to 5%.
Over 1000 hours of use, this equates to saving of some 300 hours, a huge reduction fuel usage and unnecessary wear on parts, as well as a much improved machine utilisation.
The monitoring product also detected than an engine sensor was behaving abnormally, and the machine sent alerts to Al Jaber Engineering, and Al Bahar. Al Bahar was able to send a technician to replace the sensor with the correct part the first time, planning the component replacement into the Al Jaber engineering schedule. The early intervention meant that it did not evolve into a potential downtime issue for the machine at a later time.
JEC consequently decided to further invest in the product, asking Al Bahar to install Product Link on 51 machines as a phase 1 roll out, said Al Jaber’s engineering director, Hisham Hadid. 
“We were very impressed with the amount of quality information available on Vision Link like machine utilisation, fuel consumption, machine location, fault codes etc, which definitely benefits us on the project completion with the most efficient utilization of high value equipment,” he explained.
In the case of Caterpillar, Product Link can be installed on older machines, as well as equipment built by other manufacturers.
Monitoring tools can be especially important in highly repetitious applications such as quarrying and aggregate, where operators are repeating the same movement over and over. In this context, managers can easily see the results from training.
South of Doha, at the Qatar Primary Material Co. (QPMC) sand cleaning plant, Volvo Construction Equipment loaders are working long hours on site, often up to 22-24 hours per day. Three machines are working on site, and one of these, the newer 26.4 tonne L180G, is equipped with Volvo CE’s CareTrack monitoring product.
The product allows the site manager to monitor to assess fuel consumption, engine speed and the range of other performance metrics, allowing for greater fleet control.
As the use of telematics have grown, manufacturers have continued to make improvements to both the hardware components, for example using more robust and lower cost on-board chips, and improving the software programmes and available analysis.
But unlike introducing an improved product – for example a new wheel loader with a larger engine or lower fuel consumption – where the customer will eventually need to upgrade, many fleet operators are not using telematics at all, and the requirement is for manufacturers to convince construction companies that telematics will save them time and money in the long run.
Testimonials from successful companies include using fuel usage monitoring when bidding for a job, by downloading data fuel consumption and comparing how much fuel each machine is burning. This is then used as a tool to calculate the fuel usage across a job. Other advantages are minimisation of downtime through accurate planning of maintenance schedules, coupled with fault code alerts for technical problems; and improved servicing can result in a longer overall life for the machine.
Ultimately telematics are not a magic bullet that will solve all fleet problems, but rather an information tool that provides fleet managers with more information and better oversight, allowing their machines and the company to work smarter.
