Read the article in Equipment Today magazine - April/May 2024
By Greg Norris - Trimble
Telematics capabilities from equipment manufacturers and third-party specialists are delivering more and more data with less and less effort. They are also presenting contractors with a new challenge. How do they aggregate that information and turn it into intelligence that helps them increase uptime, cut maintenance costs, improve safety and, ultimately, make more informed decisions about purchasing, deploying and maintaining assets?
A comprehensive maintenance management software application is an important part of the answer and should act as one of four cornerstones - alongside and integrated with telematics, scheduling and accounting/ERP systems - to ensure maintenance process efficiency.
Complementary roles
Managing telematics data would be easy for a contractor with one piece of equipment or even with a handful of assets from the same manufacturer. That’s rarely the case. Mixed fleets and multiple systems are the norm. Complexity increases along with both of those factors.
Telematics technology to monitor equipment remotely and automatically, and relay that data for analysis, is an increasingly vital asset for construction maintenance programs. Relying on manual recording of meter readings and asset locations increases labor and introduces opportunities for errors. More importantly, delays in communicating the information can derail compliance with preventive maintenance schedules and the efforts to plan maintenance work efficiently.
Powerful maintenance management software complements telematics by providing a centralized place to aggregate data from multiple sources and put it to work triggering preventive maintenance while also maximizing mechanic efficiency and uptime.
The maintenance application should be agnostic, allowing it to receive and process telematics data from multiple sources. The Association of Equipment Management Professional has been integral in this regard. Since 2010, the AEMP has provided and continuously updates standards for how telematics data is formatted.
AEMP standards encompass a wide range of equipment data points, with the most common being serial number, asset ID, location, odometer reading, hours, distance traveled, fuel consumption and a transport mode indicating that an engine is not running but the asset is being moved.
The standardization effort has promoted innovation, data sharing and transparency alongside the dynamic evolution of telematics technology itself. The AEMP standards make it easier to integrate and consolidate telematics data from various complying sources. A maintenance software application can then be programmed to find those sources and to know how often it should ping them to get the data. Some contractors import the data continuously. Others typically do it daily or weekly. Connectivity as well as work order processes or even financial terms with the telematics provider can impact decisions on timing.
Centralized equipment data
A core capability of maintenance applications is offering one central area that stores the basic information about each individual piece of equipment. This data includes everything from the specifications, parts and warranties to the financial and repair history. This module within the software is also where meter readings and the GPS location of the asset come in from telematics.
Automation is ideal, but contractors should also be able to incorporate meter readings and locations into the application from other sources such as daily field logs, inspections, repair requests or work orders. This helps with validation and is beneficial in the common scenario when some assets within a fleet have telematics capabilities and some do not.
The obvious advantage with the maintenance application is that, regardless of where meter and location readings came from, they are all in one central place where they can be reconciled. Otherwise, contractors must pull data from multiple sources, adding layers of complexity to their analysis and maintenance planning efforts.
Preventive maintenance and work orders
Another basic element of strong maintenance management software is a “maintenance programs area” where managers enter the suggested preventive maintenance schedule for each asset. Using the comprehensive, centralized data - including meter readings and location - from the “equipment area”, the programs area can create repair requests automatically at the proper intervals for the preventive work. These requests are triggered by meter readings, calendar dates or both.
The ability to program alerts with sufficient lead time for these intervals is a key feature to look for in software. Seeing that a 100-hour service is coming up when a piece of equipment hits 80 or 90 hours provides time to schedule that work at the most efficient and least disruptive time.
Meter readings and locations for each asset also come into play in the “work order processing” module of a maintenance application. Within an electronic work order for one piece of equipment, for example, a manager or mechanic can utilize the telematics data in the system to search for other assets within a designated radius that have current or upcoming maintenance requirements. This provides efficiency advantages in scheduling mechanics.
Integrating parts, inventory and purchasing
Maintenance management software can also make managing parts for preventive maintenance, typically a repetitive task, much easier. The relevant parts for each service level can be added ahead of time, and the software can use that data to plan for parts procurement, giving contractors the peace of mind that their equipment’s required parts are in stock or are available. Being able to predict part needs, review inventory levels and automate the requisition and purchase order process through maintenance management software allows preventive maintenance service levels to be planned more efficiently with the right parts, at the right time.
For break repairs, replacement parts are not directly impacted by telematics. Like managing telematics data, however, managing parts purchasing and inventory can be done more effectively and efficiently with a holistic approach and with a maintenance application playing a central role. Maintenance management software can easily manage the details of such a workflow.
Contractors can import or enter a database of replacement parts for each piece of equipment into the maintenance software regardless of whether those parts are routinely inventoried or purchased as needed. Integrating the maintenance software with their accounting/ERP system then gives them several efficiency and reporting advantages.
First, mechanics or managers can see within the maintenance application whether and where parts are inventoried and available. When parts are added to a work order, the information goes to the accounting system automatically, so inventory can be adjusted and parts can be reordered as needed.
Purchase orders for parts can also be created in the maintenance application and exported to the accounting software for invoicing and accounts payable functions.
