Preventive Maintenance Extends Equipment Life
Equipment is a vital asset to pipeline construction and maintenance projects. Whether the assets are vehicles transporting employees to job sites or equipment used to work on the pipeline, properly functioning equipment is imperative to successfully and efficiently completing projects. Unfortunately, companies can find it challenging to properly maintain multiple pieces of equipment and other company assets, which can lead to unexpected breakdowns.
What many may not realize is that comprehensive GPS fleet tracking solutions offer maintenance management features, integrating alerts and maintenance logs into the telematics solution. Proactively maintaining equipment helps optimize functionality and keeps assets running efficiently. In addition, it allows managers to extend the life of their assets to ensure that all of their equipment receives the service they need before a breakdown.
Maintenance Schedules and Logs
Pipeline construction project managers are often juggling multiple roles — managing a workforce, multiple projects and equipment. In addition, keeping tabs on multiple pieces of equipment and maintenance statuses is challenging, especially if companies rely on a manual process. Automated maintenance schedules provided by telematics solutions help take the guesswork out of servicing vehicles and equipment, allowing companies to maximize assets by ensuring preventative upkeep is occurring consistently and on schedule. The logs are updated across all devices and users within the solution, so all employees are updated on the maintenance schedule and status.
After scheduled maintenance is performed, managers can utilize maintenance logs to view details of services performed to ensure policies are being followed and met. With maintenance reports, managers can customize and generate the data they need for a complete picture of their assets. Tracking maintenance means employees can be confident that equipment will function efficiently for projects.
Automated Maintenance Alerts
Keeping detailed maintenance logs is helpful; however, it can still be a tedious practice to check logs and plan out when maintenance should occur. GPS fleet tracking solutions should offer automatic maintenance alerts to streamline this process for management. Alerts can be set for maintenance reminders based on engine hours or odometer milestones that are updated automatically within the system. According to Caterpillar’s SOMA (Site Operation Maintenance Advisor), major component life can be increased by 62 percent simply by improving maintenance practices from average to excellent. Keeping equipment and assets in top shape increases efficiency and saves money in the long run on potential major repairs.
Remote Asset Updates
A comprehensive GPS fleet tracking solution should allow a pipeline construction company to have easy insights into asset activity, no matter how remote the location. Power Take-Off (PTO) sensors are an important feature for companies that work in remote locations and use expensive assets. PTO sensors provide data regarding asset activity in the field by monitoring when any extension of an asset is being used, even if the engine is not running.
This provides a complete and detailed picture of all asset activity and usage on jobsites. Similar to maintenance alerts, managers can receive instant notifications when an asset’s PTO mechanism is engaged. Reports and data can be pulled from the solution that detail the time, location and duration of equipment usage.
A comprehensive GPS fleet tracking solution should also provide the option for employees to update details regarding an asset remotely, usually via a mobile application. A mobile app can easily allow field workers to report any maintenance issues via a smartphone or tablet, ensuring repairs are dealt with quickly.
With numerous assets and employees out in the field, a telematics solution can streamline maintenance tracking and automate the preventative maintenance process for companies. Staying up to date on the status of equipment and vehicles keeps assets running efficiently and can prevent the need for major repairs further down the road, keeping all company operations on track.
Tags: NexTraq, Preventive MaintenanceWyn Partington is vice president of marketing at NexTraq. The company’s applications — Fleet Dispatch, Fleet Metrics, NexTraq Connect and NexTraq View — deliver real-time data needed to optimize fleet operations.
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