Other than labor costs, your construction equipment is your company’s biggest investment, with some pieces of heavy machinery costing as much as or even over $500,000.
But with the equipment constantly rotating between jobs, it can be difficult to track preventative maintenance, especially since so many people are involved in taking care of it. If your mechanics aren’t on-site, how do they know when something needs maintenance? How do you sync your shop schedule with the machinery’s schedule to minimize downtime for assets?Construction fleet maintenance software makes it easy to track and manage your equipment from the palm of your hand so that you can take the best care of your heavy equipment and communicate with all staff from the heavy machine operator to the mechanics to your VP of Operations to your CFO.
Implementing construction fleet management software has many benefits, such as improving driver safety, reducing fuel consumption, increasing the lifespan of the equipment and providing real-time insight into when your equipment and vehicles require maintenance.
By taking better care of your equipment and making communication easier, your business will become more profitable and reliable, gaining you more jobs and repeat customers.
How Does Fleet Maintenance Software Work?
Each construction equipment maintenance software system works differently, but at its core, it allows you to track each piece of heavy machinery, fleet vehicles, and unpowered assets through some type of tracker or scannable tag placed directly on the asset. Using the internet, Bluetooth, or GPS technology, anyone interacting with the asset can access information about it on their phones if the software has mobile compatibility.
Having your mixed fleet of equipment and other assets on one platform makes it easy to see maintenance records, location history, maintenance requests, inspection reports, and more—design reports with the click of a button and filter assets by location, type, user and more.
You determine who has access to each asset, so anyone from operators to managers sees only relevant information quickly and easily, optimizing use, equipment maintenance, and work order requests.
Heavy Equipment Maintenance Software Helps Everyone
Construction equipment maintenance impacts everyone, and by utilizing a single system to track and manage it, you can unite everyone in your company, whether they’re behind a desk or in the field. Using a construction equipment maintenance tracking app brings benefits to nearly every department.
Worksite Benefits
Few things can delay a construction project more than non-operational equipment. Keeping your equipment maintained and in good working condition is critical for overall workplace safety and productivity.
The role of an efficient company equipment maintenance software suite is to give on-site personnel the tools they need to develop a construction equipment maintenance program for equipment service without delays.
On top of regular wear and tear, if any piece of equipment sustains damage or requires immediate repairs, the same construction equipment maintenance system can help personnel document incidents or repair needs in detail, complete with photos. The more detailed a log entry, the more accurate the information. This ensures less time is wasted and the workload is more manageable for the shop teams and mechanics.
A More Efficient Shop
Equipment maintenance tracking helps streamline the shop by simplifying data collection and analysis. As soon as the asset pulls into the shop, the mechanic can sync to its data record to easily access previous maintenance records, serial numbers and add data about the current repairs. This eliminates redundancy in records between the shop and the equipment managers and reduces the potential for errors.
When an asset enters the shop, the mechanics can start making repairs faster, meaning your asset is back on the job sooner. Mechanics easily know exactly what’s wrong with it based on the details from the field request and any images the operator has loaded into the records, eliminating time lost due to communication between the shop and the operator about the exact nature of the problem.
With a system that also tracks a company’s consumables and materials, inventory tracking allows contractors to see what parts are available and when to order them, so they never run out.
The shop can better plan for mechanic schedules because it knows exactly what is coming in each day and when. They can also plan jobsite travel more efficiently to get their mechanics where they need to go and prevent project delays. There’s no more surprises and an inability to get work done because there aren’t enough mechanics available. They can plan ahead with preventative maintenance alerts instead of random drop-offs because something happens to be off that day.
Improved Logistics
Apps for equipment maintenance and resource tracking helps your equipment manager stay on top of assets so your company can be more efficient, saving you money and keeping job sites running smoothly.
