The use of telematics in the construction space to manage fleet maintenance is still in its early days but its adoption is being fast tracked, thanks to some of the proven benefits of new technologies, including opportunities for companies to improve productivity, save costs and deliver better service to their customers.
A new report by Teletrac Navman released this year provided a view of telematics trends affecting the global construction market and outlined the top challenges for business in an increasingly demanding market. The challenges that topped the list were managing costs (46%), growing revenue (30%) and business expansion (26%). Other trends observed across the sector include economic optimism, technology disruption and labour shortage.
The ‘Telematics Benchmark Report: Global Construction Edition’ found that more than 80% of businesses say they currently use telematics, or plan to do so in the next year, citing equipment tracking as the most common use (75%), followed by tracking speed (61%) and driver hours (53%).
Telematics in the construction industry falls into two categories – on-road and off-road – each gaining differing benefits from technology, and for on-road vehicles that regularly use private roads, GPS tracking can provide accurate data for claiming road user charges (RUC) refunds.
Using telematics data, fleet managers can pull an automatic report that shows when vehicles travelled on private roads or off-road altogether. The accurate record proves what portion of the journey company trucks were not on public roads, so the company can claim back the RUC, which can represent thousands of dollars of savings.
“The construction industry has long faced pressures to do more with less – more output with fewer resources – to meet customer demands, while also ensuring the safety of its workers and profitability of the business,” said Rachel Trindade, Navman’s global vice president of marketing.
“It’s no easy task to balance these competing interests, which is why so many fleets are turning to modern technologies such as telematics to find efficiencies. We’re committed to supporting the industry by helping them understand and navigate these market shifts.”
Building the telematics business case
Over at Caltex, the company uses its own in-house telematics solutions for its truck fleet, and also provides telematics technology to a wide range of customers in industries including construction equipment or yellow equipment, which covers earthmoving and quarrying machinery.
“On top of the traditional GPS tracking, engine hours and kilometres, Caltex telematics can integrate with the plant engine management system to provide mechanical data that can be translated into a change in the way it’s used,” said Jacques Lepron, telematics manager at Caltex.
“Depending on the type of data available from the equipment, we can make recommendations regarding asset health and maintenance. As a result, fleet managers are able to reduce their operating costs including fuel and maintenance, as well as preventing incidents or breakdowns before they occur.”
There continues to be much debate about the use of telematics for fleet management, unsurprising as it is an area that is still, in some ways, in its infancy in the sector. Additionally, the potential benefits that come with telematics is as varied as the systems and providers in this space.
The initial value proposition was to track a valuable asset and guard against theft, so for a business operating in a high-risk environment, or with small portable assets, telematics was another form of insurance.
But this variety in systems and solution providers is a good thing, says Susan Nicholson, director of product and marketing Asia-Pacific at WEX Australia, a global corporate payment solutions firm formerly known as Wright Express. Variation in products, she says, encourages greater adoption.
“While you aren’t necessarily seeing an erosion of costs in the telematics space, what you’re seeing is the offering of different pricing models, packages and solutions,” Nicholson said.
“When telematics first hit our shores, predominately all that was available was a perpetual licence with a high up-front cost and ongoing monthly rental model. This model was prohibitively expensive for many businesses when you are looking at a 1000-unit fleet. With a $300-unit cost that’s $300k out of the gate.
“Today, models that provide great base functionality with no up-front costs and reasonable monthly rental make it a much more viable solution for many businesses. As a consequence, we are starting to see much higher rates of adoption.”
Turning to WesTrac, business development manager, Rodney Mudford, said many of the company’s machines have telematics built in from the factory, which can be enabled anywhere remotely.
“We have bundles that we can retrofit, we have ‘plug and play’ options for our ‘do it myself’ customers, as well as satellite, cellular, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth options. We have a range of telematics devices from Caterpillar called Product Link, which range in price from $270 up to $3500,” Mudford said.
“We can incorporate mixed fleets with them, and these could be ‘plug and play’ or complex network managers that bring multiple enterprise content management (ECM) data back for the user. “Uses can be for productivity (payload, tonnes, cycles), utilisation (key on, hours, kilometres), health (warnings, events, abuse), localisation (GPS, geo-fence, time violation, route), maintenance (planned preventative maintenance due, parts, OEM guidelines), and fuel level, software on an ECM, tyre monitoring, and operator ID, just to name a few. This all comes with a user interface called Vision Link, as well as a full reporting package.”
More than meets the eye
But that’s not all. Telematics can also be used to track the location and performance of plant equipment – it’s all about utilisation and maintenance, as well as helping construction firms cut hire costs.
Tracking machine hours enables managers to not only keep tabs on the location of equipment, but also report on whether that equipment is being utilised across multiple sites.
Equipment that isn’t being used isn’t generating revenue, and optimising equipment distribution across sites can therefore accelerate progress with construction projects, allowing them to be completed quicker, and eliminating unnecessary spending on equipment hire.
Enhanced fuel usage measurement provides further insight into when equipment is running without being in use, which again helps to improve efficiency by reducing unnecessary idling.
When it comes to maintenance, telematics systems include equipment fault code notifications and assist with the planning of maintenance schedules, helping to keep equipment operational while maximising output and minimising the need for hire.
Outside of payroll, fuel is the second largest cost for a construction fleet, and while these vehicles may not travel far, they do make frequent trips back and forth, and fuel is burned inefficiently with all the stop and go movements and the sheer amount of mass they must carry back and forth.
With telematics, managers can track every single movement and optimise the process so they can do more with less. It brings efficiency and real-time data to their cycles, helping them understand how their machines are being used and where there is excess use or idling.
Not only will this help drivers perform the same number of trips with less fuel, it also minimises the wear and tear of the vehicles.
According to Lepron, for Caltex, fuel efficiency is the key benefit of the use of telematics technology, adding that telematics also assist in reducing maintenance costs by preventing breakdowns before they occur.
“Our advanced CANBus connectivity in Caltex telematics ensures the user can access data that others are not capable of doing in Australia,” Lepron said.
“This is can bring a lot of new options for both the fleet manager and owner to reduce operational costs. The data that is generated by our system can also be exported in various forms to suit any client and their systems.”
The future
With things constantly moving forward in this space, many have looked to the future in an attempt to identify new telematics equipment that can be incorporated in their operations, all in a bid to create a more efficient business.
“We are looking to integrate with partners who provide advanced fatigue management and maintenance management by early 2018,” Lepron said.
“Our partnership with Traffilog [Fleet Management Solutions] means the local market will benefit from all the innovation and new developments being done around the world by them, which will be integrated into Caltex Telematics.”
“We are constantly evolving. We have light vehicle options for managing route optimisation and field service, geo-fence for productivity so we can track production from our loading tool, which is supported by bucket and body payload,” Mudford added.
“We also have drone data to display where improvements are required, flashing OTA (over the air), rapid reporting down to the minute, API feeds for mixed fleet integration, proximity awareness, peer-to-peer communications, and integration with grade control automation.”
This article was originally published in the inaugural issue of Inside Construction.