Company: Weavers Brothers Construction
Case Study Highlights:
- A missing skid steer was located using telematic data, revealing it had been stolen over the weekend.
- The construction company recovered the skid steer and located the missing forks on another machine, demonstrating the effectiveness of FleetWatcher’s tracking capabilities in managing fleet security.
- Following the incident, text alerts were set up through FleetWatcher to prevent future thefts, highlighting the benefits of fleet tracking.
It’s one thing to misplace a tape measure. You might buy your favorite brand in bulk simply because it happens so often. But losing a skid steer? That’s a much bigger problem, as a Weaver Brothers Construction crew can attest.
Upon returning to work one Monday morning, they noticed that one of their skid steers was not where they had left it on the previous Friday. This was especially alarming because this particular skid steer was brand new. It was purchased just a few weeks before the incident.
Location Data to the Rescue
Checking the breadcrumb trail in FleetWatcher, they discovered the skid steer took an unauthorized ride on Saturday and located it an hour away. The skid steer was in good condition, although it was missing its forks.
The team at Weaver Brothers checked the breadcrumb trail again and saw that during the Saturday trip, the equipment stopped for four minutes on a side street. After checking the area, they found another skid steer with the missing forks on it. Though the forks were held for evidence, the company reported that everything was recovered rather easily because of FleetWatcher.
“We were lucky. A $100k machine returned to work within 4 hours of realizing it was gone.”
Tony Salera, a shop supervisor at Weaver Brothers, said, “To me, this is one of the benefits of tracking your fleet that is underrated. If you asked us when we were considering telematics if we thought someone would steal one of our machines from the middle of the city, load it onto a truck on the side of the interstate on-ramp at 4:30 P.M. on a Saturday, we'd probably say it wouldn't happen to us.”
Additional Safeguards
After recovering the equipment, the company contacted the team at FleetWatcher and set up text alerts for all the equipment at the location where the incident occurred. This feature sends notifications whenever a machine is turned on after hours.
The company plans on continuing operations with FleetWatcher to prevent any more cases of theft or asset misappropriation.