FLEET: Equipment Management System

Abstract

The contractor's equipment policy and equipment management system have a great impact on the profitability of the firm, especially for contractors with large investments in equipment. An equipment management system, FLEET, is presented. FLEET consists of four modules: (1) Inventory management module; (2) cost, time, and production records module; (3) maintenance management module; and (4) report generator module. Inventory management module effectively houses the inventory data for the equipment including equipment number, description, serial number, manufacturer, purchase date, purchase price, service life, market value, and custodian. Cost, time, and production records module houses the cost, time, and production data for the equipment including date, equipment number, job name, hourly charge rate, depreciation, insurance, interest, and taxes (IIT), storage cost, fuel, oil, and grease (FOG), tire/track, maintenance and repair service, operating labor, overhead, operating hours, downtime, idle time, and production. These statistics are accumulated and summarized in a master file. Maintenance management module consists of a set of files to record and schedule preventive maintenance for different pieces of equipment and for different types of maintenance and a set of maintenance history files to store past maintenance records for each piece of equipment including preventive maintenance, field/shop repairs, and overhauls. The data entered through the other three modules is accessed through the report generator module to produce appropriate reports necessary to make effective management decisions and to keep abreast of daily activities. Development, acceptance, and continued use of such systems should contribute to the efficiency and profitability of contractors.