Often, preventative maintenance is overlooked because the asset is needed elsewhere. Equipment management solutions and maintenance tracking allow your equipment manager to schedule assets appropriately by using maintenance work order templates, so you have time to do necessary preventative maintenance without losing time on a job site. It also helps the equipment manager spread out maintenance scheduling more efficiently, so all your assets aren’t in the shop at the same time, requiring expensive rentals to keep jobs on track.
No more phone calls between the mechanic and the equipment manager to discuss asset records and repairs. The equipment maintenance app automatically updates both parties so they can continue their work without constant calls to discover information. Less time on the phone means the asset is back in rotation sooner, and the equipment manager receives an update as soon as it's available.
With enhanced construction equipment maintenance log and data records, when your equipment manager needs to sell an asset, potential buyers are aware of the maintenance and repair history, indicating that the machinery has been well-maintained and is a worthwhile investment. This helps contractors sell their used equipment for a fair price.
In addition, resource management features allow for the requesting, approving, coordinating, planning, scheduling and dispatching of assets and labor resources. It includes features and functionality that are dedicated to the specific parts of the logistics process construction companies do every day to make decisions on resource moves and ultimately gives clear and visible direction to their field teams to execute on.
This allows equipment managers the ability to focus on other operations like reviewing requests for assets across jobsites, making decisions based on leveraging insights such as current utilization, maintenance due, fault codes, etc. to dispatch the best asset for the job, and eliminates logistical errors and related stress.
Increased Asset Longevity and Reliability
Taking advantage of construction equipment fleet maintenance software not only lets you keep track of when your equipment needs repairs or maintenance but also helps preserve the longevity of your existing equipment.
Just like us humans, repairs, tune-ups, and preventative maintenance are necessary to extend the lifespan of your assets. Using a purpose-built equipment management app offers several benefits that can help organize, track, and schedule these maintenance events.
For instance, these applications increase the speed and quality of the maintenance process by producing high-detail reports. Maintenance work order forms provided and managed through these applications keep a detailed record of all completed repairs and tune-ups.
Asset maintenance tracking software also improves the effectiveness of these repairs by accurately diagnosing equipment issues and focusing precisely on what needs attention, without wasting time on parts and elements that don’t. They allow your personnel to create efficient maintenance programs for equipment of all types.
As a result, your equipment will break down less often, and your assets will perform optimally for longer periods, significantly reducing the need to rent equipment, perform emergency field repairs, or invest in costly replacements.
Make Accounting Easier
Because everything is linked directly to the asset, the CFO can easily track repair and maintenance expenses for each asset. When they can easily see where the money is going, they can make smarter decisions about investing in new equipment or rentals. If you have an equipment management system that is integrated with your company’s accounting system, then you’ve really upped your game and are realizing even more efficiencies and cost savings!
Unanticipated equipment breakdowns cause unexpected bills. Avoid paying for a catastrophic repair by keeping construction equipment maintenance on schedule.
Catastrophic repairs also require more labor hours to resolve, often including heavier, more complex, and more expensive parts, so preventing those from occurring helps your bottom line.
Keep costs in check by spreading out preventative maintenance each month instead of doing maintenance on every asset the same month. Plan ahead for costly repairs, minimizing unexpected expenses for parts and labor.
Better maintenance means your ROI on purchased assets increases, preserving its lifespan or increasing the value of its resale.
Operational Benefits
Equipment maintenance services are all about keeping a project running smoothly and minimizing incidents.
Using efficient construction equipment maintenance software helps your company track equipment-related costs and usage, increasing predictability, cost control, and time management. These benefits are vital to ensure construction projects are completed on time, avoiding late fees and other delay costs.
One example of an operational scenario is moving heavy equipment to a new project site. In specific instances, some assets may break down or stop performing adequately before moving, often resulting in the asset being more challenging to move or operate.
Non-operational assets frequently cause hauling and deployment costs to increase exponentially, including logistical (money spent moving the equipment) and maintenance costs (money spent repairing the equipment).
