Heavy equipment is present on nearly every jobsite in the world, and whether your company owns or rents these items, they are significant budget line items that can affect your project’s profitability.
How you manage your equipment makes all the difference. And some of the most common mistakes in equipment management are also the easiest to avoid.
Three common construction equipment management mistakes
1. Idle equipment
Equipment costs you money even when it isn’t being used. Rented equipment that sits unused on a jobsite is a sunk cost for every day it isn’t being deployed. Even owned equipment is still technically being paid for when not in use, since it could just as easily be used on other jobsites.
Despite this fact, construction jobsites across the nation are covered with underutilized equipment. Why is that? Reasons vary, from poor budget management and poorly organized reporting to last-minute change orders.
When an item of equipment arrives onsite for a specific task and a change order delays that task, that rental cost has to be taken into account. Additionally, if there is no written record of equipment location or usage, there’s no way for you to know whether or not a piece of equipment should be moved to another jobsite.
2. Mistimed maintenance
Just like any piece of machinery, heavy construction equipment requires regular maintenance to run properly. When maintenance is forgotten or mistimed, it can affect the equipment’s performance and shorten its lifespan. Neglect can also turn small mechanical issues into bigger ones, resulting in higher costs for larger fixes or replacements. If a machine is needed on a jobsite but hasn't had proper maintenance scheduled, the entire project can be held up.
Without proper usage documentation and maintenance logs, it’s difficult to keep track of maintenance schedules and equipment care can easily be neglected. Your bottom line can be impacted dramatically by mistimed maintenance, resulting in less productivity and unnecessary expenses.
3. Contract disputes
Equipment lease agreements are contracts that outline the details of the rental. This document generally covers the basics: the length of the rental period, the costs, what type and how much equipment will be rented, etc. These contracts are designed to protect both the lessor and the lessee, and for construction firms especially, these contracts can make or break the financial success of a build.
It’s important that these agreements include clauses about usage or damage, so it’s clear which party is responsible. When issues not laid out in the contract come up, you could find yourself in trouble.
This is another reason why daily reports that include equipment data are so crucial to the success of a project. If a dispute between a rental supplier and construction firm arises down the line—and there’s no proof that the firm followed the contract as written—they have no ground to stand on.
Construction equipment software is the missing puzzle piece
How you use your equipment and how you budget for that use makes all the difference. When you don’t have a comprehensive system for recording owned and rented equipment usage and location information, important data may slip through the cracks. Whether you write equipment reports on paper, send them via email, or don’t create reports at all, you are creating room for error that can be avoided by implementing construction equipment management software.
It’s important to make sure you’re making the most of the equipment in your inventory by keeping track of where they are and staying on top of routine maintenance. That’s what makes modern digital equipment management tools like what we provide so important. You’ll be able to stay on top of maintenance, see where your equipment is being used (or where it’s sitting unused), and control budgets with detailed reports and dashboards.
Set up a walkthrough with us to see how it works.