Specialist Jim French Talks About The Importance Of Telematics Systems In The Construction Industry

Jim French joined Teletrac Navman as a Heavy Construction Application specialist. He has over 20 years of experience in the construction, mining and survey industries, with particular focus on GPS products, fleet and construction telematics systems and machine control and guidance. Jim has worked across many different GPS systems, so his insights are based on a real depth of experience.

Jim regularly works with customers to provide complete job site solutions and job site, fleet and resource analysis. He ensures that their construction telematics systems provide up-to-date and tailored reports based on their requirements.

Q: What are the issues that really matter in the construction industry? What keeps owners and managers awake at night?

• Increasing productivity
• Trimming fuel usage
• Avoiding excessive idling
• Ensuring optimal utilisation of expensive equipment

It all adds up to getting the best possible result for the lowest possible cost. Telematics is so important in managing costs in the heavy construction industry. You can use telematics to show exactly how much it costs to move a cubic metre of dirt, for example. The system can also help to keep track of moving dirt within the project, so it can be used elsewhere avoiding the hauling away and dumping loads of dirt off-site. To take another example, you can also use telematics to show when is the best time to switch from one load and haul fleet to another; scrapers are commonly used for moving material on large projects, at some stage however these may become uneconomical (cycle time is too long, grade too steep) and switching to articulated trucks may be a better option. The real time data from telematics helps in this process.

Q: On a big site, there are lots of different machines. How do you bring all the data together?

A typical heavy construction site in New Zealand would use a range of dump trucks, graders, crushers, bull dozers, scrapers, excavators and so forth. That adds up to a whole lot of different OEM telematics gear, so the data is all there but in so many different formats and interfaces, it's hard to use.

This is an area where I think Teletrac Navman has solved a big bugbear in the industry. The key to the telematics industry in heavy construction is bringing all the data from the different OEM (original equipment manufacturers) together in one easily accessible interface. Using the Teletrac Navman consolidated telematics portal, you get one-stop fleet-wide visibility of all your machines without needing to install third party hardware on machines that already have factory-installed OEM telematics. This allows you to trend productivity across the whole site, and provide insights and controls to drive new fleet efficiencies and profitability. It's a big step forward.

Q: Worker safety is a hot topic New Zealand at the moment. How much of a focus is this in the heavy construction industry?

It's absolutely crucial to running a big construction site. Contractors want visibility of everything and everyone that enters and exits a job site, and I think personal locators are coming as well. At the end of the day, making sure everyone gets off the site safely has to be the top priority. I said in a previous blog that I think universal GPS tracking of people and machines on job sites is coming to New Zealand, and I think that safety considerations will be the key driver in this.