Whether you rent or own your equipment, it’s likely that the associated costs are quite high. Such costs could be 20% of your total outgoings. This could potentially be quite a large sum of money. If you have equipment that’s not being used it’s still costing your company 20%.
If your rented or owned equipment is frequently unused, making sure it’s used more efficiently could reduce those costs. Ways such as pre-emptive maintenance and tracking your equipment can help. Let’s look at these tips and others a little more closely.
Understand The Baseline
Before you even consider optimising equipment utilisation you need to know what the baseline is. When you know what this is, you can then move forward. Your baseline contains figures that relate to how often you use each machine, for example. It will also include information that pertains to how often your machines sit idle. When you have all of this information you can then work towards optimising everything. Pre-emptive maintenance, tracking, and minimising downtime will then be possible.
Take A Look At Your Trends
The next stage involves looking at your trends. Take a look at how often you have used your tools, machinery, and anything else you use. Look at the trends and analyse everything by type and class. This data can help you to have a better idea about the demand for equipment in various locations.
Be sure to look at your trends each time you purchase new equipment. After a few months, a trend should start to appear, and it's this that can give you the information you need.
Track Your Equipment
Tracking your equipment can help immensely in terms of optimising its utilisation. When you know where all of your tools, vehicles, and everything else is, you can have more control over it.
It is thought that almost a quarter of rental equipment is returned to its rightful owner approximately 2 weeks late. One of the main reasons that tools are returned late is that it’s hard to know where they are. If you have rented a lot of tools and they’re used in multiple locations, it’s not always easy tracking them down.
Tools that have been returned late mean additional costs and a lot of frustration. However, these can be tackled by using equipment tracking software. When everything is tracked it can be located with ease. When software is downloaded onto devices that are used onsite (such as tablets, mobile phones, and laptops) it allows for better tracking.
Some equipment tracking software allows you to set reminders so that you know exactly what needs to be returned and when. As a result, late fees may be a thing of the past.
