Big Data Comes to Construction Equipment Management

From the Wall Street Journal yesterday by James R. Hagerty - Heavy-Machinery Makers Push Tracking Tools:

"Daniel Samford, vice president who manages the equipment fleet at Herzog Contracting Corp., a builder of roads and railroad lines based in St. Joseph, Mo., recently got a request form his colleagues: They needed another wheel loader to help move raw materials at an asphalt plant in Missouri.

With a few clicks on his computer, Mr. Samford determined that the company which owns more than 2,000 machines, had an underused wheel loader at a Dallas work site that could be sent to Missouri.  In the past, he might simply have bought a new machine, costing roughly $150,000.  It was difficult to track use of company's machines, scattered at work sites in about 20 states.  Now, with the growing adoption of tracking devices and software to analyze the data they spit out, companies like Herzog, can make better decisions about when to buy and when to merely move gear."