Complete Guide to GPS Tracking for Construction Equipment

GPS tracking can benefit a wide variety of industries, but it really shines in the construction industry. With all the moving parts that come with a construction company, GPS tracking can help manage your equipment, maximize efficiency, and cut costs in the long run.

When your equipment constantly moves between work sites, tracking your assets in real-time is crucial. The guide below details everything you need to know about GPS tracking for your construction equipment.

Benefits of GPS tracking for construction companies

GPS tracking carries several clear advantages for construction companies:

Locate, track and recover stolen equipment

Theft of construction equipment is a constant problem, and replacement costs can quickly drain your operating budget. Luckily, GPS tracking allows you to set geofences, otherwise known as digital boundaries, that will notify you when your equipment leaves a designated area or is moving outside of normal working hours. Real-time tracking capabilities make recovery a lot easier and more practical. 

Increased workplace productivity and efficiency

In the construction industry, it’s very common to experience logistical problems with employees, expensive equipment, and multiple work sites. In fact, a 2020 National Construction Payment Report states that 70% of projects fail, run over budget, or go past deadlines due to logistical difficulties or challenges with managing and tracking workers and equipment.

With GPS tracking, you can plan for the most practical routes for your drivers and allocate your equipment and resources accordingly. Knowing where everything is and where everything needs to go in one organized platform makes operating your construction company more efficient. 

Minimize fuel and operation costs

Minimizing unnecessary expenses can go a long way towards maximizing profits. GPS tracking can help you identify wasteful driving habits and equipment usage that drive up fuel consumption. By monitoring these factors, managers can also get a better handle on maintenance schedules and get ahead of repairs before they become bigger (and more expensive) problems.

Improved worker and equipment safety

Not only is it important to monitor where your equipment is at all times, but it’s also important to monitor your workers’ driving habits. By offering real-time reports and notifications on driving habits, you can help identify costly expenses and promote worker safety. This also has the benefit of streamlining insurance reports and potentially reducing your premiums. 

6 ways construction companies can use GPS tracking 

As highlighted above GPS tracking is a big benefit for construction companies that roll them out to their operations. But how specifically are construction operations making use of GPS tracking? What are the most common use, and what are some niche but clever uses? Below, we’ll give you six:

Moving items between job sites

GPS tracking software allows you to easily view where all of your equipment is on a live map, which allows easier decision-making on when and where your equipment should be moved. It’s a much more organized and efficient approach to shifting equipment than more analog processes.

Here’s an example: Let’s say you’ve had a bulldozer on a certain job site for two weeks. However, by using GPS tracking, you can see that the bulldozer has been dormant at the job site for the past four days. Now, instead of leaving that bulldozer where it isn’t needed, you can move it to a new site where it is. You minimize downtime and increase efficiency.

Recover lost or stolen assets

Theft of construction equipment is a constant worry, but you can fight this problem with GPS tracking, which lets you know whenever equipment is being moved. If it moves at a time when it isn’t supposed to, you can use the GPS tracker to quickly locate it, and then share the location with the authorities so they can chase down the thieves and recover your property.

This is exactly what happened to HQS Construction, a road & utility contracting business out of the greater Dallas Fort Worth (DFW) area. 

“We had a skid-steer and two rollers stolen, all of which are specialty equipment” explained Trenton Rath, Safety Manager & Field Accountant at HQS Construction. “They’re costly to replace and hard to find. The market is competitive for this kind of equipment, especially if they’re in good working condition.”

Fortunately, all of the stolen items were equipped with GPS tracking devices and had been used to track down and recover the vehicles.

Read more about how Spytec helped HQS Construction here.

Monitor equipment use

Many tracking softwares provide a wide range of data insights that can help you maintain and organize your equipment better. Keeping track of vehicle mileage, which vehicles are being used more than others, and having a set maintenance plan are all possible with GPS tracking.

For example: Your fleet of trucks consists of four different vehicles. Trucks A, B, and C get the most use, while D spends a lot of time sitting in the yard. A, B, and C have been running pretty hard for the last couple of months. Using your GPS tracking solution, you notice that truck C is 400 miles overdue for a tire rotation, while truck D still has another 1,000 miles to go. With this data, you can ensure that truck C gets taken in for maintenance and truck D takes its place.

Here’s what HQS Construction had to say about tracking equipment usage:

“We can see exactly where our assets are at all times, and know immediately if something is off course. This helped us avoid costly delays and disruptions. The system has also helped us better manage our maintenance and repair schedules, as we can now track when our vehicles and equipment need to be serviced and plan accordingly.

Confirm arrivals and departures

This one is pretty straightforward, but can be hassle in construction. You don’t want your crews sitting around waiting for equipment or supplies while on the clock. GPS tracking helps you know exactly when your equipment departs from a work site, you can estimate their arrival and schedule jobs accordingly.

Routing vehicles

With equipment and assets constantly on the go, there can be unexpected delays that result in a chain reaction of bad timing. GPS tracking allows you to supply drivers with the most optimal routes to avoid these delays, which can even be done from a mobile device.