Maintenance work order software and other equipment maintenance solutions can minimize, if not eliminate, these additional costs by preventing non-operational equipment from being sent to a project site. These applications can help ensure that all available assets have undergone repairs and maintenance before going to the next work site.
What to Look for in Equipment Maintenance Manager Software
It’s crucial to identify what your organization needs from its equipment maintenance software before purchasing a suite. Ensure your software has the following components to get the most out of your investment.
- Asset Tracking
This feature tracks each asset from the moment of purchase to help you keep accurate records, easily find warranty information, and track costs.
Use this to keep track of a mixed fleet of assets - heavy equipment fleets, mid-sized assets, vehicles, tools, and consumables; just make sure it offers flexible trackers so that you can save the heavy-duty equipment for the machinery doing the toughest jobs. This is often done by scanning a code or entering a serial number tied to the asset into a user’s phone or computer. - Equipment Maintenance
High-quality equipment maintenance tracking software lets you keep service history, contracts, location history, contracts, and part model information in one easy-to-access place. - Inventory Management
Don’t let a repair be slowed down while you wait for parts to be shipped. A construction equipment inventory maintenance feature ensures you always have what you need in the shop so you can get assets back on the job faster. - Work Order Management
Streamlined work order management features communicate needs directly from operator to mechanic, making construction company fleet maintenance easy. Alert systems help keep all necessary parties up-to-date so equipment managers can reliably plan and CFOs can track spending. This feature can be used to mobilize mechanics directly to the work site when a malfunction occurs on the job.
When checking for work order management features in a potential software, ensure it comes with a complete yet easy-to-read work order template that meets your specific company’s needs. - Preventative Maintenance Alerts
When you have a large fleet of heavy equipment, it can be difficult to keep track of when each asset needs preventative maintenance. Many heavy equipment maintenance software options automatically send preventative maintenance alerts to equipment managers so they can plan for preventative maintenance and avoid putting it off until it causes a larger (and usually more expensive) problem. - Resource Management
Allow field personnel to reserve assets along with related labor and crews needed for their projects, make requests and reservations and coordinate moving equipment and materials between locations.
Logistics and equipment managers can leverage the construction scheduling software and dispatch functionality to efficiently dispatch those resources to the jobsite or the maintenance shop. - Predictive Maintenance Alerts
Predictive maintenance alerts can save you time and money while keeping your employees safe. Fleet maintenance manager software with this feature alerts users of potential mechanical failures before they occur so you can get a repair done before it becomes a catastrophic (and potentially dangerous) malfunction on a work site. - Flexible Reporting, Analytics and Dashboards
Over time, your assets can build up an overwhelming amount of data. To use the data efficiently, look for software options that let you create the reports you need. Having a high-level overview on a dashboard within the will give you a snapshot of what you need to know and can save you time from getting lost in the weeds. At the same time, it should provide you links to the source of information so you can dig into the details if need be. - Mobile Capabilities or Software as a Service (SaaS) Options
Locations for construction sites change constantly, and the people present on sites are always fluctuating, so you’ll want to invest in software that is SaaS based with mobile capabilities so people can easily access the information no matter where they are located and so that all your project locations, equipment shop, and main office is accessing the same information all the time. Most construction fleet maintenance software today is SaaS based. - Full Suite versus A La Carte Options
If you are new to equipment maintenance management software, consider investing in a full suite that has everything you need in one program.
If you already have existing software in place, select new software options carefully. Do not invest until you are certain it integrates with the software you already have for efficiencies and to ensure you optimize the use of all the systems in your construction business. In some cases, switching to a full suite provider may be more efficient long-term.
Optimize Construction Equipment Management With Tenna
Tenna is the construction industry’s standard for equipment maintenance software, helping you track the needs of each piece of equipment in your fleet. Our uniform platform is built on more than 100 years of construction experience, so you can trust us to help you make better decisions, and more informed decisions when it comes to heavy equipment maintenance.