Track Geotechnical, Structural and Monitoring Equipment Using QR Codes

As geotechnical service providers, you may need to go out into inaccessible and remote areas for long periods of time. You may also have to lease out your equipment to partners/renters who need it for soil assessments, risk monitoring and a host of other engineering or construction-related activities.

QR coding the machines not only helps you keep track of its movements, but will also help your partners understand important features about the equipment such as functionality, life expectancy, capacity utilization and more.

In the world of geotechnical services, QR codes act as godsends, helping engineers, servicemen, researchers and workers improve resource utilization with ease.

QR codes are revolutionizing the world of equipment management

Real-time tracking of packages has become a possibility thanks to barcodes. This allows companies to track where the customer’s product has reached and how long it will take to reach them. These codes also allow companies understand where time was lost and why. Now apply the same theory to all engineering and construction-related fields and you have your answer to equipment tracking.

Some of the benefits of tracking geotechnical, structural and monitoring equipment using QR codes are:

• They help workers understand what the equipment is for and how to use it

Imagine you are in the midst of a construction project. You may need to use a range of structural or monitoring equipment to work on the construction and this equipment may remain at the remote site for long periods of time. At this point, you may wish to understand whether your equipment has the load-bearing capacity or the data capture features needed to complete the construction or not. You will also require information about its durability on the site, especially if the weather conditions and geological make-up of the land are hostile.

QR codes, when programmed with machine-specific technical information, can help organizations and employees better understand equipment and its utility. Using the information provided post-scanning the code, engineers and field supervisors can make informed decisions about resource utilization.

• They allow organizations to keep track of its service needs

Of all the types of engineering equipment, geotechnical, structural and monitoring equipment makes the longest and most intensive travel across the world. They often change multiple pairs of hands and end up thousands of miles from the supplier’s warehouse. When this happens, it becomes physically impossible to track the product, analyze its condition, measure its performance and conduct other necessary safety, repair and maintenance checks.

QR code tracking allows geotechnical experts to understand whether the equipment is safe, if it needs servicing, and how useful it is to the project it has been commissioned to. The QR codes also inform organizations about how safe the equipment is to workers and helps managers meet safety requirements and helps them make informed decisions about equipment replacement.

• They help organizations analyze important performance metrics

Often, during transit, equipment collects downtime, which can later reduce its operational efficiency. When this happens, the equipment soon becomes useless. If it doesn’t collect downtime, it may even run the risk of being underutilized or over utilized by renters, further reducing its efficiency.

By tracking equipment using QR codes, organizations can understand how heavy equipment performs on 5 important KPIs which affect operational effectiveness and profitability. These KPIs include:

• Financial/dollar utilization– measuring the revenue earned by each piece of equipment
• Time utilization– tracking the difference between the number of days the equipment has been rented for and the number of days it’s actually been used.
• Maintenance-to-income ratio– calculating the repair and maintenance costs raked up by the equipment versus the amount of income it is generating.
• Physical utilization rate– tracking the time the equipment lay unused by a customer/partner organization and the resultant loss in revenue this incurred due to unavailability of the equipment for leasing.
• Washout percentage– analyzing the potential profit that can be gained by selling the equipment ‘if’ a certain situation should occur.
• They help organizations keep equipment safe

Theft, damage and loss of equipment are quite common in all industries; but it’s highly prevalent in the field of geotechnical services. Engineering and construction sites are extremely dangerous, remote and often do not have any surveillance system overseeing the premises. This makes them the perfect haven for anti-social elements. Additionally, the rough nature of the jobs results in extensive wear and tear, which can easily rake up servicing and replacement costs.

Organizations can’t afford either of these to happen. QR code tracking can help managers and field supervisors know where equipment is at all times, who it’s being used by and what condition it is in.

GoCodes to the rescue

With the GoCodes asset management and asset tracking system the challenges of heavy equipment management will be a thing of the past. Utilizing state-of-the-art inventory and asset tracking facilities such as QR codes, portable scanners and the latest in equipment management software, GoCodes asset management system helps you consolidate details about your heavy equipment, helping you keep track of them when they’re on the field.

Here are some reasons why you should use GoCodes asset management system for your next assignment:

• Access to centralized database that can hold thousands of data points
• Ease of navigation, data sharing and data import/export
• Timely system and software upgrades, coupled with bug fixes keep the system in optimal condition
• Ability to generate detailed reports about equipment utilization
• Reduction in manual errors and inaccuracies found in paper tracking and non-QR code asset tracking
• Identification of equipment utilization trends
• Added benefits of cloud storage, increased data security and potential for massive software upgrades
• Has the power to support and supplement both intra-organizational and inter-organizational data sharing needs

With the GoCodes QR code tracking facility, organizations can find themselves having greater flexibility and freedom both on-site and off-site. Project leads at headquarters and field supervisors on-site can co-ordinate equipment utilization and resource allocation with ease. Costs can be streamlined through a controlled allocation of equipment to specific projects, ensuring that all geotechnical, support and monitoring equipment are used optimally.

Control of equipment is something that engineering and construction-related organizations struggle with. But, with the latest asset management and inventory tracking systems in place, managers will find it easier to monitor, control and utilize expensive heavy equipment with ease.