Equipment World Digital Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/699963
July 2016 | EquipmentWorld.com 68 chines it tracked to a specific group. "Let's say I've got this group of hauling assets. I can get advance notice on when to dispatch the fuel guy to that site while the other widget continues tracking all of my other machines," Thomas says. The dashboard can even be con- figured as an auto generated daily report with VisionLink creating a PDF of a user's dashboard widgets and emailing it out at a certain time each day. A growing suite Expanding on that customization, the VisionLink site will be split into a suite of apps, each of which are focused on a task or job role. The suite will be accessible via a grid button in the VisionLink naviga- tion bar. Thomas says this refined organization of feature sets will allow customers with different responsibilities within a company to quickly access the data pertinent to their job. One app is Unified Fleet. This app is tailored for equipment and fleet managers, focusing mainly on hours, miles, location and utilization. The app also allows quick fleet filter- ing to whittle data down to specific jobsites or machine types. Mixed-fleet diagnostic views While the overhauled design and customization features make up the majority of this update, the most in- teresting and maybe most anticipat- ed feature – not just of VisionLink but of all telematics dashboards – is the ability to view an entire mixed fleet in one place. Thomas says the new VisionLink is compatible with version 1.2 of the Association of Equipment Manu- facturers/Association of Equipment Management Professionals (AEM/ AEMP) telematics standard. "That standard continues to evolve a specific set of data coming from telematics devices that the manu- facturers have agreed to share with each other at the customer's request," Thomas explains. "So if a customer doesn't want to go into all the dif- ferent telematics software (for each brand of machine they own, as is currently required) they can now share their data to something like VisionLink and log into one piece of software to see all of it." Demonstrating the view of a mixed fleet, Thomas showed an example fleet of Cat and John Deere equip- ment listed together. The machine data can be filtered by manufacturer, although Cat can't guarantee that Vi- sionLink will be able to display all of the same data on third-party equip- ment as it does on the Cat machines. "They'll need to ask that question of their dealers to see what specific data will be shared between manu- facturers on specific models. The 1.2 standard is really focused on very basic telematics info: Hours, fuel, etc.," Thomas says. He explains that when data is sent from a machine, it first goes through servers belonging to that machine's manufacturer, along with a lot of information considered proprietary. For mixed-fleet monitor- ing, that proprietary information is filtered out before being sent along to a third-party telematics dashboard. Data that could give competing manufacturers insights on particu- lar productivity and performance figures may be among data not included when third party OEMs send their machines' data along to VisionLink, because manufacturers have agreed among themselves to not share any data that could be used against each other. "At the customer's request, the data collected by the OEM's machine and telematics device, that is identi- fied by the AEM/AEMP telemat- ics standard, can be shared with the customer or with anyone the customer designates to act on their behalf. This is to enable the custom- er to access and view data from their mixed fleets in a single software solution," Thomas explains. "This solution could be a cus- tom designed software solution, an enterprise resource planning system, or a system specifically designed to meet the needs of construction customers with mixed fleets, such as VisionLink," Thomas continues. "When a customer requests to have their mixed fleet data accessed and viewed through our VisionLink soft- ware, that mixed fleet data is hosted by Virtual Site Solutions as a third party on the customer's behalf, it is not stored in any OEM's databases." In addition to enabling custom- ers to view data from other machine manufacturers, the updated Vision- Link also allows customers to pull in data from machines outfitted with third-party telematics hardware. Easing the transition And for those worried about the possibility of their workflows com- ing to a halt as they learn the ins and outs of this new design, Cat says it will keep the current version of VisionLink functional online in an app called VisionLink Legacy. "All of the same features our cus- tomers have gotten used to over the past six years will be there," Thomas says. Those features include several that haven't quite yet made it into the latest version. "The last thing we want to do is tick off those custom- ers by discontinuing a feature as we move to the next generation." The good news is that as custom- ers learn the new design, they'll be able to hop back and forth between it and the Legacy app with a single sign-on that lets them switch apps by simply switching tabs in their browser. technology | continued The most interest- ing and maybe most anticipated feature is the abili- ty to view an entire mixed fleet in one place. " "