Tracking big benefits

A-Plant has its complete high-risk fleet tracked as standard. This began in 2003 when A-Plant partnered with Enigma Vehicle Systems, the UK based vehicle and plant tracking specialist, to develop hardware and software specifically for the plant rental market.

The result was A-Trak a software package based on the Enigma - Skyline web tracking system. This is delivered to A-Plant customers through their extranet system allowing customers complete visibility of their rented assets, together with many other benefits, through the A-Plant website

In addition to theft recovery many of the larger construction and utility businesses are utilising some of the added value features to control their fleet, fleet costs and measure environmental impact. A-Trak and Skyline allows customers to view, in real time, asset location, working hours, historic use, utilisation versus idle time and CO2 output.

These features alone convinced Skanska, officially the UK's greenest company according to the Sunday Times, to nominate A-Plant as their preferred plant hire partner.

Asif Latief, A-Plant's Marketing & Strategic Accounts Director, said: "Many of our customers have become long-term advocates of A-Trak after being initially drawn to the anti-theft benefits of they system. But once they log on to our Extranet and view the wealth of additional real-time information which is available they become hooked. We're now taking that approach to our Powered Access fleet. Theft of Powered Access equipment isn't as big a problem for us as our traditional plant fleet, so we're more concerned about providing information which can help prevent misuse of the equipment, help promote operator safety and provide other management information; for example we're running trials to highlight travelling excessive speed or harsh manoeuvring of the boom or scissor, together with preventative maintenance monitoring such as service intervals, battery levels and fuel levels.