The heavy equipment rental industry is a significant market, valued at more than $45 billion in 2022 alone and expected to grow almost 8%, as well. As such, it’s essential to ensure that your heavy equipment is secured, safe to operate, and that your operations aren’t disrupted by theft.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply trust your clients to handle your equipment appropriately or leave it to chance that your equipment will actually be located where your contract stipulates it will be located. But how can you manage these risks when running an effective and profitable heavy equipment rental business?
Asset tracking technology is the ace up your sleeve; with this solution, you’ll gain insight into the performance, status, and whereabouts of your property in just a few clicks. Keep reading to learn more about how this resource can significantly benefit your rental business and your customers!
Quick Links:
- What Is Heavy Equipment?
- Top RIsks with Heavy Equipment Rentals
- Secure Your Heavy Equipment Rentals with Asset Tracking Technology
What Is Heavy Equipment?
Heavy equipment, also known as heavy machinery or heavy-duty vehicles, refers to the type of assets that weigh more than 5,000 pounds and require multiple people or a special license to operate. Such machinery might include:
- Cars
- Tractors
- Trucks
- Forklifts
- Buses
- Bulldozers
- Cranes
- And other industrial pieces of equipment!
Heavy equipment is all around us in the world, whether you’ve got a car in your garage or you pass a construction site somewhere downtown.
The heavy equipment rental industry plays an important role in enabling individuals or entities to rent these pieces of equipment without needing to outright purchase them. Thus, the liability of operating these assets falls on the rental company instead of the renter-user—and this can be a risky business if appropriate measures are not taken.
Top Risks with Heavy Equipment Rentals
Let’s dive into some of the risks that heavy equipment rental companies have to face in their daily operations:
Chance of Theft
Heavy machinery is expensive to own and costly to maintain—which is why rental companies like yours exist to help bridge the gap between outright purchasing the equipment and not having the equipment whatsoever.
This also means that your expensive assets are a huge target for thieves. Without any way of tracking your equipment or bolting it down to the site, there’s often little to no chance of recovering such pieces of machinery if thieves strike. And, of course, your rental business won’t last very long if you’re constantly having to purchase equipment and endure operational downtime.
Damage to the Equipment
Beyond the heavy machinery’s initial expense of simply purchasing it, there’s a risk to renting out equipment that is damaged or poorly maintained. When the customer returns one of your assets, it’s not enough to look it over from the outside and check it back into your active inventory list. Damaged equipment can be hard to see without delving into the mechanics of the piece and might not even present any issue until the next customer goes to use it.
Damage can also occur from improper or inconsistent maintenance efforts; if your equipment needs oil changes, belts changed out, tires rotated, etc. but you don’t have an efficient way to track and follow through on those needs, then you risk a short life for your expensive machinery.
Lack of Contract Enforcement
If your heavy equipment rental company stipulates that your machinery cannot leave an established site, region, or another geographic boundary, then how can you ensure that your customer abides by that contract?
One of the biggest risks of heavy equipment rental companies is that customers take liberty with where and how your equipment is used. This can lead to significant challenges later down the road if it turns out that your machinery is in an unsafe condition or unauthorized environment. Since your customer’s safety and the security of your equipment is a top priority, making sure that your contracts are enforced is a critical matter for your operations.
Secure Your Heavy Equipment Rentals with Asset Tracking Technology Powered by Rastrac!
What’s the solution to these common challenges that heavy equipment rental companies and managers have to constantly mitigate? Asset tracking technology powered by Rastrac is your best, comprehensive solution.
With our asset tracking solutions, you’ll have unprecedented insight into the status, performance, location, and more of your assets—both as a whole and individually when needed. Rather than trying to compile maintenance records receipts or manually track usage patterns in a spreadsheet, our user-friendly and effective system empowers you to know everything you need to know at the click of a button.
You won’t have to worry about missing assets with the help of geofencing capabilities; in other words, our system enables you to establish an invisible boundary for your machinery and you’ll be notified if the asset strays from that boundary. This means stolen assets are instantly tracked and contracts can be enforced.
Our team of asset tracking experts is eager to help your heavy equipment rental business succeed! Contact us today to get started!
Like what you're reading? Subscribe to our blog.
Get our latest posts straight to your inbox.
Subscribe to Our Blog
