3 Things Construction Principals Must Know About Telematics, GPS and Software
The term “internet of things” (IoT) may seem intimidating, but in construction IoT is finding fast-growing use cases. Telematics devices on equipment and GPS and other sensors can relay real-time data on equipment location, condition and operational status. This data can in turn be used to manage field operations more intelligently, coordinating equipment moves, scheduling and maintenance and using operational data to ensure equipment is operating effectively and as called for in the plan.
What is revealing however is that according to research, GPS asset tracking hardware is making slower inroads in construction than software that can actually leverage data from connected equipment, including field productivity software. Momentum of computerized maintenance management systems (CMSS) is running 10 percentage points behind GPS tracking hardware and original equipment manufacturer (OEM) telematics. So more contractors are adopting software that can use data from GPS and telematics than are leveraging GPS and telematics hardware. At the very least, there is a disconnect between the two. And adoption of CMMS software, which benefits greatly from data from connected equipment, is lagging severely, ostensibly due to lack of a sound equipment data strategy.
Why is this, and what are the implications for contractors who want to drive operational efficiency in their business, increase utilization rates and reliably execute against projects with limited human and equipment resources?
The Hardware-Software Gap
Software coming to market for disciplines like field productivity or operations may be marketed by companies that also sell hardware, usually whitelabeled from a device manufacturer. These devices are sold with proprietary firmware that enables them to operate only with that specific software vendor’s cloud-based software. In addition to these proprietary hardware offerings, many construction software vendors of field operations and equipment maintenance software will also offer standard integrations with telematics offerings from construction equipment original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that can make use of data from connected equipment can be in place in an instant—with applications in the IVO Systems product set for instance, training is minimal, and a contractor can be up and running in hours.
But what about the devices? OEM telematics may be the gold standard in terms of reliability and have the benefit of already being installed at the factory. But there can still be errors or other communications failures. Certain connected devices need to communicate with a base station, and data transfer can be prevented by an obstruction between the piece of equipment and this base station. Sometimes, OEM telematics offerings change, requiring an additional fee to transfer data into a cloud operations center in addition to viewing it in a mobile app via Bluetooth.
Aftermarket GPS trackers can be even wonkier than OEM telematics, and can sometimes be disabled or turned off. Some of these devices rely on internal batteries, and a drawn down battery or battery at the end of its lifecycle creates yet another failure modality.
Even when hardware is working perfectly, there are technological barriers to getting each device to report reliably into a centralized cloud software application. Getting past these barriers can consume weeks or months of timeline.
When a construction software vendor also sells hardware, they may be reticent to build the software so that it can operate without their proprietary sensors or trackers.
This means contractors relying on data from connected equipment to run their operations are at risk unless their operations software offers a redundant approach for tracking equipment moves and utilization and other transactions.
IVO Systems for example is designed to consume and extend data from OEM telematics and aftermarket tracking systems, but can function independently of them as well with equipment moves tracked inside the software as a transaction. Users can manage equipment manually in the system without location or other data points being updated using a connected device. This enables users to schedule and move equipment and capture information on usage against projects without collecting data from IoT hardware of any kind. Due to the frequency of communication failures from connected equipment, IVO now also offers a color-coded alert system to notify users a device or piece of equipment has stopped relaying data.
There are three reasons this is important, and construction software decision makers should keep these reasons in mind when selecting technology to support their construction operation.
1. Adding trackers to your entire fleet is impractical and that means an incomplete picture of your operation.
Managing part of your fleet in a centralized software application is a half-measure that will not increase overall operational efficiency. Trying to sensor and connect every piece of equipment meanwhile will saddle contractors with high costs for devices and per-device subscriptions.
And once you start looking beyond heavy and light powered equipment, there are attachments, gangboxes, shoring—all of these should be managed and scheduled along with people and connected equipment.
The out-of-pocket cost is one barrier to using sensors across a construction asset portfolio. The other barrier is device installation across a fleet. One reason field productivity software is growing at a faster rate than connected equipment is that software vendors that sell devices have to then find the labor to install them. This labor may be contracted out to services partners or through the gig economy. Software/device vendors have also purchased service partners to shore up their ability to deliver. But many contractors have purchased hardware and software to manage their construction fleet and wait months or even years for full installation.
Cost and availability of installers is one concern—quality of the installation is another entirely. Incorrect installation can cause failure either initially or over a period of time. Incorrect installation can also cause corrupted data to flow into an equipment management or operations software application.
Tracking devices for non-powered assets will have their own batteries, which can have a lifespan of up to 10 years. Batteries will still fail however, and keeping up after battery monitoring and replacement across a large fleet of assets, tools and equipment will involve costs many contractors may not be accounting for in their return-on-investment (ROI) calculations. In general, contractors may want to budget staff time and dollars for diagnosing, fixing and replacing sensors themselves—as well as batteries—as part of an ongoing hardware troubleshooting program.
