Construction Equipment Telematics and the Importance of Software Integration

Software is becoming not just commonplace, but irreplaceable for companies in all industries. It should be no surprise that even industries often associated with manual labor, like construction, rely equally on technology, telematics, and construction software as people-power.

Volvo’s manager of connected solutions, Catrin Nilsson, boasts advancements in control systems that include Load and Dig Assist to automatically relay pertinent information, such as trench depth and bucket load weight, to operators and allow site managers to extrapolate raw data. Larger companies are leveraging information to render complex 2D job site schematics and large-scale oversight of advanced projects. Construction equipment rental and leasing customers must carefully balance time and budgetary confinements knowing a downed piece of equipment will heavily impact the projected end date, and pushed timelines result in penalties and fees. 

Future of Telematics and Construction Equipment Rental Software

In 2007 Volvo, implemented CareTrack into maintenance programs before expanding in 2017 with ActiveCare Direct. CareTrack is setup to allow equipment owners like you to review the health of equipment and forecasted maintenance while ActiveCare Direct appoints you a team of analysts that monitor your equipment health and contact you with actionable items and planned maintenance alerts. The progression of Volvo and similar programs offered by other major distributors indicate the growing importance of technology and aligning automation with your business operations. Combatting construction equipment down-time with prognostic service is something ADVANTAGE 365 features as well, and it empowers construction equipment rental software users throughout each stop in your HR chain from technicians to yard managers. 

ADVANTAGE 365 integrates with existing telematics or is a viable alternative!

Does construction equipment need telematics?

Depending on the size of your business, the breadth of your operations, and the type of equipment you are managing, telematics varies in usefulness. Larger operations with hundreds of pieces of heavy machinery may require advanced telematics units on every machine, equipped with prebuilt software, to augment the efforts of service techs, yard employees and construction equipment software. Conversely, small to medium businesses may use telematics that are part of a comprehensive business solution, like in ADVANTAGE 365, to empower employees and integrate smaller telematics units. These systems quickly and accurately convey small amounts of information such as usage hours, temperature, and location pinging used for reporting. ADVANTAGE 365 combines minimal user input with automated reporting to comprise a full snapshot of your business reflecting the health of your fleet and financials. This level of integration is difficult with larger operations like Volvo, where they opt to sacrifice the integrated efficiency to obtain larger amounts of detailed data from the telematics they install on each unit.

Telematics for Small to Medium Businesses

It is important to asses the functionality of a telematics system for your specific operation, identifying what you require (Fleet utilization reports, early warning service alerts, etc) or what isn’t necessary (Anti-theft tracking, Geo-fencing). As a small to medium sized business, the price tag of a robust business software and a separate telematics system can be and operational and IT nightmare. RMI recognized this early on when speaking with our heavy equipment software users and designed a system that compiles the raw data generated when purchasing, selling, or renting, a piece of equipment. 

ADVANTAGE 365 uses raw data to deliver usage statistics, service revenue, service cost, depreciation, book value and more for one piece of equipment, or your fleet. Rather than competing with telematics programs ADVANTAGE 365 offers simple integrations and statistics to deliver the most comprehensive oversight of information and efficiency across your operation.

Whether you find heavy equipment telematics is overkill or a necessity for your business, assessing the operations and service needs of your business is an important first step. ADVANTAGE 365 helps make sense of operations by putting your team in a position to review and assess every nut and bolt in your fleet.