Maintenance and Repair Software Protects Construction Workers

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Maintenance and repair software can be life-saver for construction company workers who often assume heightened levels of risk to perform their jobs.

Worker Accidents: The Statistics

According to Industry Week reporter David Sparkman (“What to Expect from OSHA in 2020,” Dec. 11, 2019), The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) increased in 2019 its number of employer inspections, conducting 33,401 of them – more than the previous three years – and addressed violations related to trenching, falls, chemical exposure, silica exposure and other hazards.

Equipment must be inspected and serviced on a routine and preventive basis in order to protect workers’ safety. While some construction companies abide by the philosophy that preventive inspections are too expensive and that equipment maintenance is only needed when something breaks, the costs associated with a major repair and rush-ordered parts can be prohibitive.

Preventive Maintenance Reduces Repair Costs

Salt Lake City-based Wheeler Machinery shares some eye-opening statistics from Caterpillar:

  • Repair idle times range between 400 and 800 nonproductive hours per machine per year;
  • Repair costs average $1,560 up to $3,120 per year just to replace the defective component; and
  • Just a 1 percent drop in equipment productivity can cause a 2.75 percent drop in total project projects.

“Studies have shown that in total, reactive maintenance – like those with repairs and unplanned servicing expenses – cost businesses three to four times more than the average preventative maintenance plan,” Sparkman says.

While the value of preventive maintenance may be quantified, it can be challenging for construction companies to keep up with every piece of equipment they manage – from their preventive maintenance schedules to their respective warranties, maintenance histories, work orders, insurance policies, depreciation and other vital details.

How Maintenance and Repair Software Helps

Maintenance and repair software enables construction companies to keep up with those moving parts. Managers may set up custom notifications and alerts to remind them when they need to schedule preventive maintenance. Additionally, the software centralizes all data attached to every piece of equipment in a construction company’s inventory. Instead of hunting around the office for records associated with their fixed assets, or getting on the phone to track down their locations, users may simply log into a system that contains the entire lifecycle of those items. They save time and reduce the all-too-common occurrence of lost records, lost equipment and wasted money that results from ghost assets. Another significant benefit of routine maintenance is that construction companies effectively maximize the lifespan of their equipment. When repairs are needed, they aren’t as extensive as they would be if they resulted from neglect.

Maintenance and repair software helps construction companies not only keep their equipment in good working order, but it also helps keeps jobs on schedule, keeps customers happy and protects construction companies’ competitive position. Equipment, like any fixed asset, must be reported for accounting and compliance purposes. Maintenance and repair software tracks depreciation and gives construction companies the assurance that the figures they report are accurate, so they avoid fees and other penalties later.

Finally, maintenance and repair software helps construction companies prepare for any unannounced inspections and, above all, keep their workers safe. With Asset Panda’s easy to use mobile app, construction companies have the complete lifecycle of each piece of equipment at their fingertips. A built-in scanner means that users need no additional hardware to use Asset Panda, only the smartphones employees already carry. This intuitive and completely customizable system closes the communication loop among all equipment stakeholders, increases transparency and accountability across the board and allows companies to protect their most valuable resource: their workers.

By:

Courtney Roush

Courtney Roush is a freelance writer, editor, and communications strategist with 25 years of experience. Her favorite discipline is crisis communications – and it’s a highly relevant one in our present times.

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