Some days running a business can feel like you’re treading water just to stay afloat. But on good days business leaders will have just enough bandwidth to manage their current day while planning for tomorrow. On days like this Walker Construction’s Scales/Truck Supervising Manager, Kevin Howard, is happy that his company has the telematic tools to prepare themselves to excel in tomorrow’s business climate.

Telematics are an invaluable addition to any equipment fleet,
including compact equipment like skid steers, compact excavators, dump trucks, and even company vehicles. Here are a few ways that telematics platforms are proving their worth to this important industry segment.

Driver safety is a concern for virtually any company that has vehicles on the road. In addition to the conduct of the drivers themselves, and interactions with those around them, there is the concern of how bad driver behavior might be perceived by the public. One Georgia contractor who operates an asphalt plant for their own paving projects and others and has a division that engages in heavy civil construction projects is using FleetWatcher telematics to rein in driver behavior. Here’s how they are using technology to reduce incidents of speeding (relative to the posted speed limit), hard braking,
fast starts and hard turns among their fleet of 150 on-road vehicles.

Earthwave has integrated their e-ticketing functionality with OnStation to allow users to pinpoint the exact Station Location where each load of asphalt is placed on a jobsite. This new functionality automatically tracks the load from the time it is loaded at the asphalt plant, through its dumping into the paver on the jobsite. The exact Station location becomes a part of the digital e-ticket, with no operator intervention required. Operators and transportation agency officials can know precisely on a jobsite where a specific load of asphalt was laid, so that if a future problem arises, they can investigate other parameters around that location, including core tests, density, drainage, or others, to determine the scope of the problem. Specific station locations on each e-ticket replace the latitude/longitude indications which are commonly included now, but which are not readily referenceable on the jobsite. 

If you've ever felt like you're juggling too many projects at once, you're not alone. Chris Higgins, the Vice President of Engineering and Construction at Scotty's Contracting & Stone can emphasize. He wakes up every day with 400 pieces of heavy equipment to allocate across projects throughout Kentucky. On a good day it's a challenge. On a rainy day it's fire drill. But Higgins is prepared, thanks to a telematics tool that collects and displays data across his entire fleet, bridging the gaps between a dozen different equipment manufacturers. 

Getting over growing pains 

Scotty's Contracting & Stone is a heavy civil and paving contractor that has served a geographic footprint that ranges from Louisville to Nashville for 50 years. In that time the company has grown from 10 employees to over 600, dispatching more than 100 trucks a day through their 14 asphalt plants and 5 stone quarries. Third party trucks are supplied with FleetWatcher as well, so that all haul trucks have the same visibility. Visibility into the entire haul fleet allows Scotty's to see bottlenecks in real time and re-route trucks around them to shorten cycle times.

Earthwave Technologies, Indianapolis, offers the FleetWatcher telematics platform to monitor four key safe driver metrics, allowing companies to track and amend driver behavior. This GPS-based platform captures vehicle data from either the FleetWatcher App or from an in-vehicle device. It simplifies safe driver programs by focusing on four key metrics: 

• vehicle speed relative to posted speed limits; 
• fast starts;
• hard breaking; and
• hard turns.

This data is reported continuously and can be used to assign a numeric or letter grade to drivers, who can then be commended or counseled for their performance. Whether required by insurance carriers or as company policy, FleetWatcher customers using this feature have reported significantly improved driver grades when this is added to their safe driver programming.

FleetWatcher's Escalating Idle Alert informs managers when equipment has been idling for too long, allowing immediate corrective action to be taken. This can help slash idle time, and thus elongate equipment life span.

• FleetWatcher monitors rpm over time, and alerts managers with text or email when a pre-set threshold has been reached
• The parameters and alerting structure are completely customizable by the user
• Data can be integrated with other business systems such as accounting, estimating
• Tracks multiple data points including cycle times, productivity and downtime, equipment utilization and underutilization, exact location of each piece of equipment, project status, budgets, shop costs, rental expenses, and trends and behaviors 

Onboarding of Earthwave Technologies popular FleetWatcher telematics platform is fast and easy since it captures data from OEM telematics systems with no additional hardware required.

Data from each piece of equipment within the fleet, regardless of manufacturer, class, or size, is seamlessly integrated into the FleetWatcher platform, with no labor costs.  With a clear view of all fleetwide assets, managers can better allocate equipment to enhance utilization, slash idle times to save fuel and equipment value, streamline maintenance, and more.

Earthwave’s Construction Management Solution was developed specifically for the “yellow iron” heavy construction industry and is ideal for off-road construction projects of all sizes and types.

Before signing on with FleetWatcher, the team at Jon M. Hall was looking to reduce idle time and increase production. They knew a telematics software would help them improve operations but there was a concern that learning how to navigate a new system would be time-consuming and difficult to implement. 

A breadcrumb feature shows the machine’s location activity in real-time and every minute if the machine is being towed, and the info is available from a browser or a mobile device.

FleetWatcher, a telematics platform from Earthwave Technologies, includes features to prevent theft and aid in equipment recovery. Its GPS technology allows users to see where any piece of equipment is at any given time, while an included proactive unauthorized use feature alerts user if equipment is started after hours.