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...The Transmission...
Fleet Management Systems Employ GPS and Cellular Signals to Up Productivity
By Jason Morgan
 The screen flickers on. Data pours in, streaming seemingly endless amounts of information — engine idle time, machine location, travel speed and loader usage. A service notice flashes on screen. Your excavator is in dire need of some machine shop TLC.
Flash!
Another notice — a backhoe loader has left its jobsite.
The equipment manager confirms it; he’s putting it to work on a new jobsite. Yesterday the backhoe loader only worked at 20 percent capacity.
It sounds like some futuristic technology — a sci-fi managerial system to control your crew’s and fleet’s maintenance needs and production cycles, saving time and money. In fact, that’s exactly what it is, and it’s available today. Offered by service providers such as HCSS, DPL America, BorgSolutions, EarthwaveTechnologies and LoJack to name a few, fleet management systems provide insight into the daily lives of your machines and their operators.
“There are basically two categories in fleet management,” explains Lance Massey, sales director for BorgSolutions, a company that offers ASTRAL, a Web-based fleet maintenance and tracking system. “The first is automatic vehicle locating [AVL]; that’s knowing where your fleet is and where it’s going. The second is about managing the maintenance and repairs of your fleet, knowing when maintenance is needed, and acting on that information by automating the work order, inventory and purchase order processes needed to keep it working and your costs under control.”
The Technology of Tomorrow, Today
Pulling machine information from the stars may seem a bit far-fetched. While that’s partially true for most fleet management systems, most systems offer hardware installed on machines that are a combination of a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver to collect information from the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and a cellular transceiver to send data to the service provider’s servers. The units receive the GPS information from the Satellites, compute its location and send that data back to the server. The data is then fed into the services and displayed on the screen for the end user to track equipment and manage assets.
“Data is available down to the minute, but it is presented based on customer need and input,” says John Hinds, chief technology officer for Earthwave Technologies. “For example, we have reports that provide daily, weekly and monthly summaries, but we also have reports that provide information down to the minute.
It depends on the report and the parameters provided by the customer.”
Typically, in-house mechanics can install the fleet management hardware. However, most dealers offer training and installation if a staff mechanic isn’t available. Earthwave, for example, performs the first couple of installations as training, but then lets the company’s mechanic take over.
Pricing for systems is hardly uniform. Some service providers offer monthly subscriptions — ranging from $10/month to annual subscriptions of $360/year, depending on features, accounts preferences, etc. Then there’s the hardware cost for the physical GPS units, which is generally a one-time payment of $200 to $800 per unit, depending on how advanced a system you’d like.
Some providers, like Earthwave Technologies, offer a leasing program for the units and service, many offer a discount with a bulk hardware purchase. There may also be other subsequent fees such as airtime charges for how often the GPS sends information to the system services and the like.
“I always tell customers to ask, ‘What do you get for your subscription?’” says Tony Nicoletti, director of North American sales for DPL America. “That’s the big one. I always stress to our customers that they make sure they know what services they are getting along with the quote.” |
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