Equipment World

January 2018

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January 2018 | EquipmentWorld.com 38 ed – is eliminated. And it's not even 8 a.m. yet. Fantasy or the future? The construction industry, thanks to advances in technology and telematics, is at the cusp of creating scenarios just like this. According to Mika Majapuro, di- rector of product management and strategy at Teletrac Navman, the scenario described above is still on bleeding edge but definitely the di- rection the industry is headed. And telematics provides the information the machines, in this case comput- ers, need to learn. Machine learning is basically about looking for patterns, Maja- puro says. "What was the job type? What was the weather? How many people were there? What was their skill level? You can go as deep as you want." The contractor or fleet manager's responsibility in making this a real- ity is inputting data, lots of data. "In teaching machines to learn something, you have to show cases where accidents happen and cases where they didn't happen," Maja- puro says. Teletrac Navman's sister company, Predictive Solutions, has been doing machine learning for some time, says Majapuro. "You buy it as soft- ware as a service (SaaS)," he says. "They work with the customer to figure out their goals and get all the data. Then they run the model for you and provide the dashboards." Gamification In addition to machine learning and predictive analytics, "gamifica- tion" is another trend reshaping the telematics environment, says Pete Allen, chief client officer, MiX Telematics. The over-the-road truck- ing industry is already using gamifi- cation to help improve driver safety and efficiency, he says. "I don't see gamification as much in the con- struction world, although there are certainly pockets of it," he says. Gamification is simply putting all the driver's behavior and met- rics – things like speeding, harsh braking/acceleration, swerving and fuel economy – into a telematics dashboard and letting drivers and operators see how they compare to others. "The focus is to reduce crashes, but a lot of our custom- ers like to make safety fun. If you put incentives around it or make a game out of it, it creates more awareness," says Allen. "People will strive on their own to be safer drivers." Non-powered assets The tracking of non-powered or non-mobile assets is another ap- plication the most advanced users of telematics systems are deploying to their benefit. Using QR codes and RFIDs, you can track things like light towers, generators, hand tools, conex boxes and trailers. "By tag- ging non-powered assets, you can build processes to take better care of your equipment," says Majapuro. Hand tools and other items tend to get stolen or lost, especially on large jobsites and sites where there are multiple subs and vendors com- ing and going all day. Oil and gas drilling sites are often large and full of expensive tooling and equip- ment, which is why some of their managers are starting to track their non-powered equipment, says Al- len. Company-wide integration Many people view telematics at this stage in its evolution as merely a way to keep tabs on trucks, equipment and maintenance. But the most value and the next step in telematics is to disseminate and integrate the information to your whole business, says Josh DeCock, product management director, Pedi- gree Technologies. "Changing your business is the hardest thing to do, but it's also the most impactful," DeCock says. "The companies that are going to the next level are those that push data into every department they have – maybe people who have never seen the telematics data. If you can save these employees time, they're interested." Bidding and estimating people can sharpen their quotes with ac- curate equipment cost information and save time by not having to slog through paper records from the shop. And eliminating the need for of- fice staff to record employee hours and other personnel information can significantly cut labor costs. "Having that allows your data to flow to the back-end system so that no one has to manually type in that data – that's some of the low-hang- ing fruit where you can get a lot of ROI," says Majapuro. Collaboration and consultation While there are certainly many plug-and-play telematics systems on the market today, more ad- vanced users are looking for broad- maintenance/management | continued The focus is to reduce crashes, but a lot of our customers like to make safety fun. If you put incentives around it or make a game out of it, it creates more awareness... " " – Pete Allen, chief client officer, Mix Telematics

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