Construction equipment management software › Construction equipment tracking software
Construction equipment tracking software: four ways to know where everything is
There are four ways to track construction equipment: GPS trackers wired to powered machines, battery GPS or Bluetooth tags on trailers, attachments and tools, the maker's own telematics, and QR or barcode check-out. Tenna, Samsara and Trackunit sell the hardware, Clue and Fleetio read what you already have, and ShareMyToolbox runs QR and barcode check-out for tools.
The four methods side by side
| Method | What it tells you | What each asset needs | Best for | Software that does it |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wired GPS tracker | Location, engine hours, movement, often fault codes | A device wired to power, installed | Powered machines with no maker telematics, trucks | Tenna, Samsara, Trackunit |
| Battery GPS or Bluetooth tag | Location now and then; a Bluetooth tag reports when a gateway or phone is nearby | A tag, no wiring | Trailers, generators, attachments, trench boxes, tools | Tenna, Samsara, Trackunit (Kin tags) |
| Maker's telematics | Hours, location, fuel, idle time, fault codes, through the ISO 15143-3 (AEMP 2.0) feed | Nothing new on newer machines; a subscription with the maker | Mixed fleets of newer machines | Clue, Trimble B2W Maintain, Tenna, Fleetio (Caterpillar and John Deere among its integrations) |
| QR or barcode check-out | Who has it and where it was last scanned | A label | Hand and power tools, small gear | ShareMyToolbox, Fleetio's Tools add-on |
Most fleets end up with a mix: maker telematics on newer iron, trackers on older machines and trailers, labels on tools. The software question is whether one screen shows all of it. Clue says it works with existing telematics hardware and lists 80+ GPS, OEM and ERP integrations; Tenna, Samsara and Trackunit put their own devices and maker data in one account.
Theft: what tracking changes
The last national count from the National Insurance Crime Bureau that we could find covers 2014: 11,625 heavy equipment thefts reported to police, and only 23 percent of stolen equipment found. That is the case for location tracking: a machine you can see on a map after hours is a machine you can send the police to. Three things help most:
- An after-hours movement alert. A geofence around the yard or site that sends a text when a machine moves outside working hours. Tenna lists geofences in its core platform; Samsara pitches its battery trackers against theft on job sites.
- The serial number on file. Recovery starts with a PIN and photos. Any tool here keeps that; Dozer builds the record from a photo of the serial plate.
- Cameras on the gate. A camera shows who took it. Dozer's site cameras alert on activity after hours, which covers the yard but not a machine once it leaves.
Rentals and small gear
Rented equipment kept past its off-rent date is a quieter loss than theft. Three tools here track it without hardware: Clue lists rental management with its dispatch, Raken's equipment module manages rentals and leases and alerts on rental returns, and Dozer's Equipment app keeps each rental with who it's rented from, its off-rent date and who checked it out. For owned tools, ShareMyToolbox is $100 a month for the first admin plus $10 per employee in blocks of 5, with QR and barcode scanning, audits and GPS capture on scans.
How to choose a tracking setup
- List what moves. Split the fleet into powered machines with maker telematics, powered machines without, unpowered assets and tools. Each group gets the cheapest method that answers your question.
- Ask what question you need answered. "Where is it?" needs GPS or tags. "How many hours?" can come from maker telematics or the hour meter. "Who has it?" is a check-out problem, not a GPS one.
- Price the hardware separately. Tenna prices software, data and hardware by asset count and adds installation; Samsara asks for your asset count. Get the device cost per asset in writing.
- Don't track what you won't watch. A map nobody opens doesn't stop theft. Set the alerts first and choose who receives them.
Where Dozer fits
Dozer doesn't track location. It has no trackers, and no telematics is linked: on its Company plan the app records a request for one, and pulls no data. What it does without hardware: hours and service due from the hour meter, rentals with off-rent dates, and after-hours alerts from the site's cameras. If knowing where every machine is matters most, start with Tenna, Samsara or Clue. Dozer Machines
Also read
- Construction equipment telematics: what the maker's feed carries and who reads it.
- All ten tools compared.
About this page
Published by Winding AI, Inc., the company that makes Dozer, one of the tools named here. Winding AI earns money when customers pay for Dozer, and nothing from links to other tools; links to Dozer carry a tag so Dozer can count visits from this page. Something wrong? Write to support@winding.ai.