With the new Work Health and Safety Bill, due for release on January 1, 2012, Australian businesses need to review their workplace safety, as the bill further extends the scope of business liability for employee welfare.
Of particular interest to fleet managers is that vehicles are defined as a ‘workplace’ and a duty of care is imposed on employers to ensure the health and safety of their mobile employees within this workplace.
Fines up to $600,000 or imprisonment
If you own construction equipment you don’t want it getting into the wrong hands. The construction manager of a building site in England had a rude shock to find his JCB bulldozer had gone missing. Turns out it was in the hands of a madman, who had stolen the bulldozer from the constructin site and was rampaging through the village, using the bulldozer as a “ram rod”, destroying gravestones in the local cemetery.
The news report stated that the man was eventually apprehended after causing approximately £15,000 (USD$23,378) worth of damage, and significant damage to the bulldozer, which had been driven at speeds of up to 20MPH, dangerously fast for this type of vehicle.
The incident is a stark reminder to owners of construction equipment, or any asset left at a building site, that they are often an easy and appealing target for thieves or vandals. It can be a major headache for construction companies that can face increased insurance premiums, the cost of equipment repair or replacement and public liability claims.
Protecting building sites a challenge
It’s not easy for building site managers to protect their on-site equipment from unauthorized use. Construction sites are often remote, have easy access and are generally unmonitored after-hours. The vehicles are not always fitted with high-tech security or anti-theft devices, lowering the barrier for opportunistic criminals to wreak havoc with your gear.
And, for some errant types, like the one mentioned earlier or even a James Bond wannabe, the sheer thrill of tearing up the road in a piece of heavy equipment is just too much of a temptation to ignore.
Construction managers are fighting back with the help of Telogis fleet management software. Tired of rising insurance premiums and costly downtime caused by repeated incidents of vandalism and theft, construction fleet owners are fitting their high-value assets with GPS tracking devices.
How do these tracking devices work to protect construction equipment? What benefits do they offer and is it improving ROI in the construction industry?
GPS tracking making construction firms more profitable
While there is an initial cost for setting up GPS tracking, it is soon outweighed by the benefits provided to fleet managers. In fact, most fleets experience a positive ROI within 120 days of implementing a telematics solution.
Aside from the financial benefits, fleet managers are also switching on to telematics for the peace of mind it provides, knowing GPS tracking is monitoring their equipment around the clock, seven days a week.
Telogis telematics improves the bottom line for construction fleets in several ways.
- Work site compliance – Efficiently comply with restricted access areas, noise ordinances and hours of operation. Easily monitor start and stop times, worker activity or equipment use and receive instant alerts for any exceptions.
- Increased productivity – Crews are often more productive when supervisors are on-site. With Telogis you can monitor how much time supervisors are spending at the work site, as well as keeping an eye on excessive congregating.
- Improved asset security – Monitor unauthorized use in real-time, regardless of where or when it happens. It doesn’t matter whether your equipment is old or new, non-powered or even outside the cellular network, asset tracking can prevent misuse and, in the event of theft, assets can be recovered faster, saving you downtime and insurance costs.
There are plenty of benefits for construction firms to be running Telogis telematics, and if the owner of the building site mentioned at the start had been using it, thousands of dollars worth of damage could have been prevented, not to mention the endangerment to public safety.
Don’t wait until after someone goes crazy with one of your bulldozers before you take action. Find out more about Telogis Fleet today!
If you’re a rental car company there’s a certain amount of risk you incur when you rent out a vehicle. You trust that the majority of customers will treat your vehicles with respect and a reasonable duty of care. But there are always a certain percentage who feel renting a car gives them license to treat it like it was their brother’s go-kart.
The growing number of ‘rental car abuse’ videos on YouTube continues to highlight the potential loss faced by car rental firms, with much of the damage hidden from inspection on the vehicle’s return.
If you’re in business you’ll know all about quoting for a job, also known as tendering or bidding on new work. If you’ve been in business for a while you’ve probably learned a few tricks along the way, things that can mean the difference between a successful quote and one that isn’t.
And it’s not just about winning the contract either. A job poorly quoted might mean you’re the cheapest option for the customer but it can end up being an expensive burden for your business because you failed to cost it accurately, otherwise known as underquoting.
We know that a GPS unit can calculate a route, but what about calculate savings? An advanced business planning tool, Telogis Route, is gaining popularity for its ability to help fleets calculate savings on planned routes.
Telogis Route is a route optimization application that is part of the Telogis platform, a complete telematics solution that uses GPS technology. It’s used by fleets to calculate smarter routes for drivers, schedule vehicles and personnel as well as helping fleet managers calculate costs and compare routes.
How are GPS systems helping some of the world’s largest fleets turn green? And what does this have to do with President Obama’s ambitious aims of reducing the 11 billion barrels of foreign oil imported every day, by over a third? The two are connected and part of a wider movement among corporate fleets to minimize and reduce any negative impact on the environment.
AT&T joins the National Clean Fleets Partnership
AT&T was recently announced as one of the five charter member fleets included as part of the National Clean Fleets Partnership, along with FedEx, PepsiCo, UPS and Verizon. The partnership aims to help large fleets reduce fuel use through a range of green fleet initiatives such as electric vehicles, alternative fuels, and fuel-saving measures into their day-to-day operations.
GPS fleet tracking is growing in popularity as managers discover the many benefits of being able to follow their vehicles in real-time, as well as generating reports on worker activity.
But some employers worry that by tracking staff using GPS will expose their business to a lawsuit. Is it legal to use GPS to track staff?
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Situational awareness is the new buzzword among fleet managers and VPs, particularly those operating in high-pressure, dispatch situations, where trucks, drivers and other assets need to be corralled to respond to emergencies or ad-hoc jobs where little notice is given.
What is Situational Awareness?
Before we can talk about how GPS is helping create situational awareness, we first need to cover what it is. Essentially it is all about providing decision-makers (e.g. fleet managers) with the big picture, a 360 degree view of not just the fleet but other assets that need to be coordinated to respond to a new work order.
If you’re a fleet manager looking for recognition, then the NAFA Sustainable Fleet Awards 2011 (previously called the Green Fleet Awards) might be the perfect vehicle for you to earn the accolades you deserve.
Every year NAFA accept submissions from members for efforts made to make a fleet more environmentally-friendly, reducing its carbon footprint.
Every business changes over time. No business can remain unaffected by the surrounding economic environment of its competitors, its customers and changing technology.
So it’s absolutely critical that your business is prepared for change. Sadly for many businesses, change is the one thing they can’t cope with.
Change is such a challenge for modern businesses that an entire industry has been built around helping businesses deal with it. Change management consultants assist businesses to survive the growing pains of an ever-changing world.
