Tracking the movement of your assets carries many benefits, especially in the construction industry.
Movement tracking can protect your valuable assets against theft while also maximizing their utilization.
Because the best asset tracking systems include GPS capabilities and can help with regular maintenance, using them can contribute to extending the lifespan of your equipment.
Finally, tracking asset movement greatly eases the complex procedure of asset audits.
In this article, we go over each of these benefits of tracking your asset movement in more detail.
Let’s begin with theft prevention.
In this article...
Protects Assets Against Theft
By tracking the movement of their assets, your company will always know the exact location of each of your assets, which protects assets not only against theft, but also from being misplaced or lost.
In the event that your valuable assets go missing, it is easier to recover them when you know where they were last used, and by whom.
This infographic reveals just how easy it is for potential thieves to strip you of valuable equipment such as fleet vehicles and how difficult it can be to retrieve them once they are gone:
Did you catch that one third of all fleets experience two stolen vehicles every year, if not more?
In addition to this, less than one quarter of items stolen from construction sites are recovered.
It is staggering to imagine the loss of just one a year, but the disappearance of two results in enormous losses, both in the costs of replacing the vehicles as well as rising insurance rates.
The best weapon against these huge costs is to deter theft before it even takes place.
One excellent deterrent is systemized asset tracking—not just of each item, but their movement.
A strong and feature-laden asset tracking system such as GoCodes offers patented and customizable QR codes.
These are securely placed onto material-appropriate tags that are easily and quickly scanned with technology with which staff members are already familiar, such as smartphones and tablets.
With each scan, the position of the vehicle or asset is verified, meaning that the object is easily tracked from its most recent location.
Maximizes the Utilization of Assets
Your construction company can now know where your assets are and how they are used much more easily when tracking their movements.
This helps to identify patterns in the way those assets are used, both by employees and by clients.
When you compile this usage data over time, you can make informed decisions about how to most efficiently allocate your assets.
In other words, diligent data-driven decisions help your team to optimize asset utilization.
Here’s a look at the best ways to go about asset utilization:
This graphic indicates that it’s best to schedule around expected downtime—presumably for maintenance—and to avoid unscheduled downtime losses.
Of course, some downtime, such as the type that arrives with uncontrollable factors like severe weather, is unavoidable.
However, even when asset loss takes place in events such as these, your construction company can recover much more quickly and stably if you already have a strong understanding of where your assets are and how they are used.
Even when your fleet and other assets are operating at full strength, it is often difficult to spread them intelligently amongst team members and work sites.
Daily disruptions to a schedule, such as a sick employee, traffic jam, or inclement weather, are far more easily managed when you understand precisely where each asset is, and how to most efficiently redistribute them as necessary.
When your construction company enjoys high or maximum asset utilization, your profit margins rise.
You most likely enjoy better client satisfaction and return business because your work is performed efficiently.
It’s also more probable that your employees are able to work better, and with more satisfaction, because they do not have to wonder about the location of the tools and vehicles they need to perform their jobs.
Extends the Lifespan of Assets
Extending the lifespan of expensive and dependable assets, especially those involved in transportation, is usually the goal of many contractors and construction company stakeholders.
Have a look at how low the average lifespan is of vehicle-related transport assets:
It is in the economic interest of construction companies, then, to do their best to expand the lifespan of valuable and constantly moving assets such as vehicles as much as possible.
This is more easily achieved with asset tracking, and it is especially vital if the asset is aging. In an era of high inflation, every contribution to your company’s profitability counts.
Even when these assets are not vehicles, by tracking the movement of each one, your company will know which are most frequently used and most likely to suffer wear and tear as a result.
This heavily affects the maintenance schedule you might build for each item.
Your construction company can extend the lifespan of each asset by scheduling timely maintenance for those most often in use rotation.
How does asset tracking achieve this?
When assets are tracked, each scan of the object’s tag records important data such as location, date, output, employee custody, and much more.
The GoCodes system can hold important information such as operators’ manuals, vendor contact information, and a track record of maintenance actions, both major and preventative, all of which can be accessed by scanning the tags.
One quick scan can inform an authorized employee about the item’s entire history, as well as when it is next scheduled for heavy work or preventive maintenance.
When an item is kept in good repair with dedicated cleanings, fluid refills, and the like taking place on a regular basis, it will last longer.
Makes Performing Asset Audits Easier
Inventory and asset audits are important to any construction company. This graphic indicates the many reasons why audits are important:
Unassisted, asset audits can take up to a month. They can go on even longer if assets undergo movement during the audit.
However, if your construction company is using a tracking system such as GoCodes, audits are simplified with the use of an intuitive mobile app.
Your employees will always know where each asset is, as well as where it is scheduled to travel next.
It becomes much easier for your employees to verify an item’s location without several phone calls or even time-consuming, expensive personal travel.
Construction companies rarely house all of their assets in one place.
For example, if a house’s foundation, driveway, and patio are already poured, it’s not likely that the company’s cement mixer will return.
The vehicle will quickly reposition to where it is needed next.
Whether renting equipment from another company, undertaking a long term lease, or using items of their own, various vehicles, tools, and materials are often moving from job to job and site to site.
With a good asset tracking system, auditing them when the time comes is much easier.
Conclusion
Contractors and construction companies can derive many benefits from tracking asset movement.
First, tracking asset movement can protect your vehicles, tools, and materials from theft or misplacement.
It is also much easier to maximize the utilization of assets, which is always difficult and subject to many outside forces, by investing in an asset tracking system that updates in real time.
Finally, assiduous tracking eases the many complicated aspects of conducting asset audits.
Taking advantage of the many features inherent to a robust tracking system such as GoCodes can greatly expand the lifespan of your valuable assets and make managing them as effortless as possible.
