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Equipment monitoring can be tricky
I was talking monitoring systems at a party earlier this week, with a man who sells them, mainly to transport companies. He said in Britain the approach of management to implementing monitoring systems, is to say straight out to employees, we are fitting these to your vehicles to weed the crooks from the company.
In Australia the approach is a little more subtle where firms usually say the installations are for ameliorating OH&S concerns.
My informant said a milk processing company in western Victoria, installed monitors on all its vehicles, and those belonging to contractors. It almost immediately discovered a contract tanker driver clocking up workless kilometres for the company, so he could claim more money. But then union power came into play and forced the company to remove the monitors or a black ban would have been brought into play. In Melbourne a monitor on a salesman’s vehicle, indicated he was taking extended lunch breaks at home, and running another business using the company car. He was confronted but inexplicably kept up his old ways.
Eventually the firm decided enough was enough, when he was found under the vehicle trying to immobilise the tracker. According to my tracker informant, on a statewide basis, Victorians are the most reluctant to accept the benefits of the technology. In NSW employees are more accepting and in Queensland, even more so.
Not only do trackers or monitors let management know via GPS where vehicles are, but they track performance and service intervals, like for example the Komtrax system Komatsu now fits as standard to all its mobile equipment.
The ones my informant sells, also tie in digital camera and digital signature pads, so delivered goods can be tracked more effectively. He said it was amazing for example how many pallets of bricks simply disappeared from building sites overnight or over a weekend. But if the customer was shown a digitally dated picture of the bricks sitting on his site, there was little he could do to claim compensation. Look for the equipment monitoring feature, in the February issue of Earthmover and Civil Contractor, out next week.
