If you manage a fleet of vehicles and heavy equipment, you need to know where everything is and what it’s doing at all times. You can achieve that and a lot more if you start relying on GPS tracking.
We’re talking about a set of tools that will help you track and manage a mobile workforce. It’s used in industries of all types, such as trucking, construction, and logistics.
The benefits of using a GPS tracker are countless, and in this article, we’re covering five benefits you may not even be aware of.
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In this article...
Improved Asset Management
You can improve your asset management through data collection with a GPS tracking system.
We all know how stressful maintaining your fleet can be. This is where a GPS tracker can be incredibly useful.
They make it easier to track expensive construction equipment so that you can stay on top of usage and maintenance needs, while keeping a close eye on your fleet’s vehicles from almost anywhere.
Tracking your equipment is important for many reasons, one of which is theft protection.
Every year heavy construction equipment losses in the US range from $300 million to $1 billion. Let’s face it, that’s unacceptable; you’ve invested far too much in your assets to lose sight of it.
Be that as it may, your heavy machinery is probably sitting around overnight at a construction site where it’s at risk of being stolen.
You might think it’s not that easy to steal a big machine, but according to statistics, over 2,000 cases of machine theft a year occur in Texas alone. That’s just one state; you can only imagine how many cases there were in the other 49.
If you equip your machinery with GPS technology, you will be able to track it more easily if it gets stolen.
Thieves will not be able to escape on your watch since you will be immediately notified if a vehicle or piece of equipment is being used outside of its designated location or hours of operation.
Another benefit of GPS in managing your assets is improved maintenance management, which creates a safer working environment for drivers.
Although one of the most important aspects of managing a fleet is maintaining a regular maintenance schedule, keeping it can be a challenge, especially if you are responsible for larger fleets.
GPS tracking can tell you how much a piece of equipment is being used or warn you if it’s been sitting idly for a longer period of time.
That way, you’ll have a clearer picture of which machines are due for maintenance and which equipment needs to be used more to avoid the overuse of other machines.
With proper upkeep, drivers can get behind the wheel safely and get where they need to go without a hiccup.
Simply put, knowing where all of your equipment is and how much it gets around is an easy way to prevent theft and maintain every machine you own in optimal working order. And GPS tracking is the best tool available to make that happen.
Enhanced Productivity
The second benefit of tracking your equipment we’ll cover is a real time and money saver. We are referring to enhanced productivity.
Equipment tracking GPS can help you grow your business in several ways. For instance, one of the most significant advantages of GPS tracking is route optimization.
In other words, planning the best route to get your equipment to the site in the shortest possible amount of time and with minimal delays, saving time, fuel, and manpower becomes easier in this way.
Several factors need to be considered before doing route planning, such as traffic, weather conditions, and distance. A GPS tracking system will calculate routes based on these factors for you.
Just think how much time you’ve wasted because one of your drivers got lost or stuck on a busy highway.
Well, thanks to the GPS tracker, you will be informed about traffic delays, road accidents, police patrols, and detours. Not only that, but you’ll be able to plan ahead and avoid any problem areas.
Another benefit of GPS tracking that will enhance your productivity is monitoring your drivers.
Using GPS, you can also evaluate labor productivity by measuring the amount of time a driver spends on the road, the number of breaks they take, and how long those breaks are.
Thanks to GPS trackers, you can eliminate unproductive drivers who take long breaks or don’t start their work on time. But there are also some other benefits.
For example, if you owned a logistics company, you would be dependent on the number of deliveries your drivers make daily.
Using a GPS tracker can help you properly assess how much time an entire delivery process takes and which task takes the most time, giving you ideas on what needs to be optimized for efficiency.
In short, using a GPS tracker will increase your company’s productivity in ways you didn’t even think of, saving you time and money.
Reduced Insurance Costs
In the US, there are approximately 17,250 car accidents every day. The cost of these accidents is somewhere around 230.6 billion dollars each year.
This is the reason we have insurance—to protect us from the exorbitant costs of accidents. However, for construction companies, the rates can be extremely high. Fortunately, a GPS tracking device can assist you in lowering insurance costs.
Additionally, approximately 93% of all road accidents are the result of human error.
The most common causes are fatigue, distraction, substance abuse, or aggressive driving. Unfortunately, you can’t control the traffic but what you can do is monitor your drivers.
For example, if you monitor your drivers using GPS, you might notice some risky behavior.
With the collected data you’ll be able to create safety training programs tailored to each driver. This way, you reduce your liability, lower the risk of accidents, and cut your insurance premiums.
Advanced GPS tracking systems sometimes come with machine vision and artificial intelligence, like in the image below, which will alert your drivers of distractions, risky behaviors, and imminent danger and therefore improve their safety.
Another way GPS trackers will reduce your insurance rates is by reducing claims.
Believe it or not, when it comes to collisions between cars and trucks, 80% of the time, it’s the car’s fault. So, clearly, statistics are telling us that truck drivers care more about safety than the average person.
