Roanoke Excavating: the operations manager who found an accurate billing clock hiding in his GPS
When Zach took over operations at Roanoke Excavating, he was coming from a large company in a different industry, one where every truck reported its location, engine codes, and mileage to a screen. At Roanoke, a small but growing excavation outfit, he had none of that. Checking mileage meant walking out to each truck once a month.
He brought in One Step GPS to see where his crews were. The biggest payoff turned out to be something he hadn't been looking for: knowing, to the minute, how long a crew actually spent on a client's site.
Company
Roanoke Excavating
Location
Roanoke, VAIndustry
Excavation and site workFleet type
Small to mid-size excavators, crews and suppliesFleet size
50One Step GPS devices used
One Step GPS platform tools used
The problem
Roanoke's trucks haul small and mid-size excavators, crews, and supplies between job sites, and the fleet adds vehicles all the time. Zach couldn't see where crews were, whether they took the most efficient route, or whether drive time matched their time cards.
Maintenance was the other worry. The company has no in-house mechanic, so every repair goes to an outside shop. Drivers didn't always mention a check-engine light. By the time a problem surfaced, it was often a breakdown.
What was deployed
- GPS trackers on every vehicle, viewed from a tablet and the mobile app.
- Geofences around each job site, recording when a vehicle enters and leaves.
- Trip history, compared against time cards for routes and stops.
- Engine diagnostics and mileage, with alerts for check-engine lights and service scheduled from mileage.
Results
The geofences did more than show where crews were. Each time a truck crosses into a job site, the clock starts. When it leaves for lunch, it stops, and it starts again when the truck returns. For a company that bills by time on site, that turned a rough estimate into a record.- Billing based on actual time on site. The company no longer over- or under-bills clients. This was a result it hadn't planned for when it bought the system.
- No more monthly mileage walk-arounds. Mileage and engine health are visible for every vehicle from the app.
- Service booked ahead of due dates with the outside shop, based on live mileage.
- Time cards verified against actual routes and stops.
