Integration roundup: What top fleets are using to power their success

What keeps heavy equipment fleets running?

Today, it’s not just about the actual equipment you need for the job; it’s also about the software that is powering your operations, scheduling, maintenance … and more.

Therefore, it’s becoming increasingly important that the software you use in your technology suite talks to each other, allowing information to flow from one platform to the next to inform decisions and avoid duplicate data entry.

So what are fleets using? Which integrations are making the biggest impact on cost and time savings for your fleet operations? What questions should you ask when evaluating an integration?

Here’s what a few fleet managers across the country had to say:

Sean Williams, J.D., equipment division manager for Haskell Lemon Construction Co.

Haskell Lemon Construction Co. is a fourth-generation, family-owned, heavy road and bridge construction contractor, serving Oklahoma City and surrounding areas.

What software integrations do you have for your fleet?

Currently, we have B2W Maintain for our Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) and handle our inspections through our telematics partner, Teletrac Navman.

The latter aggregates all of our GPS and telematics systems (OEM, third-party, Teletrac) into a central hub that uses AEMP 2.0 APIs to feed the data to and through Teletrac’s TN360 ACM software (formerly Qtanium Connect) to populate our work order system in B2W.

This is also where most of our data points and KPIs are populated. Our ERP is Viewpoint and we’re hoping for some movement from Trimble to get our data in B2W speaking to Viewpoint.

Which integrations have the biggest benefits to your fleet operations?

The CMMS was the foundation. Without it in place, you’re tracking everything manually. It was also a huge cultural change from Post-it notes and in-house service report forms that we completed.

Once we had B2W propped up and functional we learned that the data in the system is only as good as the data being put in the system. This is where TN360 ACM comes in. It captures our inspections, utilization, location(s), etc., to assist in planning and scheduling maintenance and downtime for repairs.

The data that we provide would not be possible without these tools. We are even tracking the quality of our inspections to determine if folks are actually inspecting or just pencil-whipping the app.

We are also tracking how many missed inspections we have as an organization by establishing a ratio of runtime to inspection report time. If a machine has been running for 180 minutes, it flags as a failed inspection and the data gets captured and distributed to the appropriate supervisor for training/coaching.

What advice would you give other fleet managers evaluating an integration?

Look at the big picture:

• What do you want to accomplish?
• What do you want to track?
• What do the various divisions in your company need to see?
• How does this data make you better, more efficient, more profitable, and more strategic?

Once those questions are answered, then you can move forward. Data is a powerful drug, and if you don’t define what you’re looking for in the beginning, you can waste a bunch of time tracking metrics that mean absolutely nothing and do nothing to move the organization forward. Have the hard discussions to begin with and set your team and organization up for success!

What integration is next on your wishlist?

We are working with the Gearflow team to build an entrance ramp that works with our CMMS, purchasing platform, and purchasing folks.

This involves discussions with dealers as well, but once we are ready to move, I believe streamlining our purchasing process will make us that much stronger and really allow us to leverage our dealer relationships.

Ben Tucker, vice president of equipment & facilities at Barriere Construction

Louisiana-based Barriere Construction has provided safe and efficient civil construction services for public, private, and industrial clients for over 70 years.

What software integrations do you have for your fleet?

We use Viewpoint, B2W, VisionLink, Samsara, Fleetwatcher, and Paver Tracker.

Which integrations have the biggest benefits to your fleet operations?

Fleetwatcher and Paver Tracker have the biggest benefits with operations.

We integrate all GPS systems into Fleetwatcher so operations can view, track, monitor idle time, and efficacies of all  equipment on site through one platform.

What advice would you give other fleet managers evaluating an integration?

Make sure that it is easy for your customer (ie, operations) to see and view all assets in one platform. Have an open book to help build trust.

Also, when integrating platforms, have exception reports. It seems this is a problem when one software has an update.

