Talking GPS vehicle tracking for construction fleets with CONEXPO-CON/AGG Radio

I recently had the opportunity to talk with Peggy Smedley of CONEXPO-CON/AGG Radio, a great show from the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM), about the benefits of GPS fleet tracking.

Building a connected fleet can be difficult in the extremely rigorous environments construction and mining companies work in due to temperature, dust and other elements. But we see tremendous results for those committed to it, and it’s not just big fleets. Software as a Service (SaaS) has really leveled the playing field by eliminating huge upfront capital investments.

There’s a lot to gain in thinking holistically about how fleet tracking technology can interact with the rest of your business systems, which is where Peggy and I focused our conversation. There are four takeaways from that conversation worth reiterating that benefit fleets of all sizes:

Making real-time data accessible & actionable

Peggy asked where most companies fall in the bell curve of being able to manage real-time data. Technology is what makes the data available. For example, there’s an aggregate mining company with around 1,000 assets using our fleet tracking technology. It used to take them a month to collect data from all their equipment across country. Their general managers were using month-old data for planning. Now, we deliver data daily, it uploads into their ERP every night and they review it every morning.

But making data accessible is just the first step. Anytime you’re adopting a new technology, its ROI is fundamentally about change management. Helping all your users process the change and create new habits takes training and iterations. In the instance above, the daily meeting ensured managers were looking at the data every single day and bringing the data into their routines and decision-making.

Using anomalies in data show to make improvements

Peggy made the good point in that having siloed information on every single asset isn’t the “game-changer.” A big value is the ability to see the anomalies that are occurring – what’s not working right.

This is absolutely true from maintenance perspective. When assets have our technology, they’re reporting in anywhere between one to 5-10 minutes. This can be overwhelming, but our interface synthesizes its and provides insights into the “problem areas” so users know where they can make improvements.

Going from connected fleet to connected workflow

Fleet tracking data becomes really impactful when it interacts with the rest of a company’s business systems. I mentioned the customer above inputting data into their ERP. Another example is pushing this information into the back-office to manage P&Ls of projects, seeing how the changes you make impact job site financials daily instead of monthly. Tying GPS data into the rest of the business in critical, especially for the bigger companies we work with.

Connected fleets create a more unified business

Having a connected fleet is about everyone being able to get real-time insights across job sites and any asset the company might own regardless of OEM– Yellow Iron equipment, non-powered assets, heavy duty trucks.

This not only enables your operators and workers to do their jobs better, but the entire company to be more in unison. The people who think about safety are more aligned with fleet managers. Fleet managers thinking about better asset utilization have better information to bring to GMs of different job sites or those making buying and leasing decisions. This data, fundamentally, drives a better dialogue between departments to optimize the entire organization at large.

The most advanced companies we work with have adopted a continuous improvement mentality, with this data fueling bigger and better business decisions. You can listen to the whole podcast below:

To learn how to connect your business and create an automated end-to-end workflow, visit http://www.teletracnavman.com/our-solutions/connected-workflow