However, since trucks are big and heavy and capable of causing severe damage, truck drivers are usually (incorrectly) found to be at fault.
Fortunately, there’s a good way to prevent that. When GPS is coupled with other telematics technologies like dashcams, operators can also easily prove their innocence in case of road accidents.
The footage recorded by smart video cameras is often easily accessible and searchable, so you can quickly retrieve video of an incident to provide objective evidence.
In this way, many claims can be dismissed because it can be proven without a doubt that the truck driver was innocent.
On the other hand, if the truck driver is proven guilty, companies can settle the claim faster, and thus reduce the cost of litigation.
So thanks to GPS tracking systems, even if you’re liable for damages, the costs are kept at a manageable level.
There you have it. With GPS trackers, everything is kept on the up and up, and issues like traffic accidents are resolved quickly and at less cost.
More Accurate Project Estimates
Another great benefit of using a GPS tracking system is that you can estimate your projects’ cost and duration more accurately.
For instance, knowing how long your equipment takes to get to a site and how much ground it can cover helps you calculate how much work can get done in a day, so there’s less overtime or underutilization.
This, in turn, means better time management for the project at large.
However, according to the KPMG Global Construction Survey, 41% of respondents said that their companies have multiple software platforms for tracking equipment that are manually monitored, making the tools less effective.
Luckily, a time tracking app devised for the construction industry can help you reduce paperwork, organize projects, and improve the visibility of your assets.
In the photo below, you can see an example of a time tracking app with GPS tracking features:
It has many benefits, such as:
- Automatic time tracking so your employees do not have to use paper timesheets; they can focus on their primary tasks
- Tracking of employee hours, billable and non-billable time, and overtime hours for accurate payroll
- Efficient scheduling of workflows and processes
- Real-time monitoring of project progress to identify bottlenecks and avoid issues with execution
- Key statistics and metrics, such as recorded and estimated time, budget, tasks, and projects for construction workers, and other accurate time data
- Elimination of errors in timesheets and project reports
Clearly, time tracking can help you save time and money by improving administrative processes and preventing errors and mistakes.
But time is not the only thing that will affect the cost of your project.
We all know that fuel isn’t cheap, and most transportation companies do everything in their power to improve the fuel economy of their equipment and vehicles.
A GPS system can be useful here as well.
For instance, imagine bidding on a project in a remote location; thanks to your GPS system, you can instantly calculate how much the transport will cost, making it much easier to estimate the material costs of the project overall.
Also, with the help of GPS, you will know when and how your vehicles are being operated. For example, speeding can increase fuel consumption, and just one hour of idling can use up to a gallon of fuel.
To save some money, always refer to the numbers at GPS when reimbursing drivers for expenses incurred on the road. Not only will this keep you informed about the fuel consumption, but it will also hold the driver accountable.
So to sum it up, GPS tracking will help you with your project estimates since your time and fuel management will improve.
Increased Profits
Let’s be honest; we’re all in business to make a profit.
However, as your business grows, expenses often increase as well. GPS tracking can help you manage your expenses which will automatically increase your profit.
All the benefits we have already mentioned will undoubtedly help increase your profits.
For example, as discussed in the previous section, thanks to fuel management and route planning, you will save money on fuel. This is a big saving because fuel accounts for 22% of all operational costs.
Another good example is vehicle maintenance. Repairs are expensive—a tow truck, spare parts, and mechanic’s labor can cost you thousands of dollars.
However, with a tracking system, the entire process becomes easier to manage because you can provide your mechanic with a reliable diagnostic report.
This report will contain a list of problems and potential weak spots and help them fix the problem in a single appointment.
Although this sounds pretty good, we all know that, no matter how hard we try, some things can’t be prevented.
In these situations, you can get real-time alerts and ensure the vehicle is taken off the road before it breaks down or causes a collision.
Speaking of collisions, an average one involving a truck can cost up to 91,000 dollars.
To prevent this from happening, you can improve safety through driver training. However, your drivers are not alone on the road, and even the safest driver is likely to experience a collision at some point.
If you can’t prove you were not at fault, you will have to pay a lot of money.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, a dashcam can prove what really happened and save you thousands of dollars.
In fact, a delivery company called Nybll saved up to 500,000 dollars by avoiding a personal injury lawsuit. Thanks to the dashcam, the company’s driver was absolved of any responsibility in a collision with a motorcyclist.
In short, controlling your expenses is often what it takes to increase your profits. As you can see, GPS can be extremely helpful in reducing costs for your business.
Conclusion
If you own heavy equipment and your goal is to be as productive as possible, a GPS tracking system is a must.
It will help you prevent theft, improve fuel and time management, decrease equipment misuse, and much more.
In short—it will make your life so much easier. You will spend less time doing administrative work and more time improving your profits. The best part is that you don’t even have to leave your house to do all that!