Example: Your crew is on their way to a job site, and you notice unexpected road maintenance a few miles ahead. Instead of letting the crew sit in 45 minutes of stop-and-go traffic, you can use your GPS tracking system to seamlessly re-route that crew so they can make it to the job site on time. Plus, you can do it in the least disruptive way–with mobile GPS tracking, you can set a new route without distracting your personnel on the road.

Provide clients with visibility

It’s not enough just to know where your vehicles are; you also want your clients to have that same visibility, too. Giving clients a clearer picture of delivery times will improve customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. 

Here’s an example: A client calls asking where the crew is, because they’re 20 minutes late. You’re currently out of the office, but with your mobile device you can see that the crew had to re-route around a traffic accident. You can now relay this location data to the client and give them a more accurate arrival time. Some applications even allow you to securely send private, temporary map links so that clients and other third parties can follow a vehicle’s location and movement in real time. 

Cons of GPS tracking for construction equipment

As we’ve highlighted above, there are several benefits to using GPS tracking for construction companies, but it does come with several drawbacks as well. 

This section will briefly cover the downsides of GPS tracking, but we have a more comprehensive article here. 

Expensive installation

There are several GPS tracking providers in the market, each with different price points and price schemes. Depending ont he size of your operation, these can be quite expensive to order, install, and replace. 

Ongoing fees

All GPS tracking providers require a monthly fee to use the software and access the data. While this is an industry standard, this can annoy business owners who have tight budgets and don’t want the recurring fees.

Transporting trackers from equipment to equipment

Businesses that can’t afford or choose not to buy enough trackers for their equipment often have to play musical chairs with their GPS tracking devices. They shuffle tracker units from asset to asset, which can get confusing, complex, and tiring for everyone involved.

There are pros and cons to everything that goes into running a successful business. Doing your due diligence in researching different GPS providers and looking at the cost, benefits, and ways they can save you money is essential to making the proper decisions. 

How to track your construction equipment

GPS tracking uses a combination of hardware and software to bring you complete visibility of all of your construction assets. When you’re deciding on the right GPS tracking device, it’s important to pick the device that’s geared towards your tracking goals. 

GPS tracking hardware

The different types of GPS tracking hardware include:

• Battery-powered GPS trackers. These run off internal batteries and are very portable. They can be placed virtually anywhere thanks to their small size, and can be used to track equipment, assets, and personnel. Some models even come with magnetic cases and mounts so you can securely attach them to a metallic surface. 

• Hardwired GPS trackers. These GPS devices are wired into and powered by a vehicle’s electrical system. They are relatively easy to install and don’t require special tools or technical training. 

• On-board diagnostic (OBD) GPS trackers. OBD trackers plug directly into a vehicle’s OBD II port. Since it’s connected directly to the vehicle, it uses the vehicle’s electrical system as a power source and doesn’t need to be recharged. 

Each has distinct advantages that make them useful for different situations. Portable trackers with magnetic mounts are effective anti-theft devices since they can be hidden discreetly on a vehicle or asset. 

OBD trackers are useful for companies with large fleets, since they not only give fleet diagnostics, but are also convenient to move between vehicles.

If you don’t plan on moving the GPS tracker from vehicle to vehicle, and would prefer something that can be secured reliably and would be inconvenient to remove, then the hardwired GPS tracker is a good option.

GPS tracking software

When choosing a GPS tracker, it’s important to understand what the software can offer and if that will fulfill your tracking needs. GPS tracking software can offer tools such as: 

• Live tracking. Provides real-time data on your physical assets and allows you to act immediately if something goes wrong.

• Smart boundaries. You can set up geofences around locations that contain your business’ physical assets and be alerted if the boundary is crossed.

• Time machine. Allows you to see a map of each tracker’s movement during a specific period.

• Vehicle Diagnostic data. Monitor the speed of your fleet vehicles to ensure the safety of your personnel and equipment. Leaving a vehicle idle when it’s not in use causes wear and tear that could put your driver in danger and lead to higher fuel and maintenance costs. 

• Set driving routes. Different routes sometimes take drivers into high-risk areas. Whether the concern is driver safety or asset theft, easily manage which routes you want your personnel to take.

Knowing the differences in tracking software when choosing the right GPS tracker is important. You want to access tracking data from the palm of your hand, and ensure that the software will let you monitor data from your mobile device.

Some software applications also offer cross-platform monitoring, so if you want to monitor data from more than one device, make sure that is an available option. 

Should I track rental equipment?

Yes, you should absolutely track GPS trackers on your rental equipment. Not all customers are trustworthy, and you need to prevent any nasty surprises. You should ensure customers use the customer the way they’re intended, where they’re supposed to used, and within the allotted time they’ve paid for. 

A GPS tracking system helps you know about any overages, potential maintenance needs, or other updates required to run your rental business.

Gain peace of mind with GPS tracking for your construction equipment

Managing a construction company can be hectic because of all the moving parts and workforce. GPS tracking is a solution that can help smoothen your day-to-day operations and give you more peace of mind. It can help you gain visibility into how your equipment is being used, protect your assets, and keep employees accountable.

Spytec offers top-quality GPS tracking devices and easy-to-use, intuitive tracking software to help your construction companies optimize your equipment usage. 

Interested in learning more about Spytec? Get in touch with us today.