George Heck
George Heck Feb 14, 2018

When working hard to complete projects on schedule and within budget, preventive maintenance of your fleet equipment and vehicles can easily get overlooked or delayed. Yet, few things are more important for the growth of your business and your bottom line than taking good care of your capital-intensive assets.

Keeping your assets well-maintained improves safety on the road and at the job site, and helps complete jobs on time by reducing downtime for equipment and employees. Timely maintenance lowers fuel and operational costs because your assets work more efficiently. It also lowers repair costs (which average five times more than maintenance costs), while making it easier to comply with OSHA safety regulations.

Perhaps most important, regular maintenance can significantly reduce capital investment expenditures by extending the service life of equipment and vehicles. With many of today’s large assets costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, delaying the need to purchase or lease new ones can strengthen your cash flow and your bottom line. For companies with large equipment inventories or fleets, the savings can total millions of dollars.

One System for All Your Tracking Needs

If you’re still tracking and managing your assets with paper documents and unwieldy spreadsheets, scheduling recommended maintenance procedures can be a slow and often inaccurate process. Tenna asset tracking simplifies and speeds up the scheduling process by providing vital information, including:

  • The exact location of every asset in your inventory
  • A snapshot of how each asset is currently being used
  • A complete history of maintenance and repairs
  • The next recommended maintenance date and procedure

All this data, and much more, is instantly available in Tenna’s asset management software system. It’s easy to track, manage and analyze the data because Tenna works on one integrated platform. And because you can track the assets in real time, the data is always up to date. Tenna provides immediate access to your data from anywhere with an Internet connection. Using your personal computer, laptop, smartphone or other mobile device, you can easily access the information you need, when and where you need it.

The Tenna Advantage

Every equipment and fleet-based business has different asset tracking needs. To meet your unique job site and yard circumstances, Tenna provides a variety of tracking devices so you can choose the option(s) that best fit with where, when and how you use your assets.

For example, our RFID (radio frequency identification tags) are designed for short-range tracking up to 100 feet away. They work well for assets that get moved infrequently and/or can be easily scanned by employees using their smartphones or tablets. For vehicles and other equipment that move more frequently, our GPS trackers offer a better solution. Ideal for long-range asset tracking, GPS trackers use cellular signals to relay asset data to your office. They also automatically transmit the data so employees don’t have to do any manual scanning.

Other Tenna advantages include providing visual data of your assets and the ability to narrow asset searches down to a single asset – especially useful features if you have multiple assets of the same type in different locations.

Our convenient “snap and search” feature allows field personnel to use their smartphones or tablets to capture and upload digital pictures of tools, equipment and assets to your database. It can also track the person taking the photo to help improve accountability for logging the data.

Proactive Maintenance Scheduling

Keeping one step ahead of maintenance scheduling starts with knowing when your equipment and vehicles are due for maintenance. The comprehensive history of each asset in the Tenna system includes all maintenance performed and any upcoming recommenced maintenance dates. A quick review of this data makes it easy to plan ahead and bring in assets when they are between jobs or not in use.

But wait – it gets even easier with Tenna GPS asset tracking! You can gather all the information you need about a vehicle or piece of equipment by plugging the GPS tracker directly into the asset’s onboard diagnostic port. This includes location, odometer readings, hours operated, fuel efficiency and much more. You get a complete picture of how the vehicle or equipment is performing and when it is due for regularly scheduled preventive maintenance. You can also set up the system to automatically send reminders about upcoming due dates so you can schedule – work and the asset in question - appropriately.

GPS tracking transmits the data automatically, so you don’t have to invest the time or manpower to manually scan the asset. It also automatically transmits diagnostic trouble codes (DTCs) that alert you to engine problems. Instead of having to deal with a costly breakdown, you can proactively bring the asset in for servicing and avoid more expensive repairs.

Stay Ahead of the Maintenance Game with Tenna

Locating assets to bring them in for maintenance can present a real challenge when you attempt to do it manually, especially when assets are constantly moving between different job sites. Tenna’s asset tracking system can automatically track when tools and equipment move from one location to another. All you have to do is upload the data to get full visibility of where every asset is and what it’s doing.

Timely maintenance on your tools, equipment and vehicles does more than just reduce repair costs. It can also reduce late project completions, improve customer satisfaction and make it easier to budget for large capital expenses. So why run the risk of falling behind on critical asset maintenance? Tenna’s proven asset tracking technologies streamline the process of scheduling preventive maintenance while reducing the human error that inevitably occurs with manual procedures. You get assets into the shop on time. They last longer and operate more efficiently. And you get the confidence of knowing that you will have the right assets in the right places when you need them.

If you constantly struggle to catch up with your maintenance scheduling, give us a call at (833) 508-3662. Or schedule a demo to see firsthand how Tenna software can help you perform preventive maintenance on time, every time, rather than after another asset suffers a costly and unnecessary breakdown.

About George Heck

George Heck shares his thoughts on the latest on construction asset management.