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Posted June 18, 2021

Service Tips: Transition to telematics

Rental centers are increasingly understanding and leveraging this asset management tool.


Multi-brand fleets
Skyjack developers were able to design something that provided real value to Skyjack aerial equipment while providing mixed-fleet capabilities as well.
Elevate Live on smart phone

Telematics insight can often be accessed with a smartphone, enabling operators, owners and service personnel to track equipment use and health.

Skyjack Elevate can be used with all makes of equipment.

Elevate Live helps contractors with equipment state of health, pre-use inspections and QR codes for operating instructions.

Mixed fleet in mind
When launching the Elevate platform, Skyjack’s main goal was to ensure its solution provided actionable insights and measurable benefits to rental companies. By digging in and working directly with rental companies to see how current offerings fell short, Skyjack developers were able to design something that provided real value to Skyjack aerial equipment while providing mixed-fleet capabilities as well.

Historical off-highway offerings were segregated by product type, so rental companies had to log into several different platforms to get data for their entire fleet. A mixed-fleet solution such as Elevate allows companies to see their entire fleet in one central location, which alleviates the burden of logging into multiple platforms and gets rental companies their entire data set in a faster and more simplistic way.

On-highway telematics products focused on hour meters and location. When these solutions were patched over to off-highway fleets, they focused on much of the same data sets, which aren’t necessarily as important to off-highway rental companies. Skyjack involved rental companies in the conversation when developing the Elevate platform to ensure the data being pulled is what’s most important to their day-to-day businesses.

Telematics that provides information that reduces the number of trips for service personnel is a key cost saver for rental companies. This sort of remote visibility of the machine’s status, quick access to service history, and functions such as Elevate’s Ready to Operate can save rental companies a significant sum in labor costs each year.

Additional battery information, specifically related to electric-powered machines, also have the opportunity to reduce the overall cost of ownership for rental companies as well as increase the lifespan of battery packs. Using the data pulled from electric-powered machines with Elevate telematics installed on it, Skyjack prepared a white paper that outlined how charging behavior impacts a battery’s lifespan. (Read it at http://www.skyjack.com/news/BMS-whitepaper.)

On average, existing charging behavior that takes place on job sites and in rental houses, batteries only have around a 1.5- to 2-year lifespan. But with proper charging in place, those same batteries’ lifespan could reach 3 to 4 years.

Utilization benefits
Digging into further ways data can drive real results for rental companies, leveraging data into new designs is another way telematics is enhancing the rental industry overall. Through true utilization of how equipment is used in the field data, it gives rental companies the ability to see what functions their machines are using on site. If sharing their data with OEMs, rental companies and manufacturers can work together to design equipment that better reflects how machines are used while on rent.

A recent update that Skyjack made as a direct result of data-driven design is on Skyjack’s new 40-foot and 60-foot booms. Based on data shared with Skyjack by rental companies about how these classes of booms were used in the field, Skyjack engineers were able to see that very few people were using large engines to their maximum capabilities.

With that information in mind, Skyjack deduced the same on-site performance could be achieved through a smaller engine. Direct cost benefits to rental companies by switching to an under-25 horsepower engine include no need for Diesel Oxidization Catalyst (DOC) maintenance or replacement, no downtime related to aftertreatment issues in colder climates and no need to rely on ultra-low sulfur fuel, all which improves resale options.

Connected contractors
Finding ways to keep contractors connected through telematics is another way rental companies can promote better treatment of their equipment. Solutions such as Elevate Live provides operators access to critical machine information, including the machine’s current state of health, pre-use inspection guides and familiarization materials through a simple QR code. Providing operators with easy information access gives them more resources than ever before and reduces the workload for rental companies.

There are other advances within the industry that offer ways to tag and track construction assets ranging from machine attachments to hand tools. Equipment-tagging solutions ensure equipment doesn’t get lost, which saves time and money on job sites. Tagging equipment of all sizes essentially creates a virtual tool crib for contractors; they always know where their equipment is so they can easily access it when they need it.

Enhanced advances
After the initial launch of more refined off-highway telematics offerings, there has been increased demand from rental companies and contractors for additional features. For rental companies, they’re saving thousands of dollars in labor fees by providing their service personnel with remote visibility that helps eliminate unnecessary trips to job sites. For contractors, that means they’re getting their job sites back up and running faster and without wasted labor and equipment rental hours.

It’s amazing to see the shift rental companies and contractors have had over the last 10 and even five years about telematics systems. Skyjack telematics experts predict the demand for data-driven machine design and keeping operators connected to only grow stronger. Treating technology as an integral piece of how construction companies and machinery works in the future is critical, as the benefits have a clear and positive impact on the bottom line and create better experiences for everyone within the rental chain.

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Mike Sheremeta is the telematics business development associate at Skyjack.

This article originally appeared in the July-August issue of Pro Contractor Rentals magazine. © 2021 Urbain Communications LLC. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

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