Dave Miller, EMS, parts & facilities manager for R.C. Construction

Since 1986, R.C. Construction has successfully delivered horizontal and vertical construction projects of various size and complexity throughout the Southeast. 

What software integrations do you have for your fleet?

Telematics is almost essential for us to be able to keep track of PMs and mileage, and we use Teletrac Navman. We have Gomaco, Komatsu, and Cat’s telematics integrated into it. They’re working on getting the JCB integration coming.

We also have Teletrac Navman’s TN360 ACM integrated into Gearflow Parts Hub Pro.

Read more here about how R.C. Construction is leveraging their integration with Gearflow Parts Hub Pro to put their parts ordering on autopilot.

Which integrations have the biggest benefits to your fleet operations?

With telematics, the mileage and hours report for maintenance for PMs is critical, because if that's not talking properly, I can't properly plan PMs.

About once a week, I go over the reports for all my yellow iron, all my pavers, everything.

Gearflow has also completely changed our maintenance model out here.

We were trying to be a heavy repair facility, and we're not set up for that. We don't have the time to spend.

So because of that, we're in the process of transitioning to more of a PM or light repair facility here, where we're pushing out our heavy maintenance to local vendors.

What advice would you give other fleet managers evaluating an integration?

Just make sure the reporting is how you want it, whether it be your fuel burn, your CO2 emissions, or your equipment rental prices.

Make sure all your reports are how you want them, from the word go. 

What integration is next on your wishlist?

There are vibration warning assistants out there that would be very helpful, I think, especially on our mixers and our plants. Because the vibrations are going to tell you if you’ve got bearings wearing out, if something's off, or the shaft is bad – you're going to know that.

That way you can start doing a little bit more predictive maintenance and instead of corrective maintenance.

Christopher Gahan, CEM, equipment operations manager for Peabody General Contractors

For over 40 years, Peabody General Contractors has provided a broad spectrum of private, commercial, and municipal underground utility services.

What software integrations do you have for your fleet?

The biggest one that we use is VisionLink, and it is on a API feed through HCSS Equipment360 that goes into Spectrum (Viewpoint). It basically feeds into everything in our system.

We use HCSS as our main workflow system, so everything stems out of HCSS. My work orders are done through their E360 platform. We use their FuelerPlus platform to track all of our fuel logging, all of our fuel data. And then HeavyJob is where the bidding team works all their magic.

We also have HCSS Safety and their time card platform, myField.

Which integrations have the biggest benefits to your fleet operations?

I build out a dashboard through Excel and do a comparison on VisionLink with what the machine reported compared to what fuel was reported through HCSS.

So we do a side-by-side where one column says VisionLink, the next column says HeavyJob, and then it just looks at the hours that are reported in both systems. If they're not within a three-hour window, the superintendent gets an email from us.

We're able to kind of dive into why that is, because the way our system is set up is the jobs pay me for the hours based on payroll hours. So if they code 10 hours for it, they pay an equivalent rate of whatever the machine is times 10 hours.

Then I get upset when they use it for 15 hours and that's five hours of fuel, wear and tear, or you could have broken something that our fleet team doesn't get the funding for. You also run into the situation where my asset’s depreciating quicker without any revenue to offset the depreciation.

We rolled this out last year, and it was crazily inaccurate, like we were 100 hours off a week, one way or the other.

So the general superintendent and I really drilled into it, and I used to spend all day Thursday sending emails.

Now with the integrations and the comparison report in the dashboard, it's like a 20-minute job.

What advice would you give other fleet managers evaluating an integration?

What is it that you actually want the integration to do? Be able to have a clearly defined expectation of what you want. What is the end goal?

For example, we were going to use FuelerPlus this year for pickup trucks, tracking the fuel out of all the little L-tanks. But you need to ask: What is the lift versus reward? 

We found out that fuel was like 2% of our fuel cost, which is next to nothing. Then to do the lift of implementing it and maintaining it and making sure it's working correctly – it would have been more than 2% of our value.

So evaluate the value add and what you could do another way.