The Black Ink Team’s Guide To Heavy Equipment Telematics Technology
by Black Ink Team
Pieces of heavy machinery are valuable assets that a construction company can’t do without, so it is imperative to know where they are at all times. Also, when making sure that construction equipment is in working order and doesn’t need repairs, it can slow down work when manual diagnostics have to be run on each and every part of a machine. When it is integrated into construction equipment, telematics technology can enable jobsite managers to monitor the location and health of their fleet remotely, often from an app on their smartphone. The best part is, you don’t need an entirely new fleet to take advantage of this feature – remote sensors can be added to legacy equipment with ease.
Many companies, including construction equipment OEMs, offer GPS fleet management solutions. A transponder gets placed on the machine, which lets a jobsite manager know where it is located at any given moment. Additionally, it will record where the machine has been, allowing jobsite managers to know when someone has been moonlighting. Depending on the software, automatic alerts can be programmed, which will notify you when a machine gets moved or when it leaves certain premises. To guard against tampering, construction equipment GPS transponders are usually equipped with a separate power supply and placed somewhere on the machine that is difficult to reach.
Even for a single machine, there are numerous measurements you must take in order to assure that everything is running smoothly. For example, a bulldozer has an engine and a hydraulic system. In its engine you should monitor its coolant levels, the integrity of its spark plugs, the heat of its exhaust, and more. As for its hydraulics system you should check the response times of its control valves, the pressure of its hydraulic fluid reservoir, the flow of its pumps, and other statistics. You can buy many remote sensors for taking these measurements remotely, or you can buy heavy machinery that has it built-in. Ideally, not even a single wrench would be picked up during a maintenance check.