My name is Mike Doonan. I’m the service manager for Construction and Aerial Equipment Rental based out of New Jersey.
What I do is maintain the entire fleet to make sure it stays running while the customer is paying for it.
We have scissor lifts, forklifts, boom lifts—you name it, we provide it to the customer. Being able to know where that piece of machinery is and how often it’s used is key to our success.
We kind of took the northeast by storm. In the past five or six years we’ve tripled the fleet, tripled the amount of employees. We did a lot of that with integration with APIs with NexTraq giving us the information we need to build our system from the ground up.
We initially wanted NexTraq simply to track where our drivers are going—to and from—so that we could ensure prompt delivery for our customers. From there we realized we can use the devices to also track our assets. Whether they’re being moved by a customer or whether they’re used at all.
Out of 4,000 pieces of machinery they can go out for either one day or four years, you never know. We also use the engine runtimes to see whether or not that piece of machinery has been out too long or if it may need an oil change—or might need just regular preventative maintenance.
I’ll get a lot of calls from customer where they’ll state: ‘Hey, it’s inside this building and we can’t find it.’ I can see if somebody else moved it across the street, I can see whether or not somebody is operating it at the time the customer is looking for it—and that comes in very handy.
I’ve had multiple clients from day-to-day who will call in and say ‘Hey, listen—this machine was broken when you dropped it off’ or ‘We didn’t get to use it this whole week.’ Then I’ll pull up the runtime and see not only was the machine dropped off in a timely manner but it was also used throughout that day—and the following day—down to the point where I can see that they were taking lunch—then I can call the customer and say: “Well, then who was working with it at this jobsite, where you’re the single contractor?” And they say ‘Oh well, we did use it a little bit.’ Then I’ll say: “Well, no—you didn’t use it a little bit. You used it and you got your job done.”
So, calling the client back, who clearly doesn’t want to pay for the machine, I have runtimes from NexTraq. I can tell them when you turned it on. I can tell you when you went to lunch. I can tell you when you went home.
My job is actually to prevent any problems to get to my boss, who is the boss.
With technology advancing as quickly as it is, it’s good to stay ahead of the curve. And with NexTraq, we’re able to do that and grow the way we are.