver habits is a simple and effective way to save money on fuel. You can reduce your fleet’s overall fuel consumption by monitoring driving patterns and addressing problems, such as excessive speeding and aggressive braking.
A GPS tracking system can also help you route your vehicles efficiently. Service, delivery, and transportation companies typically make multiple stops on a daily basis, so it’s essential that your fleet gets to the right job at the right time. If you can reroute your trucks to shorter routes instead of long drives, you can cut down on idle time and increase productivity.
Additionally, fuel consumption can be reduced by properly determining the order of stops and scheduling work accordingly. Many companies have found that they can reduce fuel consumption significantly by ensuring drivers don’t make more than three stops in one day.
Using GPS tracking to monitor driver behavior and prevent vehicle waste can be a very cost-effective way to improve fuel efficiency. In addition, it can help you eliminate unscheduled downtime and lower annual maintenance costs.
Eliminate Unscheduled Downtime
No matter how short, idle time between jobs costs your business money. That hour adds up quickly over the course of a year if you have a fleet of vehicles and equipment.
GPS tracking lets you track your assets’ location, allowing you to make decisions that maximize their usage while minimizing downtime. For example, if you know a crane isn’t in its intended location, you can call the crew to move it and avoid delays.
Additionally, your construction equipment can be monitored to ensure that it is in good operating condition. This can reduce downtime and repair costs since faulty equipment can delay a project.
The centralized platform that comes with GPS Trackit can allow you to monitor all of your heavy equipment and assets at once, providing a comprehensive view of each one’s health and status. This data will help you proactively address issues that could arise, such as damage to the crane from heavy loads or even unsafe use by a crew member.
Unscheduled downtime can be a huge expense for construction companies. It can occur when a vehicle is out of service for maintenance and can also be due to unexpected breakdowns in the middle of a job site.
If you have a reliance on rental equipment, GPS tracking can help keep owners and renters accountable by monitoring the location of the equipment and recording engine hours. This information can then be processed through your rental software to determine whether the equipment is due for maintenance or not.
In addition to eliminating unscheduled downtime, GPS tracking can increase fleet efficiency. This is because it provides a better understanding of driver behavior and allows you to optimize routes and timetables for optimal fuel efficiency.
Moreover, GPS trackers can also help identify poor driving habits that can lead to higher fuel costs. For example, speeding and harsh acceleration can increase the amount of gas a vehicle consumes.
Likewise, unauthorized use of company vehicles can result in higher insurance premiums and penalties. This can be detected by a GPS system with alerts, which can be sent to management via email or text message when a vehicle is used outside its intended use.
Reduce Annual Maintenance Costs
Construction companies have many different equipment assets that need to be tracked to ensure their operations’ safety and efficiency. Having a tracker installed on these items can reduce annual maintenance costs by keeping track of their location, use, and condition.
Using GPS tracking to monitor your equipment can also help you prevent theft. According to one report, the construction industry loses more than $1 billion annually in theft. Fortunately, GPS tracking can significantly improve the recovery rates of stolen construction equipment.
It also allows you to establish geofences and boundaries that a manager can set to restrict where a piece of equipment may be used. If a piece of equipment is used outside the specified boundary, an alert will be sent to a manager so that they can respond quickly and get it back on the job site.
This can be helpful in combatting not only theft but unauthorized use of the equipment, which can increase your liability and insurance premiums. Keeping your employees on task and on the clock can also be useful, preventing them from using the vehicles for personal reasons or even moonlighting for someone else.
Another way that GPS tracking can save you money is by helping your drivers make the most efficient use of their time and fuel on the road. By planning their routes in advance, they can avoid traffic jams and waste fuel on unnecessary stops.
In addition, if your company is in the habit of sending out too many workers to one site or allocating equipment that does not have enough resources to handle the task at hand, GPS can help you optimize your resources. By avoiding these mistakes, you can save money on transportation costs and ensure that your workers are working efficiently, which helps to build trust and confidence in your business.
In the long run, this can lead to significant savings on annual maintenance costs for your construction equipment. Ultimately, this can allow you to recoup your investment in a relatively short amount of time.