2. Unreliable hardware means lost data without a software-based system of record.
Regardless of the underlying problem, and there are many, construction equipment tracking devices may not work at a given time or at all. An example may be a tracker where the master switch has been turned off. This is a simple enough problem to fix, but once the master switch is turned back on, all of the activity against that tracker will populate in cloud software as having taken place on that day the switch was flipped, corrupting the project record.
The presence of equipment trackers and telematics devices on construction equipment is no panacea for sound equipment and project management. The construction operations software must act as the system of record for activities in the field, including equipment moves. This data set may be augmented with data from connected devices, but relying on devices as the only source of data will be a mistake, for both the contractor and their construction operations software vendor.
Contractors evaluating construction operations software should ask vendors hard questions including:
• How well does the software work if we opt to have no tracking hardware or consume no telematics data?
• How can we configure the application if we only consume Iot data from a small percentage of our fleet—for instance the most expensive or mission-critical?
• Does the software help us identify when connected devices stop relaying data, and what happens in the system to preserve data integrity when this happens?
3. Selling proprietary hardware to go along with a software product (or vice versa) has not been an enduring business model.
Remember when passenger cars came with onboard navigation systems, usually driven by firmware and a CD-ROM of map data? Why don’t vehicle manufacturers offer this anymore?
The data used for navigation has uncoupled from the vehicle’s hardware technology. Initially, this happened as third parties offered navigation systems. Some of us remember renting a portable GPS navigation system with a rental car, or bringing one with us.
Now, the geolocation data set is completely uncoupled from the hardware used to capture location and relate current location to a map data set. There is no sound business reason for the source of the geolocation hardware and the software that consumes it to be closely linked by corporate ownership. Modern geolocation and equipment tracking software and hardware interacts with a technological backbone created by NAVSTAR, launched in 1978, extending technology initially tested for munitions guidance to the broader public. Charlie Trimble meanwhile left his role at Hewlett-Packard to develop the new LORAN receiver for marine navigation. Other early companies to cash in on this publicly-available data set included Magellan, whose hand-held GPS receiver came out in 1989. Garmin however became the first company to extend the data with turn-by-turn navigation, followed by TomTom in 1991. According to The GPS Playbook from Silicon Valley Bank, these companies are only a few of 82 GPS data-driven companies founded between 1978 and 1999 that in turn have raised $29 billion in equity. The largest exits, the report says, netted investors serious returns with the top 25 driving multiples of 690x.
Launching a company that wraps its arms fully around GPS, including hardware, may have been a desirable way to pursue equity capital, but once products are commercialized, a natural division forms between the devices that collect data and the software that extends it into a construction operation. Even Trimble, which manufactures hardware for data collection, in 2022 sold its field service management software division to MiX Telematics. According to ForConstructionPros, “the former Trimble division offered a number of products of interest to construction including:
• Trimble Fleet Management, which included tools for the real-time location of vehicles and field technicians, vehicle diagnostics, and maintenance and mobile app capabilities
• GPS fleet tracking software and equipment management
• Trimble Field Service Management Connect (FSM Connect), a web services and integration suite to enable sharing data across an organization”
Trimble had earlier sold its construction logistics software product line to Command Alkon in a 2020 transaction.
What becomes clear is that provision of hardware for connected equipment is by nature a separate line of business from the provision of software to consume data from the devices. The devices may be purpose-built either for on-road or rugged off-road conditions. Even in-cab hardware like front- and rear-facing dashcams specified for heavy equipment may be ruggedized to deal with extreme temperatures and to collect different or additional data sets.
But the degree to which data from the device can be extended, embedded in core business processes can be infinitely configured and reconfigured is dependent on software. This is the world of the construction operations software vendor, and the company manufacturing a hardware device and perhaps porting its data output to the cloud may not want to invest in developing software for absolutely every use case.
Too many construction contractors buy equipment tracking devices but abandon them when the associated cloud software offering does not meet their needs. Instead, contractors will come to see their tracking and sensor hardware as a portfolio, encompassing OEM telematics, aftermarket sensors, GPS trackers and even sensors embedded in specific equipment components. Data from these connected devices can be rolled up and put into context by a single construction operations software application that accesses the data through a cloud-to-cloud integration with the device company’s cloud.
Sustainable Success with IVO
Because we are solving for contractor problems instead of leveraging GPS to wind up with a high valuation, IVO Systems can use software to fill the gaps left by tracking and telematics hardware. Request a demo today to see what we can do for you and your contracting business.