Knowing where equipment runs and how much it runs

The lack of clarity surrounding nitrogen and PFAS has played havoc with importer of scrap and demolition tools Demtech in recent months, says Arthur Polak. "The rental and hiring of equipment fell sharply because many companies lost work. Fortunately, we still benefited from the 20% investment deduction in Belgium." Demtech therefore turned its attention primarily to the ATS business unit, which is working hard with GPS trackers, track and trace theft protection and trip recording.

"Designing and good GPS system that works and is of real use to you as a demolition company or contractor is time consuming," Polak explains. "There are quite a few parameters you have to turn before you have the right data. But I dare say that we and our partner, with whom we developed ATS, have succeeded."

ATS provides GPS trackers that do more than locate equipment and pieces of equipment. "Of course it's nice to know where your equipment is, and that's a feature that's also in high demand. But it is even more convenient if you also know how many hours of operation it has been used for. And so you can do that with our trackers."

Predicting maintenance

Polak outlines that the ATS tracker makes it possible to predict maintenance on equipment and attachments. "And that's nice if you have a job somewhere far away. Downtime due to failing equipment is 9 times out of 10 due to maintenance, but without concrete insight into data this cannot be ruled out. By offering these insights in a personal online environment, there is less downtime, less unnecessary transports so less (unnecessary) hiring of equipment." Not only are the ATS trackers wireless, they run on a built-in rechargeable battery. "A full battery will last at least 5,000 shipments, depending on the number of shipments you set, that's about three years."

Especially for the trackers, ATS designed a heavy duty housing that provides protection for the GPS module in (extremely) harsh conditions. Moreover, that housing does not look like an electrical component, but rather like a stop block. "So malicious people will not easily recognize it as a GPS tracker," Polak said.