Managing employees and equipment across multiple construction sites is an opportunity for cost-saving optimization. Simple errors, like dispatching too many workers to one site or allocating incorrect or insufficient inventory, can end up hurting your bottom line. These errors can be easily avoided by implementing technological innovations such as GPS trackers. Modern GPS trackers have the capability of providing information beyond location data. In this article, we will talk through some strategies construction companies are deploying to maintain competitive pricing, enhance productivity, and ensure top-notch customer service.
Route Optimization
The first step in reducing your operational costs is to have full visibility of your company’s operations. It isn’t feasible to maintain constant communication with your entire workforce, so delays such as traffic jams may go unnoticed. By equipping your company vehicles with GPS technology, you can gather trip data that can help you see trends. Perhaps a certain intersection is always gridlocked at a certain time of day, or an employee needs to travel too far between job sites. You can assess and solve these problems by acting on the data gathered by your trackers, for example, by sending a closer team member to take the work order in place of someone who is impeded by traffic.
Route optimization powered by GPS technology has already become critical to fleet management, but any company that is moving vehicles, equipment, and/or people can benefit.
Inventory Control
Once your routes are optimized, you may discover that there are other gaps in your operations. An area sometimes overlooked is inventory control. How can you take advantage of current technologies to ensure that you are efficiently managing your inventory?
GPS tracking for construction equipment goes beyond theft recovery. Of course you want to make sure that all your construction equipment is where it should be. But GPS trackers can provide other data points to help you make the best decisions about your inventory. If lowering your CapEx is important to your business, some trackers offer ignition alerts, allowing you to discover which equipment is rarely used and can therefore be reallocated or sold. This approach can help you invest in other areas where you may need more resources. You can find a brief breakdown of CapEx and OpEx in this article from Diffen.
Other trackers provide data that can be used to schedule maintenance, such as fuel level notifications. Having access to this information can streamline your day-to-day operations and reduce unnecessary expenditures, such as major repairs that could be avoided by regular maintenance.
Team Visibility
GPS tracking isn’t just about vehicles and assets. Tracking can be used to create a safer, more transparent work environment.
Personnel monitoring may sound intrusive, but the truth is that it simply streamlines communication between employees and management. Workers don’t have to worry about recording how much time they spend on each job site; that information is transmitted automatically, and can be analyzed for optimization. If dispatch and management are able to view the workers at each job site on a map, they can gain an understanding of how best to divide up the labor between their employees. If there are too many or too few workers at a job site, that information will be immediately visible.
GPS tracking also contributes to workplace safety by allowing workers to communicate their activities and whereabouts in real-time. Some trackers feature an SOS button that can be pushed to summon help. In other scenarios, if a tracker has not moved when it was supposed to, being able to see that information instantly means assistance can be on the way sooner.
Construction is among the many industries that will be affected by coming developments in the GPS and IoT spaces. To find out more about how IoT and automation can impact your business, explore the links below.
Go-To Guide to IoT Automation
How AI Can Boost Your Business
IoT Solutions Revolutionizing Business
